Live coverage: Veteran three-man crew docks with space station

Follow the major events during the launch of Europe’s LISA Pathfinder gravitational probe testbed, from liftoff of its Vega rocket booster from French Guiana through deployment into its initial orbit.

NASA has announced that veteran astronauts Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold will launch on nearly six-month expeditions aboard the International Space Station starting in September and in March 2018, filling seats aboard Russian Soyuz spaceships recently acquired in a commercial arrangement with Boeing.

Flying for the first time this year, a Proton rocket streaked into space Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two Russian Express communications satellites that will beam television, radio and broadband signals across the country.