Live coverage: SpaceX grounds launch to wait for better recovery weather

A veteran Russian commander, Italian flight engineer and a rookie NASA astronaut lifted off at 1628 GMT (12:28 p.m. EDT) Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, kicking off a six-hour flight to the International Space Station. The crew docked with the station at 2248 GMT (6:48 p.m. EDT).

Helmed by two test pilots, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane set new altitude and speed records for the company’s test program Tuesday during a powered flight over California’s Mojave Desert.

Tuesday is shaping up to be a busy day for SpaceX, with liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a space weather satellite, an experimental booster flyback maneuver to test reusable launch technologies, and the splashdown of a Dragon capsule returning from the International Space Station.