International Space Station

This NASA astronaut voted from space

Shane Kimbrough, a NASA astronaut currently living on board the International Space Station, filed his ballot in last week's presidential election, according to a Tumblr post by NASA.

NASA told Yahoo News that Kimbrough filed his ballot in the 2016 election from the space station sometime over the past few days.

Report: Orbital faces risks in resuming space station runs

The space agency's inspector general office said the company's upcoming flight plan contains significant risks, as its attempts to recover from last October's launch explosion. Orbital's Antares rocket failed seconds after liftoff from Virginia, destroying the space station goods and damaging the launch complex. It was Orbital's fourth supply mission, including a 2013 test flight.

VIDEO: Astronauts eat first space-grown lettuce

With an eye towards giving astronauts on future long-haul missions the ability to grow their own meals and enjoy fresh produce in space, NASA has been working on its Veg-01 experiment, which is studying how plants grow in orbit.

The astronauts first tasted the lettuce plain before dressing it up with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

VIDEO: Soyuz spacecraft lifts off for the ISS

The rocket lifted off at 3:02am local time on Wednesday (2102GMT on Tuesday) and is to dock with the orbiting laboratory about six hours later.

The capsule is carrying Oleg Kononenko of Russia, NASA's Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui of Japan.

They will join Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly.

The latter two are more than four months into a nearly year-long mission on the space station.

Russian capsule takes off for International Space Station

The rocket lifted off at 3:02 a.m Thursday (2102 GMT Wednesday) and was to dock with the orbiting laboratory about six hours later. It reached orbit about 15 minutes after launch and is to circle the Earth four times before heading for the space station, which is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth.

SpaceX launch ends in failure, rocket erupts

The accident happened about 2 1/2 minutes into the flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida. 

A billowing white cloud emerged in the sky, growing bigger and bigger, then fiery plumes shot out of where the rocket was supposed to be, and pieces could be seen falling into the Atlantic. 

More than 5,200 pounds of space station cargo were on board, including the first docking port designed for future commercial crew capsules.