Video: New Horizons phone home will confirm health of spacecraft

A Soyuz rocket carrying a Russian commander, a NASA co-pilot and a United Arab Emirates guest cosmonaut blasted off from Kazakhstan Wednesday, chased down the International Space Station and glided in for a picture-perfect docking, kicking off an unprecedented end-of-year schedule that includes up to a dozen spacewalks.

The launch will be preceded by a company talk from Elon Musk, discussing SpaceX’s plans for developing the rocket for Mars exploration. Launch teams are targeting a liftoff from Pad A at Starbase, Texas, on Tuesday, May 27, at 6:30 p.m. CDT (7:30 p.m. EDT, 2330 UTC).

A troublesome liquid oxygen valve on the Space Launch System’s first flight-rated core stage will keep NASA from performing a second test-firing of the rocket’s four main engines this week.