Live coverage: Soyuz soars into space on its fourth launch attempt

Four days after a Soyuz ferry craft brought three space station fliers down to a frigid landing in Kazakhstan, three fresh crew members are poised for launch early Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to boost the lab’s crew back to six.

Ruling out a strike by space debris or a micrometeoroid, Russian engineers say a small now-plugged leak in a Soyuz crew ferry ship docked to the International Space Station was the result of a hole drilled into the wall of the spacecraft’s upper compartment, an apparent case of human error.

A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle lifted off Friday with 31 satellites on the first flight for India’s workhorse rocket since an August mishap that left an Indian navigation satellite unusable after reaching orbit.