Q&A with Steve Clarke, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science division (members only)

Dragon Freedom undocked from the space station at 1:05 a.m. EDT (1705 UTC) on Tuesday to begin its roughly 17-hour trip to splash down along Florida’s Gulf Coast. The parachute-supported splash down happened at 5:57 p.m. EDT (2157 UTC).

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 12:17 p.m. EST (9:17 a.m. PST; 1717 GMT) Saturday with an oceanography satellite jointly developed by U.S. and European space and weather agencies. The rocket’s first stage booster returned to a bullseye landing back at Vandenberg.

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, rocketed into orbit Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a record-setting flight to the International Space Station.