Gallery: Antares rocket explodes

The first pair of new Russian main engines for Orbital ATK’s modernized Antares rocket has arrived at the company’s Virginia launch base as engineers prepare to return the commercial booster to flight after a catastrophic failure last year.

The International Space Station received more than 2.5 tons of fresh supplies and experiments Sunday with the arrival of a commercial Cygnus cargo vessel after an automated laser-guided rendezvous.

With one last task to carry out, a space station Cygnus cargo ship loaded with trash and no-longer-needed equipment fell back to Earth Wednesday, hitting the discernible atmosphere 60 miles or so above the Pacific Ocean at nearly 5 miles per second.