Live coverage: Soyuz launches on 13th flight from French Guiana

A Russian cosmonaut, his Canadian co-pilot and a NASA flight engineer packed their Soyuz spacecraft for departure from the International Space Station Monday night, targeting a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an action-packed 204-day mission.

Two days after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, three new crew members arrived Friday at the International Space Station to begin a six-month stay. Docking of the crew’s Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft to the station’s Rassvet module occurred at 9:01 a.m. EDT (1301 GMT).

Rocket Lab’s second launch from Virginia took off at 6:38 p.m. EDT (2238 GMT) Thursday. The company’s carbon fiber Electron small satellite launcher carried two commercial radar remote sensing satellites into orbit for Capella Space.