Live coverage: Soyuz crew returns to Earth

A Russian Soyuz-2.1a rocket rolled out to a launch pad Monday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, ready for the first crewed flight to use the modernized Soyuz booster configuration. Liftoff with two Russian cosmonauts and a veteran NASA astronaut is scheduled Thursday on an expedition to the International Space Station.

Russian actress Yulia Peresild and filmmaker Klim Shipenko will join cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov for a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station on Oct. 5 to shoot scenes for an upcoming movie, the Russian space agency announced Thursday.

A Vega rocket fired into space at 8:52 p.m. EST Monday (0152 GMT Tuesday) from the Guiana Space Center in South America, but the mission deviated from its planned trajectory. The rocket was boosting a Spanish Earth observation satellite and a French research payload into orbit.