Live coverage: 400th Proton rocket takes off with Russian satellite

The Emirates Mars Mission, the first deep space probe from the Arab world, steered into orbit around the Red Planet on Tuesday to cap a 307 million-mile (494 million-kilometer), 205-day interplanetary voyage from Earth and begin a science mission studying the Martian climate. The critical 27-minute Mars Orbit Insertion maneuver began at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT).

A Soyuz rocket arrived at a launch pad Tuesday in Kazakhstan for liftoff later this week with a satellite to monitor natural disasters and track forest fires from orbit and 72 secondary payloads from Russia, the United States, Germany, Norway and Japan.

A veteran cosmonaut, a former Japanese 767 airline pilot and a NASA astronaut with a Ph.D. in cancer biology are making final preparations for launch July 6 on a two-day flight to the International Space Station. It will be the first flight in an upgraded Soyuz ferry craft with improved, more redundant navigation, communications and computer equipment.