Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken returned to Earth Sunday with an on-target splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico at 2:48 p.m. EDT (1848 GMT) Sunday. The astronauts completed a two-month stay on the International Space Station on a test flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Russia’s decision to partner with China on a planned lunar research station, and not join the U.S.-led Artemis moon program, was disappointing after more than two decades of cooperation on the International Space Station, says NASA’s top human spaceflight official.

A $110 million NASA science instrument twice targeted for cancellation by the Trump administration is set for launch Tuesday inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule for delivery to the International Space Station, where it will spend three years charting changing carbon dioxide concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere.