Live coverage: Two Americans, one Russian back on Earth from space station

It will take less than 10 minutes for a Long March 2F rocket to send two astronauts inside the Shenzhou 11 space capsule on course toward a docking with China’s Tiangong 2 space lab.

SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship reached the International Space Station on Wednesday, with astronaut Jeff Williams grappling the unpiloted spacecraft with the research lab’s robotic arm at 6:56 a.m. EDT (1056 GMT) after an automated rendezvous.

Two astronauts floated outside the International Space Station early Friday for the first of four planned spacewalks to wrap up a complex multi-year job to replace 48 aging batteries in the lab’s solar power system with 24 more powerful lithium-ion units.