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

Look back on the launch Saturday of a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, powered by a pair of kerosene-fueled RD-181 engines producing 864,000 pounds of thrust.

This photo gallery shows the commercial Cygnus cargo resupplier for the International Space Station on Monday at Kennedy Space Center being encapsulated in the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket’s payload fairing for the planned Dec. 3 liftoff.

A three-minute test flight Tuesday morning over Cape Canaveral will help ensure NASA’s Orion crew capsule — the vehicle being built to carry astronauts back to the moon — can safely escape from a catastrophic failure on launch.