Video: Atlas 5 rolls out to launch pad with the Air Force’s AEHF 5 comsat (members only)

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two cosmonauts blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday and docked with the International Space Station after a two-orbit chase, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

Launch facilities at Cape Canaveral were spared any significant damage as Hurricane Dorian churned northward off Florida’s east coast earlier this week, and employees at the spaceport resumed their normal work Friday.

Poised to loft a Russian-German X-ray astronomy observatory into space Friday, a Proton rocket returned to its launch pad Tuesday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after a three-week delay to replace a drained battery on the vehicle.