Live coverage: H-2A rocket blasts off with latest Japanese weather satellite

India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle climbed away from Sriharikota Island on the country’s east coast Thursday, delivering a weather satellite into orbit and achieving the third success in a row for the previously-troubled booster.

Three new residents completed the final leg of their pursuit of the International Space Station, with docking to the complex at 2158 GMT (4:58 p.m. EST) Saturday, two days after blastoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz capsule carrying the U.S.-Russian-French crew linked up with the research lab’s Rassvet module.

Closing out a year-and-a-half of exploration, surveys and sampling operations at asteroid Ryugu, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft fired thrusters in a departure maneuver Wednesday and headed for Earth with specimens snatched from the asteroid’s dark and rocky surface.