Live coverage: Atlas 5 blasts off with Navy satellite

After 24 days at the International Space Station, SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship came back to Earth on Sunday with more than 5,400 pounds of cargo, human and animal research specimens, and other gear tagged for the trip home. Release from the station’s robotic arm occurred at 5:11 a.m. EDT (0911 GMT), and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean was a few minutes before 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT).

Rocket Lab’s second mission of 2021 lifted off at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT) Monday from New Zealand carrying six small satellites for customers in Australia and the United States, along with a test platform for a NASA small satellite mission to the moon launching later this year.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the spacecraft that will grab a piece of Asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth, shipped to Kennedy Space Center from the Lockheed Martin production facilities in Denver on May 20 aboard an Air Force C-17.