An upgraded NOAA weather satellite has entered service after a year of checkouts to provide critical, rapidly-refreshed imagery to forecasters in time for next year’s severe storm and hurricane seasons in the United States and the Atlantic Ocean.

Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins climbed into their Soyuz landing craft and undocked from the International Space Station at 9:34 p.m. EDT Friday (0134 GMT Saturday). The trio touched down on the barren steppes of Kazakhstan at 12:56 a.m. EDT (0456 GMT) to wrap up six months in orbit.

The Atlas rocket to launch four formation-flying spacecraft for NASA in March began to take shape Wednesday at the assembly building adjacent to the Complex 41 pad.