Live coverage: SpaceX supply ship returns to Earth

Launch of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Friday carrying three fresh crew members to the International Space Station will boost the lab’s crew back to six and, most important from NASA’s perspective, dramatically boost research with four crew members — three NASA astronauts and a veteran European flier — available to operate experiments in the American segment of the laboratory.

Scarred from five trips to the edge of space and back, Blue Origin’s privately-developed New Shepard rocket was on vertical display this week at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

The Israeli company which owned a commercial communications satellite destroyed in an explosion last week at SpaceX’s launch pad in Florida will receive more than $200 million in payouts stemming from the incident, and hopes to purchase a replacement, officials said Monday.