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

Two veteran spacemen embarking on a marathon yearlong mission in orbit must first sprint through a busy workday Friday — suiting up for liftoff, climbing into their Soyuz spaceship, then flying to the International Space Station.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad Tuesday at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) with Hispasat 30W-6, a communications satellite to relay video and broadband signals between the Americas, Europe and North Africa.

The first launch from the nearly $3 billion Vostochny Cosmodrome took off Thursday, carrying three satellites into orbit from the new spaceport nestled in Russia’s forested Far East.