Live coverage: Station crew lands after 11 months in orbit

These photos show the stacking of Japan’s eighth H-2B rocket inside an assembly building at the Tanegashima Space Center over the past few weeks, followed by rollout of the 186-foot-tall vehicle to its launch pad Tuesday.

Relive the steps to stack the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility for the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo freighter for the space station. The first stage was erected initially, followed by the interstage and Centaur stage, then the encapsulated payload.

Two days after becoming the first U.S. space fliers to splash down in the sea in more than 45 years, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on Tuesday described their fiery ride back to Earth aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to cap a “flawless” test flight, setting the stage for operational flights beginning later this year.