Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

Japan’s HTV supply ship fell to Earth on Sunday more than a week after leaving the International Space Station, burning up in the atmosphere after officials gave up on an experiment looking into ways to remove space junk from orbit.

Russian ground crews working in starkly different environments on the barren steppes of Kazakhstan and in the lush jungles of South America are readying a pair of Soyuz rockets for two launches Thursday, one to resupply the International Space Station, and another to broaden the capacity of SES’s O3b Internet network.

SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship departed the International Space Station on Wednesday, fired rocket thrusters to brake out of orbit, and parachuted to a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with approximately 3,461 pounds of experiment samples and equipment.