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

A compact exoplanet observatory built in Europe to help astronomers determine the sizes of distant worlds around other stars is scheduled for launch Wednesday from French Guiana aboard a Soyuz rocket.

The International Space Station’s crew will enjoy views of the Aug. 21 solar eclipse during three successive orbits, giving the astronauts a unique opportunity to take in the celestial show from 250 miles up as the moon’s shadow races across from the Pacific Ocean and the continental United States before moving out over the Atlantic.

SpaceX completed Friday the last drop test of the Dragon crew capsule’s parachutes before the first launch of astronauts on the human-rated ship May 27, while technicians at Cape Canaveral have mated the spacecraft’s crew module with its unpressurized trunk section.