Photos: Dragon completes rendezvous with the station

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two Russian cosmonauts will ride a Soyuz ferry ship to the International Space Station early Friday, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

In parallel with an on-going failure investigation, SpaceX is readying downstream Crew Dragon spacecraft for flight in hopes that corrective actions can be implemented in time to launch two astronauts to the International Space Station before the end of the year, a senior NASA manager said Tuesday.

Promising to take a half-dozen or more artists with him on the journey, Japanese fashion magnate Yusaku Maezawa said Monday he has paid a deposit for a ride around the moon aboard SpaceX’s planned BFR rocket as soon as 2023, a financial infusion that will help bankroll development of the company’s futuristic interplanetary transporter.