Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft departs International Space Station

A Russian cosmonaut, a NASA flight engineer and a Japanese physician-astronaut strapped into their Soyuz ferry ship early Sunday, undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 168-day mission.

SpaceX’s upgraded Dragon capsules will not return astronauts to Earth for powered landings as originally envisioned, company boss Elon Musk said Wednesday, a design change that raises questions about the space transport firm’s plans to send commercial landers to the surface of Mars.

A Russian Soyuz booster blasted off from a snow-covered launch pad in Kazakhstan on Wednesday with nearly 6,000 pounds of fuel, water and supplies for the International Space Station.