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

Check out imagery from Arianespace and the French space agency showing the launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket Dec. 29 from the Guiana Space Center in South America.

Taking a lesson from a launch mishap last June, SpaceX wrote coded commands for future Dragon cargo capsules to deploy their parachutes for an emergency landing in the event of rocket failures, starting with Friday’s resupply flight to the International Space Station.

NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, have agreed to extend astronaut Peggy Whitson’s stay aboard the International Space Station by three months to enable uninterrupted research aboard the orbital laboratory during a period when Russia is temporarily reducing its crew complement, the U.S. space agency said Wednesday.