Live coverage: SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket test-fired in Florida

Atlas 5 rocket hardware and a U.S. Air Force communications satellite have arrived at Cape Canaveral for United Launch Alliance’s next mission, scheduled for liftoff June 27.

A powerful H-2A launcher, boosted by four strap-on rocket motors and an upgraded second stage, lifted off from Japan on Tuesday with a multipurpose communications satellite for Ottawa-based Telesat. Check out photos of the H-2A rocket soaring into clear skies.

Two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut boarded their Soyuz MS-06 landing craft for a homecoming Tuesday night, U.S. time, concluding 168 days in orbit. The trio undocked from the International Space Station at 5:08 p.m. EST (2208 GMT), and landed on the snowy steppe of Kazakhstan at 9:31 p.m. EST (0231 GMT Wednesday).