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

A commercial SES communications satellite on the way to an operating post over the Americas rode into orbit from French Guiana aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket Thursday, embarking on a mission to help airline travelers stay connected and improve air navigation over the United States.

A miniature cargo return vehicle carried aboard a Japanese supply ship splashed down in the Pacific Ocean earlier this month in the first test of a new capsule to bring home experiment samples from the International Space Station.

NASA has placed an order with Boeing for the first operational mission to ferry a crew to the International Space Station in a new era of commercial human spaceflight.