Live coverage: Soyuz capsule brings home three-man crew

Closing out a year-and-a-half of exploration, surveys and sampling operations at asteroid Ryugu, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft fired thrusters in a departure maneuver Wednesday and headed for Earth with specimens snatched from the asteroid’s dark and rocky surface.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, a robotic resupply freighter departed Earth Friday for the International Space Station, this time aboard a Russian Soyuz booster launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A commercial Dragon supply freighter built and owned by SpaceX rocketed into a clear blue sky over Florida’s Space Coast Thursday with a menagerie of research experiments and holiday surprises heading for the International Space Station.