Live coverage: Space station crew home after 115-day mission

A Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer and a NASA astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth overnight Wednesday, landing on the snowy steppe of Kazakhstan to wrap up a six-month mission.

NASA has selected six companies to work on designs for deep space habitat modules that could be used by astronauts living and working near the moon as technology is developed for eventual flights to Mars, the agency announced Tuesday.

An experimental Japanese satellite has ended its mission after proving it could operate at super-low altitudes, testing an Earth-imaging camera and using ion propulsion to fight against aerodynamic drag at an altitude of 112 miles.