Video: Atlas/Cygnus pre-launch news conference

With one last task to carry out, a space station Cygnus cargo ship loaded with trash and no-longer-needed equipment fell back to Earth Wednesday, hitting the discernible atmosphere 60 miles or so above the Pacific Ocean at nearly 5 miles per second.

The Russian Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft departed the International Space Station and landed in Kazakhstan Thursday, bringing home outgoing space station commander Luca Parmitano, Soyuz pilot Alexander Skvortsov, and NASA astronaut Christina Koch, who concluded a 328-day mission, the longest-ever spaceflight by a woman. The Soyuz undocked from the station at 0550 GMT (12:50 a.m. EST) Thursday, then landed on the Kazakh steppe at 0912 GMT (4:12 a.m. EST).

The first official launch weather outlook issued Tuesday by U.S. Air Force meteorologists predicts an 80 percent chance of favorable conditions for the predawn liftoff Saturday of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on a test flight to the International Space Station.