Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft arrives at space station

Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken arrived Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center, ready for spacesuit and spacecraft fit checks, and some time off with their families before launching next week on the first crewed flight into orbit from U.S. soil since 2011.

Engineers clad in clean suits finished stowing last-minute cargo into SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship Friday, including 40 mice and bacterial research specimens, a day before it is scheduled to blast off to the International Space Station in the first flight from the Kennedy Space Center’s historic Apollo-era launch pad 39A since 2011.

A Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer and a NASA astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth overnight Wednesday, landing on the snowy steppe of Kazakhstan to wrap up a six-month mission.