Photos: Delta 2 rocket blasts off with SMAP satellite

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two cosmonauts blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday and docked with the International Space Station after a two-orbit chase, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

Returning to the days of rollouts and launches in a span of only a few hours, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 program is looking to resume this whirlwind experience.

Scientists say the touch and go landing by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on an asteroid last month revealed fresh insights into the structure of loose rocks that may cover the surfaces of many small planetary bodies — material that is more akin to a playground ball pit than solid bedrock.