A Russian Progress freighter launched toward the International Space Station today (Sept. 11) on a mission to deliver several tons of cargo for the station's astronaut crew.
A Soyuz rocket lifted 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.
Following a nominal liftoff, Soyuz jettisoned its side boosters 1 minute 58 seconds into flight. The rocket's primary booster burned for just under 3 more minutes and then performed a successful separation from the launch vehicle's upper stage, which completed the spacecraft's orbital insertion.
Progress 93 is slated to dock with the station's Zvezda service module, 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. Docking is scheduled to occur on Saturday (Sept. 13) at 1:27 p.m. EDT (1727 GMT).
A broadcast of the rendezvous will be available live; 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 and the NG-23 mission, 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.
