Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

Three spacecraft built in Europe and Japan have completed their final joint tests to ensure they are ready for departure to Mercury on an Ariane 5 rocket late next year on the nearly $1.9 billion BepiColombo mission to survey the solar system’s innermost planet.

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a three-man crew parachuted to the flat grasslands of Kazakhstan on Saturday, returning home from the International Space Station with cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and British flight engineer Tim Peake.

After several delays earlier this week, SpaceX conducted a hold-down test-firing of a Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral Friday evening in a key test before launch next week on a resupply mission to the International Space Station.