Russia will launch the robotic Progress 87 cargo ship on a Valentine’s Day delivery mission to the International Space Station tonight (Feb. 14), and you can watch the action live online.
The Progress 87 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan tonight at 10:25 p.m. EST (0325 GMT and 8:25 a.m. on Feb. 15 local time in Baikonur).
You can watch the launch live here at Space.com courtesy of NASA or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin at 10 p.m. EST (0300 GMT on Feb. 15).
Related: Facts about Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency
Progress 87 is carrying about 3 tons of food, propellant and other supplies for the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
If all goes according to plan, the freighter will reach the orbiting lab early Saturday (Feb. 17), docking with the Russian Zvezda service module at 1:12 a.m. EST (0612 GMT). You can watch that rendezvous live here as well, via NASA; coverage will begin at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT) on Saturday.
Progress spacecraft one of three robotic spacecraft that currently fly resupply missions to the ISS, along with Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus vehicle and SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon capsule.
Progress and Cygnus are expendable spacecraft, burning up in Earth’s atmosphere when their time in orbit is done. But Dragon is designed to be reusable; it splashes down safely in the ocean under parachutes, which means it can bring science samples back down to Earth.
