Live coverage: Soyuz capsule brings home three-man crew

A Soyuz rocket delivered a Russian military intelligence satellite to orbit Thursday after lift off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia’s far northern Arkhangelsk region, the first flight of a Soyuz variant since an aborted crew launch earlier this month.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 194 feet tall and and weighing 720,000 pounds, generates 860,000 pounds of thrust from its main engine to launch the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship on the OA-7 mission to the International Space Station.

A nest of genetically-engineered mice, a research study to observe the behavior of fires in space, and an experiment that could lead to brewing beer in microgravity are among more than 5,700 pounds of cargo inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule awaiting launch from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station Thursday.