Video: Soyuz MS-01 leaves the space station for landing

Astronaut Scott Kelly, just back from a record 340-day stay aboard the International Space Station, is leaving NASA at the end of the month, but he said Friday he will continue participating in ongoing medical research to study the effects of long-duration spaceflight.

SpaceX’s eighth operational cargo mission to the International Space Station is set for liftoff with nearly 3.5 tons of research investigations, crew provisions and an experimental expandable habitat for the International Space Station.

These video replays show the liftoff of the Soyuz rocket carrying Oleg Kononenko, David Saint-Jacques and Anne McClain away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station around six hours later.