Video: Cygnus freighter arrives at orbital destination

Russian commander Sergey Prokopyev, German flight engineer Alexander Gerst, and NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor closed out a nearly 197-day space mission with a landing in Kazakhstan aboard their Soyuz MS-09 crew carry ship at 0502 GMT (12:02 a.m. EST) Thursday. The Soyuz crew undocked from the International Space Station at 0140 GMT (8:40 p.m. EST Wednesday) to begin their return to Earth.

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule could take off in October on its first unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station, a company official said recently, while SpaceX finishes up the investigation into the explosion of its Crew Dragon spacecraft during a ground test earlier this year.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the GovSat 1 communications satellite into orbit around 32 minutes later.