Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

Less than a week after winding up a successful spacewalk, outgoing space station commander Jeff Williams, America’s most experienced astronaut, joined two Russian cosmonauts for a fiery return to Earth Tuesday, closing out a 172-day mission with an on-target landing in Kazakhstan.

A Chinese startup named OneSpace could test its first full-scale launcher as soon as Wednesday in a bid to become China’s first privately-funded rocket company to place a satellite in orbit around the Earth.

A Russian Progress cargo spacecraft laden with 5,300 pounds of fuel and supplies blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Saturday, riding a Soyuz rocket smoothly into orbit on the first of two resupply launches heading for the International Space Station in the next two days.