Live coverage: Space station crew safely returns to Earth

A video camera mounted inside a Russian Soyuz capsule captured stunning views of the docking of a U.S.-Russian crew to the International Space Station in March, supplying a spectacular visual of a cosmic ballet occurring 250 miles above Earth.

The European Space Agency’s $550 million Aeolus science mission, the product of a drawn-out 16-year development effort that required engineers to master new technologies, is in the starting blocks on a launch pad in French Guiana awaiting liftoff Wednesday to monitor wind speeds from space for the first time on a global scale.

Three space station crew members packed up for a fiery return to Earth Thursday, wrapping up a nearly 200-day mission that was extended one month at the last minute because of a Russian rocket failure in April that threw a wrench into the lab’s crew rotation schedule.