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

A commercial supply ship owned and operated by Orbital ATK departed the International Space Station on Friday, heading for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean with more than 1.5 tons of trash. The station’s robotic arm released Cygnus at 1226 GMT (7:26 a.m. EST).

Look back on the launch Saturday of a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, powered by a pair of kerosene-fueled RD-181 engines producing 864,000 pounds of thrust.

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East on Thursday carrying 28 satellites, including a pair of Russian mapping satellites, secondary payloads from Germany, Japan, Spain, South Africa, and a dozen Earth-observing CubeSats and eight commercial weather payloads for Planet and Spire.