Live coverage: Soyuz crew lands in Kazakhstan

International Space Station commander Jeff Williams set a new U.S. space endurance record Wednesday, his 521st day in orbit over four missions, eclipsing the 520-day record set earlier this year by astronaut Scott Kelly at the end of his nearly one-year stay aboard the lab complex.

Check out a pictorial retrospective on Friday’s launch of three new space station crew members from Kazakhstan, riding an iconic Soyuz booster to orbit and arriving at the 250-mile-high research complex less than six hours later.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ferried a multinational crew into orbit at the break of dawn Friday with a spectacular sky-lighting launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, dazzling early risers along the East Coast with a flawless start to a planned six-month expedition on the International Space Station.