Live coverage: Soyuz crew capsule departs station, lands in Kazakhstan

Rocket Lab’s first launch of the year lifted off Thursday at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT) after a four-day delay to replace a video transmitter and wait for improved weather. The company’s Electron rocket launched from Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island with a technology demonstration satellite for DARPA, the U.S. military research and development agency.

Topped with Australian and Indian communications satellites, an Ariane 5 rocket successfully flew into orbit from the jungle of French Guiana on Wednesday. Liftoff occurred at 2030 GMT (4:30 p.m. EDT).

Watch a video replay of Friday night’s blastoff of a Soyuz rocket from the Guiana Space Center with Hispasat 36W-1, a communications satellite developed by OHB in Germany for Spain’s Hispasat to test out new telecom technologies and provide data networking, video and broadband services over South America and Europe.