Live coverage: Soyuz crew capsule departs station, lands in Kazakhstan

Two spacewalking astronauts working outside the International Space Station Friday completed work to replace aging batteries in one of the lab’s eight main solar power circuits. A second spacewalk next week, along with additional work with the station’s robot arm, will upgrade a second power channel.

NASA commentator Dan Huot has everything you need to know about Russia’s Soyuz space capsule and provides a tour inside the cramped spacecraft, which, since the end of the shuttle program, has been the only way to ferry cosmonauts and astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The term “direct flight” will go to new heights Friday with a four-hour flight by a Soyuz rocket and its Fregat upper stage to deliver five satellites to three distinct orbital destinations hundreds of miles above Earth.