Live coverage: Soyuz crew lands in Kazakhstan

A Soviet-era missile originally built to deliver nuclear warheads to the United States in wartime fired into space for a much different purpose Tuesday, carrying a European environmental satellite into orbit to help track the effects of climate change.

Scientists marked the 10th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on Tuesday, celebrating a mission that has greatly outlived its original one-year design life and continues taking high-resolution pictures to help U.S. companies and international space agencies select destinations for moon landers.

Soaring more than 200 miles above Earth, a Chinese spacecraft with two astronauts on-board closed in for docking with the Tiangong 2 space lab just before 1930 GMT (3:30 p.m. EDT).