Video: Soyuz MS-01 leaves the space station for landing

An Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft departed the International Space Station on Wednesday, heading for a higher orbit to deploy 14 CubeSats and an eventual de-orbit burn to dispose of more than 6,200 pounds of trash and other unneeded equipment packed by the station’s crew.

An all-new SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired its engines Friday night on launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, the opening act in a busy weekend of SpaceX launch preps leading up to a pair of blastoffs Sunday and Tuesday from California’s Central Coast and Florida’s Space Coast, respectively.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket closed out a busy 2017 Cape Canaveral launch schedule on Dec. 15 with a successful liftoff on a space station resupply mission. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster, making its second launch, returned to Florida’s Space Coast for an on-target landing.