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Watch Soyuz rocket launch new US-Russian crew to the ISS early April 8

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Liftoff of the Soyuz MS-27 mission is scheduled for Tuesday (April 8) at 1:47 a.m. ET.

NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim Soyuz MS-27 Docking - YouTube NASA Astronaut Jonny Kim Soyuz MS-27 Docking - YouTube
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Three astronauts will launch toward the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday morning (April 8), and you can watch the action live.

A Russian Soyuz rocket is scheduled to lift off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday at 1:47 a.m. EDT (0557 GMT; 10:47 a.m. local time in Kazakhstan), sending NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky to the orbiting lab.

You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT) on Tuesday.

three men in white spacesuits sit beneath the american and russian flags

The crew of the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft, which will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station on April 8, 2025. From left to right: NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. (Image credit: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center)

The trio's Soyuz capsule will arrive at the ISS on Tuesday at 5:03 a.m. EDT (0903 GMT), if all goes according to plan. You can watch the docking live, as well as hatch opening, which is expected around 7:20 a.m. EDT (1120 GMT).

Kim, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky will spend about eight months aboard the ISS, serving on the orbiting lab's Expedition 72 and 73 missions. They're scheduled to come back to Earth in December.

Related: Soyuz spacecraft: Backbone of Russian space program

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This will be the first spaceflight for Kim and Zubritsky and the third for Ryzhikov, according to NASA.

Ryzhikov has already served two six-month stints on the ISS, living aboard the orbiting lab from October 2016 to April 2017 and from October 2020 to April 2021.

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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