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

A massive spacecraft bound for Mars lifted off on a Russian Proton rocket Monday, riding more than 2 million pounds of thrust from the launcher’s six main engines through low clouds hanging over the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Rollout of the Atlas 5 rocket from the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Complex 41 occurred at 10 a.m. on Monday. Liftoff is planned for Tuesday night to deliver the Cygnus resupply ship into orbit en route to the International Space Station.

A decommissioned missile originally built in Russia to deliver nuclear weapons to intercontinental targets in the United States vaulted out of a vertical canister Friday and fired into space with a European satellite to monitor global air pollution.