Live coverage: Three-man crew docks with space station

Closing out a 30-day mission, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule departed the International Space Station on Monday for a fiery trip back to Earth, culminating in re-entry back into the atmosphere and a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles.

SpaceX’s upgraded Falcon 9 rocket debuted May 11 with a successful launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying the Bangabandhu 1 communications satellite.

Members of NASA’s independent panel of aerospace safety advisors raised concerns last week about quality control problems that “seemingly have plagued” Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule program, while urging NASA to closely monitor SpaceX’s plans to reuse Crew Dragon spaceships on astronaut flights to the International Space Station.