Video: OA-7 Cygnus freighter arrives at its orbital destination

Boeing said Tuesday it is “making excellent progress” toward launching a second unpiloted test flight of its Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station by the end of this year or in early January, setting the stage for the first Starliner demonstration mission with astronauts in mid-2021.

Two U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut, all spaceflight veterans, launched from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz booster Wednesday to begin a two-day pursuit of the International Space Station. The crew docked with the orbiting research complex Friday at 1940 GMT (3:40 p.m. EDT) to begin a five-month stay.

A Russian Soyuz rocket thundered to life with a burst of flame and shot away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday carrying an international crew of three aloft on a six-hour flight to the International Space Station.