Q&A with Mike Hawes, Lockheed Martin’s Orion program manager

Two astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station early Thursday and performed what amounted to hand transplant surgery on the lab’s Canadian-built robot arm, removing a crippled grapple fixture on one end of the space crane and replacing it with an on-board spare.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine says he is “fairly confident” that astronauts can fly to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship at the end of May or early June, pending final parachute tests, data reviews and a training schedule that can escape major impacts from the coronavirus pandemic.

Russia’s Progress MS-08 cargo carrier glided to an automated radar-guided link-up with the International Space Station on Thursday with three tons of fuel, water, supplies and experiments.