Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Vega rocket rocket with the European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: Soyuz capsule brings home station crew
Soyuz commander Alexei Ovchinin, flight engineer Oleg Skripochka and outgoing space station skipper Jeff Williams returned to Earth on Tuesday with a parachute-assisted touchdown in Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz TMA-20M capsule undocked from the station at 2151 GMT (5:51 p.m. EDT) and landed at 0113 GMT (9:13 p.m. EDT).
Mission Reports
Dragon crew rehearses for launch day, first-look weather forecast looks good
After completing a dress rehearsal for launch day over the weekend, the four astronauts gearing up for liftoff Thursday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket are in good spirits and spending time with their families in Florida before leaving the planet for a six-month expedition on the International Space Station. Forecasters with the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predict an 80% chance of acceptable weather for launch early Thursday.