Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft arrives at space station

Russia launched a Progress resupply mission Tuesday heading for the International Space Station with more than 6,000 pounds of fuel, supplies and experiments to support the lab’s six-person crew, and the automated cargo craft sailed to a smooth link-up with the complex less than six hours later.

Christina Koch, veteran of six spacewalks outside the International Space Station — including the first all-female excursion — will join a Russian commander and an Italian flight engineer for a fiery plunge back to Earth early Thursday, setting a new world record for the longest single flight by a female astronaut.

Russian ground controllers decided Tuesday to delay the docking of a Progress supply freighter to the International Space Station until Thursday after telemetry signals indicated two radar navigation antennas may not have deployed following the ship’s launch from Kazakhstan.