Live coverage: Space station crew back on Earth

It took NASA more than 50 years to stage its first all-female spacewalk last October. It took three months before the second on Jan. 15 and just five days more for the third on Monday, a successful six-hour 58-minute excursion to finish installing a set of new solar array batteries aboard the International Space Station.

SpaceX rolled out the company’s first space-worthy Crew Dragon spacecraft and its Falcon 9 launcher to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first time Thursday, beginning a series of fit checks before the commercial spaceship takes off on its first orbital test flight.

Taking a major step toward an eventual robotic mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter believed to harbor ice-locked lakes and a vast sub-surface ocean, NASA has selected nine sophisticated instruments for a solar-powered spacecraft designed to find out whether the hidden realm could support life of some sort, agency officials said Tuesday.