Live coverage: Three-man crew closes out 173-day space mission

Launch of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Friday carrying three fresh crew members to the International Space Station will boost the lab’s crew back to six and, most important from NASA’s perspective, dramatically boost research with four crew members — three NASA astronauts and a veteran European flier — available to operate experiments in the American segment of the laboratory.

A SpaceX Dragon supply ship departed the International Space Station and returned to Earth Tuesday to conclude its third round-trip flight to the orbiting research outpost, bringing home a spacesuit, mice and and numerous experiments.

Fueled segments of the solid rocket boosters that will lift off on the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but officials will hold off on stacking the boosters until the SLS core stage completes a crucial test-firing later this year.