Mission Reports

Live coverage: Soyuz brings home three-man crew

Two Japanese space tourists and a Russian cosmonaut have closed out a 12-day visit to the International Space Station. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, his assistant Yozo Hirano, and cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin undocked from the station in their Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft at 6:50 p.m. EST (2350 GMT) Sunday, and touched down in Kazakhstan at 10:13 p.m. EST (0313 GMT).

Ariane 5

Webb telescope testing on tap before setting target launch date

Technicians at a jungle spaceport in South America are completing tests on the James Webb Space Telescope Thursday to make sure they fixed a “finicky” communications interface glitch that halted launch preparations earlier this week. NASA and European officials will confirm the mission’s target launch date — currently penciled in for no earlier than Dec. 24 — as soon as Friday.