Live coverage: Soyuz test flight concludes with landing in Kazakhstan

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is again standing on launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this time with a Dragon supply ship on top ready to head on a resupply run to the International Space Station.

Leaving crewmate Peggy Whitson behind in orbit for an extended mission, a Russian cosmonaut and his French co-pilot undocked from the International Space Station early Friday and plunged back to Earth, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 196-day mission.

Two U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut, all spaceflight veterans, launched from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz booster Wednesday to begin a two-day pursuit of the International Space Station. The crew docked with the orbiting research complex Friday at 1940 GMT (3:40 p.m. EDT) to begin a five-month stay.