Video: Change of command aboard International Space Station

Russian commander Alexey Ovchinin, NASA co-pilot Nick Hague and astronaut Christina Koch lifted off aboard a Soyuz rocket Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, heading for the International Space Station to raise the research outpost’s crew complement back to six. The Soyuz booster launched at 1914 GMT (3:14 p.m. EDT), and docking at the space station occurred at 0101 GMT (9:01 p.m. EDT).

A Russian cosmonaut, a NASA astronaut and a British flier strapped into a Soyuz spacecraft, undocked from International Space Station and plunged back to Earth Saturday, safely landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 186-day mission.

The Soyuz MS-01 capsule safely returns to Earth, bringing back Expedition 49 commander Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian Federal Space Agency, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency after a 115-day mission that spanned 48.6 million miles to the International Space Station.