Live video of the docking of a Progress cargo ship with the space station

A Soyuz FG rocket thundered to life and shot into orbit smoothly Monday carrying three crew members on a six-hour flight to the International Space Station. The problem-free ascent came less than two months after an Oct. 11 launch abort that forced a different crew to carry out safe-but-scary emergency landing.

Concluding 80 days attached the International Space Station, the commercial Cygnus cargo ship will be detached to fly away Tuesday for an unprecedented onboard fire experiment before re-entering the atmosphere next week.

Two days after launching from Cape Canaveral with nearly 5,500 pounds of supplies and experiments, an automated SpaceX Dragon cargo craft approached the International Space Station Monday. The Dragon supply ship was grappled by the station’s robotic arm at 7:01 a.m. EDT (1101 GMT).