Space Station Live: January 4, 2016

Two cosmonauts ventured outside the International Space Station, jettisoning three no-longer-needed components and carrying out a photo survey of the Russian segment of the lab complex in the seventh and final spacewalk planned by the station crew this year.

A three-member space crew returned to Earth just after sunrise Thursday in Kazakhstan, descending through a sun-splashed sky under an orange and white parachute before dipping through fog for a rocket-cushioned touchdown on the snowy steppes of Central Asia.

A Long March 7 rocket lifted off Thursday with Tianzhou 1, an unpiloted refueling freighter heading for China’s Tiangong 2 mini-space station to conduct several months of robotic demonstrations, practicing for the assembly and maintenance of a future permanently-staffed orbital research complex.