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

Less than a week after winding up a successful spacewalk, outgoing space station commander Jeff Williams, America’s most experienced astronaut, joined two Russian cosmonauts for a fiery return to Earth Tuesday, closing out a 172-day mission with an on-target landing in Kazakhstan.

An on-target touchdown in Kazakhstan punctuated a 115-day space mission for Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, Japanese flight engineer Takuya Onishi and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins this weekend. Photographers recorded the moment with these vivid photos.

Clad in pressurized spacesuits, two Russian cosmonauts headed outside the International Space Station on Wednesday and hand-released four tiny CubeSats and installed hardware for a German experiment to track animal migration.