Russian Supply Ship To Dock At Station

A robotic Russian supply ship is closing in on the International Space Station tonight in advance of a high-flying link-up scheduled early Wednesday.

The Progress cargo carrier is slated to dock at the station at 7:40 a.m. EDT -- a few days after its launch Sunday at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Live NASA TV coverage of the event will begin here in The Flame Trench at 7:15 a.m. EDT. Click the NASA TV button on the right to launch our NASA TV viewer. Refresh this page for periodic updates.

The Progress launch Sunday was the first since an Aug. 24 Soyuz rocket failure that effected plans for the next crew rotation at the station. The Soyuz U failure was blamed on a third-stage engine failure. That rocket and the Soyuz FG used to launch station crews have identical third-stage engines.

A successful docking Wednesday would completely clear the way for the planned Nov. 13 launch of a new station crew that includes U.S. astronaut Dan Burbank and two Russian cosmonauts: Anatoly Ivinishin and Anton Shkaplerov. The three-man crew is due to arrive at the station on Nov. 16.