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

SpaceX launched an unpiloted Crew Dragon spacecraft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) Sunday. SpaceX triggered an escape maneuver using the Dragon’s thrusters about a minute-and-a-half after liftoff to verify the launch abort engines can safely carry the capsule — and astronauts on future missions — away from a failing rocket.

A week after a technical problem on the GSLV Mk.3 rocket thwarted a previous launch attempt, India’s Chandrayaan 2 lunar orbiter, lander and rover climbed into space at 0913 GMT (5:13 a.m. EDT) Monday.

Three space station fliers — the outgoing NASA commander and two Russian cosmonauts — undocked and returned to Earth Wednesday, ending a 167-day stay in space with a communications blackout that left the crew out of contact with flight controllers during much of the trip home.