Watch On
A Russian Progress freighter loaded with 2.8 tons of cargo will launch toward the International Space Station today (Sept. 11), and you can watch it live.
A Soyuz rocket is scheduled to lift off from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 11:54 a.m. EDT (1554 GMT; 8:54 p.m. local time in Kazakhstan), sending the robotic Progress 93 freighter into orbit.
You can watch the action here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin at 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT).
If all goes according to plan, Progress 93 will dock with the station’s Zvezda service module on Saturday (Sept. 13) at 1:27 p.m. EDT (1727 GMT), delivering 2.8 tons of food, propellant and other supplies to the astronauts of the current Expedition 73 mission on the ISS, according to a NASA update.
You can watch the rendezvous live as well; NASA’s coverage of that event will begin at 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT) on Saturday.
Progress 93 will stay docked with the ISS for about six months. It will then depart loaded with astronaut trash, which will burn up, along with the freighter, in Earth’s atmosphere.
Today’s launch will be followed in relatively short order by that of another freighter — Northrup Grumman’s Cygnus vehicle, which will lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday (Sept. 14) at 6:11 p.m. EDT (2211 GMT). You can watch that when the time comes as well.
Like Progress, Cygnus is designed for one-time use. But the other currently operational ISS cargo craft, SpaceX’s Dragon, is different: At the end of each mission, it splashes down in the ocean under parachutes for recovery and reuse.