Live coverage: Space station crew home after 115-day mission

A small Japanese satellite scheduled for launch Friday on a Rocket Lab Electron booster will release hundreds of colorful sky pellets to fall into the atmosphere next year, creating an artificial meteor shower that could be visible to millions.

By the light of a waning moon, a Russian rocket carrying a veteran cosmonaut, a French flight engineer making his first flight and America’s most experienced female astronaut blasted off and streaked smoothly into orbit Thursday, the first step in a two-day rendezvous with the International Space Station.

United Launch Alliance launched the U.S. military’s SBIRS GEO 5 early warning satellite into orbit aboard an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. A launch attempt Monday was scrubbed during fueling preps due to a faulty temperature sensor. Liftoff of ULA’s workhorse rocket, fitted with two strap-on solid-fueled boosters, occurred at 1:37 p.m. EDT (1737 GMT).