Live coverage: H-2A rocket blasts off with latest Japanese weather satellite

Three months into an interplanetary cruise expected to last three-and-a-half years, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe is in good health as it begins an ion-powered pursuit of an asteroid to return a piece of it to Earth.

Veteran Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko, outgoing space station skipper Tim Kopra and British astronaut Tim Peake departed the International Space Station early Saturday aboard the Soyuz TMA-19M capsule and landed in Kazakhstan at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT).

Putting new technology in the sky that will beam high-speed Internet to rural America, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral today to deploy the commercial EchoStar 19 satellite. Follow the ascent in our live journal.