Live coverage: Soyuz launches on 13th flight from French Guiana

A European Ariane 5 rocket fired into a gloomy sky Thursday over French Guiana and streaked into space from the tropical launch base with 2.9 million pounds of thrust from two solid rocket boosters and a hydrogen-fueled Vulcain 2 main engine.

SpaceX’s first launch since August took off Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A Falcon 9 rocket deployed the first 10 next-generation Iridium communications satellites, part of a $3 billion upgrade to the company’s space network. Liftoff occurred at 9:54 a.m. PST (12:54 p.m. EST; 1754 GMT), and the Falcon 9’s first stage landed on a barge in the Pacific a few minutes later.

Two days after launch from Kazakhstan, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying a crew of three wrapped up a problem-free rendezvous Friday, docking at the International Space Station’s Earth-facing Rassvet port less than a week after three other crew members departed.