Live coverage: Cygnus rendezvous and arrival journal and webcast

What began as a concept scribbled on a cocktail napkin in a Tucson bar 12 years ago — sending a spacecraft to an asteroid and retrieving a pristine sample to bring back to Earth for study — becomes reality Thursday with the launch of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission.

Two days after launching from Cape Canaveral with nearly 5,500 pounds of supplies and experiments, an automated SpaceX Dragon cargo craft approached the International Space Station Monday. The Dragon supply ship was grappled by the station’s robotic arm at 7:01 a.m. EDT (1101 GMT).

For its first mission of the year, SpaceX launched the Airbus-built Turksat 5A communications satellite to cover Turkey, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa with data relay and television broadcast services. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:15 p.m. EST Thursday (0215 GMT Friday).