Video: Soyuz MS-01 leaves the space station for landing

Two satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation network lifted off at sunset Friday aboard a Soyuz rocket from a tropical launch pad at the edge of South America’s Amazon rainforest. Look back at the picturesque liftoff with a video replay and launch photos.

NASA hopes to begin launching astronauts to the space station aboard Boeing and SpaceX capsules in the 2017 timeframe, but managers expect to still send crews up aboard Russian spacecraft as a hedge against problems that could force some astronauts to make an emergency landing.

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 2:07 a.m. EDT (0607 GMT) Monday with 38 small and medium-size satellites for customers in 18 countries.