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

A Russian military satellite designed to detect missile launches arrived in orbit Thursday following a successful liftoff aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launched at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT) Thursday from Cape Canaveral with NOAA’s GOES-S weather satellite, the second in a series of upgraded observatories destined to cover the western United States and the Pacific Ocean.

Russia lofted a military satellite Thursday to join a network of orbiting early warning stations detecting and tracking missile launches around the world, providing the Russian government notice of potential attack.