Live coverage: NASA confirms successful first flight of Mars helicopter

A commercial Dragon cargo capsule wrapped up a four-week stay at the International Space Station on Monday with a departure from the complex at 12:01 p.m. EDT (1601 GMT). The spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 5:48 p.m. EDT (2148 GMT) with several tons of research specimens and equipment.

Russian officials have delayed until Saturday the launch of a Proton rocket from Kazakhstan with the Spektr-RG X-ray astronomy observatory, an ambitious mission jointly developed with Germany to probe dark energy.

The booster rocket that will launch NASA’s next-generation Orion space capsule on a two-orbit, four-hour shakedown cruise in December has been rolled to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.