Live coverage: H-2A rocket blasts off with navigation satellite

Japanese officials halted a countdown Monday at the Tanegashima Space Center when teams overseeing preparations for launch of an H-2A rocket detected a nitrogen gas leak, prompting the return of the launcher and its Japanese government payload to a nearby assembly building for repairs.

A U.S. Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm, a Russian Air Force MiG-29 fighter pilot, and a former flight controller for Russia’s Mir space station arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, with a smooth docking aboard a Soyuz spaceship at 0952 GMT (5:52 a.m. EDT), two days after a successful launch from Kazakhstan.

A replay of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launching the Global Positioning System 2F-12 satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida, completing 27 years and 61 flights of the GPS 2 generation.