Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

A light-class Electron launcher built and owned by Rocket Lab fired into orbit Thursday (U.S. time) from a privately-owned spaceport in New Zealand with a top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

Steve Skladanek leads Lockheed Martin’s rocket sales force charged with pushing the Atlas 5 rocket, which has largely been on the sidelines of the commercial launch business in recent years, on the global satellite market.

Russia’s unpiloted Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft departed the International Space Station at 2:14 p.m. EDT (1814 GMT) and landed in Kazakhstan at 5:32 p.m. EDT (2132 GMT) Friday to conclude a nearly 16-day test flight. The spacecraft carried Russia’s Skybot F-850 robot back to Earth after completing a series of tests with Russian cosmonauts on the station.