Video: Change of command aboard International Space Station

The 81st flight of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, set for liftoff Friday from Cape Canaveral, will come with its share of firsts when it sends Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule toward the International Space Station on an unpiloted test flight. The launcher will fly without a payload shroud, which typically envelopes satellites during liftoff, and it will debut an uprated dual-engine Centaur upper stage that will power the Starliner on a unique suborbital trajectory optimized for astronaut comfort.

U.S. spacewalk 94 was slated to have NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman perform a variety of operations around the orbiting outpost during the roughly 6.5-hour-long event. A new date for the spacewalk hasn’t been announced.

Four days after a picture-perfect blastoff from southern Japan, a cargo-carrying supply freighter arrived at the International Space Station on Tuesday with 4.5 tons of equipment, food, clothing and experiments.