Live coverage: Soyuz crew returns to Earth

Russia launched a next-generation military reconnaissance satellite Friday, ushering in an era of digital mapping from orbit after decades of relying on film returned to Earth inside landing capsules.

The rocket launched more than 340 times successively and successfully before it encountered an issue with its upper stage on July 11. Liftoff of the Starlink 10-9 mission happened at 1:45 a.m. EDT (0545 UTC).

A Soyuz rocket delivered a Russian military intelligence satellite to orbit Thursday after lift off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia’s far northern Arkhangelsk region, the first flight of a Soyuz variant since an aborted crew launch earlier this month.