Live coverage: Veteran three-man crew docks with space station

These photos show the stacking of Japan’s eighth H-2B rocket inside an assembly building at the Tanegashima Space Center over the past few weeks, followed by rollout of the 186-foot-tall vehicle to its launch pad Tuesday.

Three Chinese astronauts departed the Tiangong space station Saturday and landed in the remote Gobi Desert of northwestern China, capping a six-month expedition that included four spacewalks and a host of experiments in the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit.

A SpaceX Dragon supply ship packed with nearly three tons of experiments, crew provisions and supplies will remain on the ground until at least Friday morning to allow more time for NASA flight controllers to troubleshoot a problem with an electrical distribution unit on the International Space Station.