Video: Soyuz MS-01 leaves the space station for landing

Space station commander Chris Cassidy and Robert Behnken plan to float outside Friday for the first of up to four spacewalks needed to complete the replacement of aging batteries in the lab’s solar power system. NASA managers hope to get the work done in time for Behnken and crewmate Douglas Hurley to return to Earth aboard their Crew Dragon capsule by around Aug. 2, officials said Wednesday.

A forecast of low ceilings, thick clouds and rainy weather Thursday has led NASA and Northrop Grumman officials to push back the launch of an Antares rocket and a space station-bound supply ship from Virginia’s Eastern Shore to Friday morning.

A NASA astronaut and two cosmonaut crewmates strapped into their Soyuz ferry ship Monday evening, undocked from the International Space Station and plunged to an on-target landing on the frigid steppe of Kazakhstan early Tuesday to wrap up an eight-month mission.