Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

Two days after blasting off from Kazakhstan, three new crew members docked with the International Space Station early Saturday to begin nearly four months of scientific experiments and maintenance on the orbiting research outpost. The Soyuz spacecraft linked up with the space station’s Rassvet module at 12:06 a.m. EDT (0406 GMT).

The Dragon spaceship poised for launch Tuesday will carry more than 2.5 tons of equipment for the International Space Station’s six-person crew, making the first U.S. supply delivery to the orbiting research complex since the crash of an Antares cargo rocket in October.

NASA has decided to launch the multibillion-dollar Europa Clipper mission — a spacecraft to study a moon of Jupiter with an icy crust covering a liquid water ocean — aboard a commercial heavy-lift rocket in October 2024, and not on the government-owned Space Launch System, officials said Wednesday.