Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

The first spacecraft in a new generation of Russian Progress cargo vehicles parked at the International Space Station on Wednesday, bringing a holiday delivery of more than 5,000 pounds of fuel, water and supplies for the research lab’s six-person crew.

The first operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts aboard is set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than Oct. 23, following a formal certification review to assess data from the Crew Dragon’s two-man test flight that concluded earlier this month, NASA said Friday.

With its payload shroud filled with multiple U.S. Air Force satellites heading for a high-altitude perch over the equator, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Saturday at 7:13 p.m. EDT (2313 GMT) in its most powerful configuration with five strap-on solid-fueled boosters.