Live coverage: Soyuz sends Russian and two Americans to space station

Five satellites rode a Soyuz booster into orbit Monday from French Guiana, and these spectacular photos from Europe’s tropical spaceport show the legendary rocket’s fiery departure from the edge of the lush Amazon jungle.

A Soyuz rocket added a new satellite to Russia’s Glonass navigation network Friday with an on-target delivery nearly 12,000 miles above Earth.

Bidding their crewmates farewell, a Russian cosmonaut and two NASA astronauts boarded their Soyuz ferry craft, undocked from the International Space Station and fell back to Earth Tuesday, landing safely on the snowy steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 168-day mission.