Live coverage: Space station crew concludes 186 days in orbit

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket at 5:37 a.m. PDT (8:37 a.m. EDT; 1237 GMT) Monday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the third set of 10 new-generation satellites for Iridium’s voice and data relay network. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster successfully landed on a platform in the Pacific Ocean a few minutes after liftoff.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Thursday from Cape Canaveral with the U.S. Space Force’s newest third-generation Global Positioning System navigation satellite, helping clear the way for the launch of SpaceX’s first operational Crew Dragon astronaut mission later this month.

Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague landed safely downrange in Kazakhstan on Thursday after a Soyuz booster failure cut short their ascent into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome toward the International Space Station. The emergency landing was the first Soyuz in-flight abort since 1975.