Watch as SpaceX test-fires Falcon 9 ahead of Starlink launch (members only)

Fresh off a series of three complex spacewalks to repair a $2 billion cosmic ray detector, the International Space Station’s crew is set to receive two robotic resupply freighters in the next week after launches from Florida’s Space Coast and the steppes of Kazakhstan.

A Russian Soyuz-2.1a rocket rolled out to a launch pad Monday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, ready for the first crewed flight to use the modernized Soyuz booster configuration. Liftoff with two Russian cosmonauts and a veteran NASA astronaut is scheduled Thursday on an expedition to the International Space Station.

A civilian-operated Chinese oceanography satellite deployed in orbit after lifting off on a Long March 2C rocket Wednesday, joining a predecessor launched in 2018 to monitor ocean color and water temperatures.