Live coverage: Hayabusa 2 asteroid sample return capsule lands in Australia

Veteran astronauts Soichi Noguchi and Shannon Walker have been assigned to fly to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s second piloted Crew Dragon mission later this year, joining commander Mike Hopkins and astronaut Victor Glover on a planned six-month expedition in orbit.

Three robotic Mars missions launched from Earth last month have begun fine-tuning their trajectories through the solar system with the first in a series mid-course corrections to take aim on the Red Planet for arrival next February.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with the next batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites at 3:13 a.m. EST (0813 GMT) Thursday from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The reusable first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.