Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

Launch of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Friday carrying three fresh crew members to the International Space Station will boost the lab’s crew back to six and, most important from NASA’s perspective, dramatically boost research with four crew members — three NASA astronauts and a veteran European flier — available to operate experiments in the American segment of the laboratory.

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover, 14 years past its original 90-day design life, has dropped out of contact with Earth after powering down everything but its master clock in a bid to weather a huge dust storm that is blotting out the sun, preventing the solar-powered rover from recharging its batteries, mission managers said Wednesday.

The International Space Station’s oldest sections launched nearly 17 years ago, and with the huge orbiting research complex now well into its operational life as a microgravity science lab, prime contractor Boeing’s job is keeping the outpost going, according to Mark Mulqueen, who manages the aerospace company’s space station program.