Live coverage: Ariane 5 successful in middle-of-the-night launch

Boeing Satellite Systems, Airbus Defense and Space and Orbital ATK have won orders from Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES for three new communications spacecraft for launch in 2017.

Northrop Grumman’s second robotic life extension spacecraft docked with an Intelsat satellite in geosynchronous orbit Monday, the first link-up between a commercial servicing mission and an operational communications craft.

Two U.S. astronauts flanked a veteran Russian cosmonaut Thursday for a ride back to Earth from the International Space Station. The trio undocked from the station in their Soyuz spacecraft at 0757 GMT (3:57 a.m. EDT), beginning a return flight that culminated in a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 1145 GMT (7:45 a.m. EDT).