Live coverage: Soyuz crew lands in Kazakhstan

Astronauts Randy Bresnik and Mark Vande Hei headed outside the International Space Station Thursday on a spacewalk to replace one end of the lab’s Canadian-built robotic arm, a changeout that engineers say will restore the device to full capability.

Taking a lesson from a launch mishap last June, SpaceX wrote coded commands for future Dragon cargo capsules to deploy their parachutes for an emergency landing in the event of rocket failures, starting with Friday’s resupply flight to the International Space Station.

The Atlas 5 rocket emerges Monday from the Vertical Integration Facility for rollout to Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral in preparation to launch the Orbital ATK Cygnus resupply ship to the International Space Station.