Live coverage: Russian-American-British crew launches toward space station

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine visited SpaceX’s California rocket factory Thursday, toured the sprawling facility with founder Elon Musk and told reporters he is optimistic the company will be ready to launch the first piloted test flight of its Crew Dragon spaceship in the first quarter of next year.

Veteran cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and rookie flight engineer Jack Fischer streaked into orbit aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry craft Thursday, chased down the International Space Station and glided to a smooth docking to complete a six-hour rendezvous.

Rising into a midnight sky lit by the full moon, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral early Monday with a commercial cargo craft on the way to the International Space Station, then returned to Florida’s Space Coast for a dramatic nighttime landing.