Live coverage: Three-man crew, including first UAE astronaut, lands in Kazakhstan

Russia may start sending just two of its cosmonauts to the International Space Station at a time, according to media reports and comments by a NASA manager, in a cost-cutting measure that could reduce the size of the research lab’s crew to five.

Two direct-to-home broadcasting satellites have launched from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Liftoff with DirecTV 15 and Sky Mexico 1 occurred at 2116 GMT (5:16 p.m. EDT) Wednesday.

The Perseverance rover’s sterilized sample tubes — designed to seal Martian rock and sediment for eventual return to Earth — are installed on the spacecraft as teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center prepare to enclose the rover inside the payload shroud of its Atlas 5 launcher for liftoff July 20.