Live coverage: Space station crew concludes 186 days in orbit

Singed and blackened from three fiery trips to the edge of space and back, a Falcon 9 rocket returned to Cape Canaveral on Sunday after a mission last that week carried the Israeli Beresheet moon lander into orbit, ready for inspections before attempting a fourth — and likely final — launch this spring.

NASA has ordered a second commercial crew ferry ship from SpaceX, NASA announced Friday, as the agency continues its on-going push to develop U.S.-built spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, ending sole reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and a veteran NASA astronaut blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday, chased down the International Space Station and glided to a smooth automated docking, boosting the lab’s crew back to six.