Live coverage: Commercial cargo craft completes space station rendezvous

Russian launch crews on two continents are putting the final touches on a pair of Soyuz rockets scheduled to blast off less than two hours apart Friday — one carrying a three-man crew to the space station, and another boosting two European navigation satellites into orbit from the Amazon jungle.

The launch of a U.S.-French oceanography satellite from California has been postponed from July 22 after engineers discovered contamination in one of the spacecraft’s thrusters at its factory in France.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk said last week he is “fairly confident” his company’s Falcon rockets can be made fully reusable within a couple of years, suggesting a renewed emphasis on outfitting upper stages for a scorching re-entry after engineers shelved the idea to focus on landing the launcher’s bigger booster stage.