Live coverage: Soyuz crew capsule departs station, lands in Kazakhstan

A satellite to collect intelligence for the Russian government launched Thursday on top of a Soyuz rocket and reached orbit a few minutes after liftoff from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome about 500 miles north of Moscow.

After poor weather scrubbed a launch attempt Tuesday, Blue Origin plans to launch the 12th flight of the company’s New Shepard suborbital booster Wednesday from West Texas with a package of research payloads.

Christina Koch, veteran of six spacewalks outside the International Space Station — including the first all-female excursion — will join a Russian commander and an Italian flight engineer for a fiery plunge back to Earth early Thursday, setting a new world record for the longest single flight by a female astronaut.