Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

NOAA’s newest weather satellite, heading for a perch with coverage over the western United States and the Pacific Ocean, launched March 1 from Cape Canaveral on top of an Atlas 5 rocket.

Despite NASA’s concerns about earlier thruster problems and multiple helium leaks in the ship’s propulsion pressurization system, the Starliner had no trouble undocking and moving away from the station at 6:04 p.m. EDT and executing a critical 59-second deorbit braking maneuver at 11:17 p.m. to drop out of orbit.

Boeing’s first Starliner spacecraft designed to fly to the International Space Station rolled out of a converted space shuttle hangar before dawn Thursday.