Live coverage: Veteran three-man crew docks with space station

Two newly arrived space station astronauts, both veteran spacewalkers, suited up and ventured outside the lab complex Thursday to install additional wireless communications gear, to replace a balky camera and its pan-and-tilt mechanism and to remove two suspect hoses in the station’s ammonia coolant system.

A modest European-built spacecraft tuned to test the delicate, cutting edge technologies required to detect gravitational waves, a measurement that scientists say could yield unforeseen discoveries about the universe, is awaiting liftoff aboard a solid-fueled Vega rocket this week.

The European Space Agency’s Aeolus winds observatory is set for liftoff aboard a Vega rocket to kick off a three-year mission to measure global wind profiles from an orbit nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) above Earth.