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

With an absence of fanfare amid coronavirus safety protocols, an upgraded Russian Soyuz rocket making its first piloted flight blasted off from Kazakhstan Thursday carrying two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut on a speedy four-orbit trip to the International Space Station.

Officials have accepted a Friday launch date for a commercial cargo ship to the International Space Station after Range availability scuttled notions of moving up the Atlas 5 flight by a day.

Richard “Dick” Gordon, a Navy test pilot-turned-astronaut who pioneered spacewalking procedures and orbited the moon, died at his home this week in California. He was 88.