Live coverage: Irma knocks out power at Kennedy Space Center

The EchoStar 23 communications satellite, on the way to a 15-year service life broadcasting television signals, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Thursday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket from New Zealand at 9:20 p.m. EST Thursday (0220 GMT Friday) carrying 30 small payloads into low Earth orbit. The company said the first stage of the Electron rocket splashed down in the Pacific Ocean under a parachute, a major step in Rocket Lab’s rocket reuse program.

A veteran Russian commander, Italian flight engineer and a rookie NASA astronaut lifted off at 1628 GMT (12:28 p.m. EDT) Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, kicking off a six-hour flight to the International Space Station. The crew docked with the station at 2248 GMT (6:48 p.m. EDT).