Three astronauts will fly to the ISS today. How to watch the NASA broadcast?

The latest manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for September 15, and in just a few hours a three-person team will fly into low Earth orbit. Here’s where you can watch the rocket launch.

Soyuz MS-24 mission – when and where to watch the astronauts’ departure to the ISS?

The crew on board the Russian Soyuz rocket consists of NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, representing the USA, and two cosmonauts from Russia – Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chuba.

The launch will take place at 17:44 Polish time. NASA will normally broadcast the event on its official YouTube channel, as well as on NASA TV and NASA App. The stream will start at 4:45 p.m.

The rocket will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Interestingly, it is one of the oldest and largest facilities of this type in the world. After leaving the atmosphere, the astronauts will travel for several hours before approaching the ISS and docking with the station. This point in the mission is scheduled to occur around 8:56 p.m. Polish time.

ISS and Soyuz MS-24 – changing of the guard at the NASA station

Currently, the International Space Station hosts 7 crew members. These are four astronauts from the SpaceX Crew-7 mission and three people from the previous Soyuz MS-23 mission. Specialists brought by a private mission from Elon Musk’s company have been at the station since the end of August. Meanwhile, the remaining crew has been in orbit since February 2023.

An interesting fact is that there is a record holder on board the station. Frank Rubio set a NASA record by staying in space for a total of 371 days. He has already beaten the previous time of 355 days, which Mark Vande Hei set last year. However, the overall record belongs to Russian Valery Polyakov, who spent a total of 437 days in orbit during the mission launched in 1994.