Live coverage: SpaceX launches another batch of Starlink satellites

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two cosmonauts blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday and docked with the International Space Station after a two-orbit chase, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

Europe’s MetOp-C weather satellite launched aboard a Russian-built Soyuz rocket toward polar orbit Tuesday night from French Guiana, joining an international fleet of meteorological observatories critical for global weather forecasting. Liftoff occurred at 7:47 p.m. EST Tuesday (0047 GMT Wednesday).

Passing a major pre-flight milestone ahead of a launch and landing planned early Sunday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ignited its main engines Wednesday for a hold-down firing at Cape Canaveral.