Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

An Airbus-owned, German-built outdoor science deck is set for launch Friday night from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule, heading for the International Space Station to make the orbiting research outpost more accessible for commercial space experiments.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and a veteran NASA astronaut blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday, chased down the International Space Station and glided to a smooth automated docking, boosting the lab’s crew back to six.

Three days after launching from Cape Canaveral, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft has arrived at the International Space Station with around 5,600 pounds of supplies and experiments. The automated, unpiloted supply ship was snared by the station’s robotic arm at 7:21 a.m. EST (1221 GMT) Saturday.