Live coverage: Soyuz crew capsule arrives at space station

After two of the last three Vega rocket launches ended in failure, Arianespace launched another Vega launcher from French Guiana at 9:50 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0150 GMT Thursday) with Airbus’s Pléiades Neo 3 commercial Earth observation satellite and five secondary payloads.

It’s one thing to watch a spouse blast off on a rocketship, especially when the spacecraft is making its first flight with people on board. But it’s altogether another matter when the anxious spouse is an astronaut as well.

Bound for an orbital rendezvous with the International Space Station on Wednesday, a commercial Cygnus freighter was successfully launched by an Atlas 5 rocket Sunday to restart American cargo deliveries to the research outpost.