Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft parachuted to an airbag-cushioned landing in New Mexico on Dec. 22 to conclude an abbreviated two-day test orbital test flight that accomplished many objectives, but missed a planned rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 10:30 p.m. EDT Thursday (0230 GMT Friday). The 229-foot-tall launch vehicle delivered 60 satellites to orbit to begin the deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink Internet network, a fleet of spacecraft that may eventually number thousands.

A European environmental satellite designed to monitor Earth’s oceans, lakes and vegetation lifted off Wednesday aboard a modified Russian ballistic missile originally built to carry nuclear warheads. The mission launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome around 500 miles north of Moscow at 1757:51 GMT (1:57:51 p.m. EDT).