Live coverage: Soyuz crew capsule departs station, lands in Kazakhstan

Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket will deliver a Cygnus supply ship into orbit Saturday to begin a two-day pursuit of the International Space Station.

The mobile platform intended to carry NASA’s Space Launch System will trek to the mega-rocket’s launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as Thursday, before heading inside the spaceport’s huge Vehicle Assembly Building for the first time next month.

A new $3 billion cosmodrome nestled in the remote taiga wilderness of Russia’s Far East, a sprawling, sparkling facility constructed at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, will host its first rocket launch early Wednesday.