Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut wrapping up a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station readied their Soyuz ferry ship for a fiery plunge back to Earth early Saturday amid preparations in Florida for launch of another station-bound crew Thursday aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Medium+ (5,4) rocket lifted off Wednesday at 6:53 p.m. EST (2353 GMT) from Cape Canaveral to deploy the latest craft for the U.S. military’s Wideband Global SATCOM communications satellite constellation.

SpaceX brought another Falcon 9 booster into Port Canaveral on Wednesday, a little more than two days after landing the rocket on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean as the company enters an unusually quiescent period of launch activity in Florida — at least by recent standards.