Live coverage: Space station crew investigating slow pressure leak

The U.S. Air Force’s fourth new-generation SBIRS missile warning satellite is headed for geosynchronous orbit after lifting off from Cape Canaveral at 7:48 p.m. EST Friday (0048 GMT Saturday), after a one-day delay caused by a troublesome fill-and-drain valve.

Eric Boe, one of three astronauts assigned to the first piloted test flight of a Boeing CST-100 Starliner commercial crew ship later this year has been removed from the mission due to unspecified medical issues, NASA announced Tuesday. He will be replaced by veteran astronaut Mike Fincke.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, a robotic resupply freighter departed Earth Friday for the International Space Station, this time aboard a Russian Soyuz booster launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.