Space Station Live: October 7, 2015

A three-member space crew returned to Earth just after sunrise Thursday in Kazakhstan, descending through a sun-splashed sky under an orange and white parachute before dipping through fog for a rocket-cushioned touchdown on the snowy steppes of Central Asia.

A spherical U.S. Navy spacecraft the size of a beach ball spring-ejected from a new satellite deployer outside the International Space Station last week, debuting a fresh way for low-budget space missions to reach orbit.

A video update from mission control Houston on activities aboard the International Space Station. (Membership required)