Q&A with Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s director of science

A Russian Soyuz rocket rolled out to a launch pad in Kazakhstan early Thursday in preparation for liftoff Saturday with a Russian commander, Italian flight engineer and U.S. astronaut heading for the International Space Station.

Two days after launch from Kazakhstan, a Russian Soyuz ferry ship glided to a smooth docking with the International Space Station Saturday, bringing a veteran cosmonaut, a Frenchman making his first flight and NASA’s most experienced female astronaut to the lab complex.

A high-resolution camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted the Perseverance rover after landing on the Red Planet last month, showing the nuclear-powered robot sitting on the Martian surface with its supersonic parachute and other landing system components scattered nearby.