Live coverage: SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches NASA’s Psyche on mission to a metal asteroid

SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship reached the International Space Station on Wednesday, with astronaut Jeff Williams grappling the unpiloted spacecraft with the research lab’s robotic arm at 6:56 a.m. EDT (1056 GMT) after an automated rendezvous.

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, rocketed into orbit Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a record-setting flight to the International Space Station.

A senior NASA official said Tuesday that the Space Launch System, a huge heavy-lift rocket years behind schedule, could launch astronauts on a moon landing mission in 2024 on just its third flight to meet a goal announced last month by Vice President Mike Pence, while commercial companies will be entrusted with more responsibility to develop a lunar lander and a modest mini-space station, or Gateway, in lunar orbit.