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

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two cosmonauts blasted off from Kazakhstan Friday and docked with the International Space Station after a two-orbit chase, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

Working amid coronavirus restrictions, engineers readied a Soyuz spacecraft for launch Thursday to ferry two Russian cosmonauts and Navy SEAL-turned-astronaut Chris Cassidy to the International Space Station.

Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket returned to flight Oct. 17 with a successful evening launch from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, a beacon visible for hundreds of miles along the U.S. East Coast as the 13-story rocket set course for a cargo delivery to the International Space Station.