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

A Soyuz rocket arrived at a historic launch pad in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, where ground crews lifted the booster vertical to begin final preparations for liftoff Thursday with two Americans and one Russian heading for the International Space Station.

Europe’s nearly $8 billion Galileo navigation system, an analog to the U.S. GPS satellite network, is hitting a stride in production and launches, with another two spacecraft encapsulated Wednesday inside the fairing of a Soyuz rocket for liftoff next week.

NASA has completed an exhaustive review of software problems and procedural oversights that prevented an unpiloted Boeing Starliner capsule from docking with the space station last year. The agency is implementing 80 recommendations to clear the way for a second test flight later this year and, if all goes well, Boeing’s first piloted flight next spring, officials said Tuesday.