Live coverage: European mini-shuttle back on Earth

Fresh off a 64-day test flight to the International Space Station with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, SpaceX’s first human-rated Crew Dragon spaceship is back at Cape Canaveral for inspections, refurbishment and upgrades before flying to the station again with a four-person crew next spring.

A European Vega rocket lifted off Tuesday from the Guiana Space Center on the northern shoreline of South America with a high-resolution reconnaissance satellite for the Moroccan government. Launch occurred at 8:42:31 p.m. EST Tuesday (0142:31 GMT Wednesday) from Kourou, French Guiana.

Boosted off planet Earth by a Russian Proton rocket, a European-built space probe departed for Mars on Monday, beginning a mission to test future landing technologies and search for methane, a potential signature of microbial life.