Live coverage: Soyuz crew lands in Kazakhstan

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, rocketed into orbit Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a record-setting flight to the International Space Station.

A Russian military surveillance satellite designed to monitor adversaries’ radio signals successfully launched Saturday aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) Thursday, two days after high winds prevented liftoff. The nearly 23-story booster carried the EchoStar 23 communications satellite into orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to provide broadcast television programming across Brazil.