Live coverage: Three-man crew closes out 173-day space mission

Russian rocket technicians working in the French Guiana jungle transported a three-stage Soyuz booster to its launch pad Monday and erected it upright for liftoff Thursday with four communications satellites for O3b Networks.

A Delta 2 rocket lifted off from California’s Central Coast Saturday after back-to-back scrubbed launch attempts earlier this week. The Delta 2 delivered the JPSS 1 weather satellite to orbit for NOAA.

A modified Russian missile built for nuclear war blasted off on a peaceful mission Friday, targeting placement of a European Earth observation satellite in orbit to measure atmospheric chemistry and global air quality. Liftoff from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia occurred at 0927 GMT (5:27 a.m. EDT).