Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

A Japanese H-2A rocket launched at 5:58 p.m. EDT (2158 GMT) Sunday from the Tanegashima Space Center with the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope orbiter, the UAE’s first probe to Mars.

Russian officials have delayed until Saturday the launch of a Proton rocket from Kazakhstan with the Spektr-RG X-ray astronomy observatory, an ambitious mission jointly developed with Germany to probe dark energy.

A U.S.-Russian-Italian space crew closed out a 199-day expedition on the International Space Station with a parachute-assisted landing Thursday on the steppe of Kazakhstan. Touchdown of the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft occurred at 1343 GMT (9:43 a.m. EDT).