NASA flight director discusses curtailed spacewalk

Three fresh crew members lifted off at 1541 GMT (11:41 a.m. EDT) Friday on a six-hour trip to the International Space Station, riding a Soyuz spaceship from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The trio hails from Russia, the United States and Italy and boosted the station’s crew back to a full complement of six. Docking occurred at 2154 GMT (5:54 p.m. EDT).

Astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Japanese crewmate Norishige Kanai floated outside the International Space Station Friday, repositioned two robot arm grapple mechanisms following repair work last month and carried out a variety of “get-ahead” tasks before calling it a day.

Expanding a single instant in time to 30 minutes, the upcoming Atlas 5 rockets with Cygnus cargo-delivery freighters bound for the International Space Station will have an unprecedented opportunity available to launch each day.