Live coverage of the departure of a Japanese cargo craft from the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Falcon 9
Satellite for broadband on-the-go next in rapid-fire SpaceX launch campaign
A powerhouse communications satellite owned by Inmarsat has been fueled for liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a mission to provide broadband links for passengers and crews aboard ships and airplanes, while technicians are loading space station-bound supplies into a commercial Dragon cargo capsule and preparing a Bulgarian telecom for launch on two other SpaceX boosters by mid-June.
Mission Reports
Station crew preps for Saturday return to Earth
In a rapid-fire crew rotation, a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are packing up for the trip back to Earth Saturday, leaving the International Space Station just eight days after the arrival of another three-person crew and three weeks before their own replacements arrive to boost the lab’s crew back to six.