Video: Time lapse of ATV’s final departure from ISS

Tugged along a historic route leading to the launch pad where Yuri Gagarin took off 1961 to become the first person in space, a Soyuz rocket rolled out of its assembly hangar in Kazakhstan and stood up on its launch mount Sunday.

Entering the final months of a 12-year mission, Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is again moving closer to the oddball comet that has engaged scientists since it arrived in 2014, heading for a controlled “smash” landing on the comet’s rugged charcoal-colored surface at the end of September.

Carrying a Cygnus supply ship bound for the International Space Station, an Orbital ATK Antares rocket lifted off Monday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia.