Progress 96 mission to bring supplies to the ISS on September 9: How to watch the resupply live
The International Space Station (ISS) is about to be restocked with food, fuel, and other supplies. On September 9, 2026, Roscosmos’ Progress 96 cargo spacecraft will launch toward the station at 12:15 pm EDT (9:15 pm local time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will be loaded with about three tons of supplies, which should sustain the seven-person crew of Expedition 75 onboard the orbital laboratory for the foreseeable future.
.@NASA will provide live coverage of the launch and docking of a Roscosmos cargo spacecraft carrying about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the crew aboard the @Space_Station.
— NASA Space Operations (@NASASpaceOps) September 3, 2026
The unpiloted Progress 96 resupply spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 12:15 p.m. EDT (9:15… pic.twitter.com/quVhvAVtN5
How to watch the Progress 96 mission live coverage
NASA is set to stream both Wednesday’s launch and the arrival of the Progress spacecraft at the station two days later. Launch coverage will begin at 12:00 pm EDT on September 9, and the following Friday, one can catch the docking operations by tuning in at 1:45 pm EDT. Streaming of both events will be available across a variety of platforms including Discovery+, Amazon Prime Video, and NASA+, as well as on the agency’s X account and YouTube channel. Any important updates during the mission will also be posted to NASA’s blog.
What exactly happens during Progress 96
The third resupply mission of the year by Roscosmos will commence with the launch of a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from Baikonur. Once the booster puts the spacecraft into orbit, it will gradually approach the orbital outpost before an autonomous rendezvous procedure is begun by mission controllers in Korolyov, near Moscow. Docking with the space-facing port of the Poisk module in the Russian segment of the ISS is scheduled for 2:37 pm EDT next Friday.
Departure of Progress 94
Before the Progress 96 spacecraft can be docked to the space-facing port of the station’s Poisk module, the Progress 94 spacecraft that is currently attached to it will be carefully undocked. This procedure will take place on September 7 at 11:18 am, although it will not be streamed live. The spacecraft will end up burning up during its descent to Earth, with fluids having been transferred to it by Andrey Fedyaev of SpaceX Crew-12.
.@NorthropGrumman's Cygnus XL spacecraft fired its thrusters today boosting the space station's orbit to prepare for the launch of the Progress 96 resupply ship in early September. More... https://t.co/tTwlPWjCAf pic.twitter.com/KRaj2DJtaV
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) August 27, 2026
Before the arrival of Progress 96 to the station and its subsequent destructive re-entry into the atmosphere five months later after undocking, the orbital complex's orbit was raised by two-tenths of a mile at apogee and 2.6 miles at perigee. This was done using Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL spacecraft last month, which is a part of the 24th Commercial Resupply Services mission by the company. Earlier on, April 2026 saw the arrival of the Progress 95 resupply spacecraft to the station. Just a month prior to this, Progress 94’s arrival was marred by the failure of one of the KURS antennas to deploy, which meant that an automated sequence could not be initiated. The previous space station commander, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, had to take manual control remotely by using the TORU (Telerobotically Operated Rendezvous System) from within the station to bring the cargo home.
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