Q&A with Eric Smith, JWST program director

Launch of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Friday carrying three fresh crew members to the International Space Station will boost the lab’s crew back to six and, most important from NASA’s perspective, dramatically boost research with four crew members — three NASA astronauts and a veteran European flier — available to operate experiments in the American segment of the laboratory.

Two days after lifting off from Florida’s Space Coast, a Dragon cargo capsule packed with more than 6,400 pounds of research experiments and crew supplies arrived at the International Space Station on Wednesday. Astronaut Jack Fischer used the station’s robotic arm to grapple the supply ship at 6:52 a.m. EDT (1052 GMT).

NASA awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth as much as $84.5 million earlier this month to supply rocket motors for a first-of-its-kind launch vehicle to fire a capsule of rock samples off of Mars on a journey back to Earth.