Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft departs International Space Station

A three-stage Soyuz booster rocket, capped by a three-person crew transport capsule, rolled out to a launch pad in Kazakhstan on Monday, two days before blasting off with new residents headed for the International Space Station.

Two space station astronauts are gearing up for a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk Friday to replace a presumably shorted out solar array voltage regulator that knocked one of the lab’s eight power channels out of action late last year.

A commercial Dragon supply freighter built and owned by SpaceX rocketed into a clear blue sky over Florida’s Space Coast Thursday with a menagerie of research experiments and holiday surprises heading for the International Space Station.