Watch On
Russia plans to launch a cargo mission to the International Space Station today (Sept. 16), and you can watch the action live.
The robotic Progress 96 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 9:33 a.m. EDT (1333 GMT).
You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of NASA, or directly via the agency, beginning at 9:15 a.m. EDT (1315 GMT).
Progress 96 is loaded with about 3 tons of food, propellant and other supplies for the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The freighter will deliver this cargo two days after launch, if all goes according to plan. You’ll be able to watch rendezvous and docking activities when the time comes.
The freighter will remain docked to the orbiting lab for about five months. It will then be loaded up with trash and sent down to a fiery death in Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
The Progress 94 spacecraft met this fate on Sept. 7, departing from ISS’ Poisk module to make room for Progress 96.
Progress is one of four spacecraft that fly operational cargo missions to the ISS these days, along with Japan’s HTV-X, SpaceX‘s Dragon capsule and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus. All but Dragon are expendable, burning up in our air when their time in orbit is up.
There are currently seven people living aboard the ISS — NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir and Anil Menon; the European Space Agency‘s Sophie Adenot, who last month became the first French woman ever to perform a spacewalk; and Pyotr Dubrov, Andrey Fedyaev and Anna Kikina of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
