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

A critical test-firing of the Space Launch System’s core stage engines cut off about a minute into a planned eight-minute burn Saturday on a test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The rocket’s four engines ignited at 5:27 p.m. EST (2227 GMT) for a test that was to pave the way for the core stage’s shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations.

Europe’s first mission to Mercury, a quartet of Galileo navigation spacecraft, the world’s first global winds observatory, and a new European weather satellite have arrived at an equatorial launch base in French Guiana in preparation for launches in the coming months.

The International Space Station crew releases the Cygnus OA-7 commercial cargo ship from the Canadian robotic arm to begin free-flight away from the lab complex, completing 43-day visit that delivered supplies, food and science gear.