Jason 3 Mission Science Briefing

A Crew Dragon capsule ferried four astronauts into space Sunday night after a rumbling departure from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, setting off on a 27-hour pursuit of the International Space Station on SpaceX’s first operational crew rotation flight to the orbiting outpost.

A three-man crew led by six-time space flier Yuri Malenchenko rode a Soyuz rocket into orbit Tuesday, speeding away from a Kazakh launch pad on a six-hour chase of the International Space Station. Docking occurred at 1733 GMT (12:33 p.m. EST).

A Russian Soyuz booster climbed into orbit Monday with a U.S. Army colonel, a veteran Russian cosmonaut and a Canadian flight engineer, kicking off a six-hour chase of the International Space Station.