Live coverage: Soyuz crew lands in Kazakhstan

A commercial communications satellite will blast off Thursday from French Guiana on top of a Soyuz rocket, on the way to a station over the Americas to supply bandwidth to airline travelers and broadcasters in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The stacking of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket this week at Cape Canaveral signals the start of a busy six-week campaign to ready ULA’s trusty workhorse launcher for its debut in a new human-rated configuration in mid-December.

Orbital ATK’s next commercial resupply freighter going to the International Space Station will be named the S.S. John Glenn, paying tribute to the legendary first American to orbit the Earth.