Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. Space News

How to watch SpaceX deliver cargo and experiments to the ISS this week

By

This week will see a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft blast off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and head for the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver supplies and research to the crew there. The launch is scheduled for this Thursday, November 9, after having been rescheduled from earlier in the week to allow time for additional prelaunch checks.

If you’d like to watch the launch and docking of the SpaceX Dragon, NASA will be live-streaming those two events via its NASA TV channel, and we have the details on how to watch below.

Recommended Videos

What to expect from the launch

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon capsule soars upward after lifting off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 14, 2022, on the company’s 25th Commercial Resupply Services mission for the agency to the International Space Station. Liftoff was at 8:44 p.m. EDT. Dragon will deliver more than 5,800 pounds of cargo, including a variety of NASA investigations, to the space station. The spacecraft is expected to spend about a month attached to the orbiting outpost before it returns to Earth with research and return cargo, splashing down off the coast of Florida.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon capsule soars upward after lifting off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 14, 2022, on the company’s 25th Commercial Resupply Services mission for the agency to the International Space Station. Another such launch is scheduled for November 9. NASA/Kim Shiflett

This will be the 29th commercial resupply mission run by SpaceX, and it will use a Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon spacecraft to carry 6,500 pounds of cargo to the ISS. The cargo will include supplies for the crew, as well as new hardware for the station and a variety of scientific research experiments.

Related: 
The 8 best TVs for gaming in 2025, as vetted by our experts

Some highlights include a NASA laser communications test called ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low-Earth-Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal), and an accompanying piece of hardware called LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration), which are part of NASA’s ongoing tests into the user of laser communications.

The uncrewed spacecraft will launch on Thursday and travel to the station over several days, arriving early in the morning of Saturday, November 11. It will dock with the station’s Harmony module and stay docked to the station for approximately one month. Then it will be filled with completed research experiments and travel back to Earth, again without crew, to splash down off the coast of Florida.

How to watch the launch

Watch SpaceX's 29th Cargo Launch to the International Space Station (Official NASA Broadcast)

Coverage of the launch begins at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) on Thursday, November 9, with launch of the spacecraft scheduled for 8:28 p.m. ET (5:28 p.m. PT). Coverage of the spacecraft docking with the ISS will begin at 3:45 a.m. ET (12:45 a.m. PT) on Saturday, November 11, with docking scheduled for 5:21 a.m. ET (2:21 a.m. PT).

You can watch using the video embedded above or by heading to NASA’s YouTube page for the event.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Former Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Topics

Editors’ Recommendations

A SpaceX droneship just hit a milestone for rocket landings
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landing on the Just Read The Instructions droneship.

We hear a lot about SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets launching and landing multiple times, but what about the infrastructure that makes it possible?

A key part of the Falcon 9 missions involve droneships stationed in the ocean. These floating barges function as a landing platform for the returning first-stage Falcon 9 boosters when the mission profile means the rocket will have to land at sea rather than back at the launch site.

Read more
SpaceX’s recent Starship rocket launch captured in space station video
The sixth Starship mission captured from the ISS.

Views of Starship Flight 6 from International Space Station

NASA has shared a cool snippet of video captured from the International Space Station (ISS) that shows the recent SpaceX launch of the Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket.

Read more
SpaceX to launch NASA’s Dragonfly drone mission to Titan
Caption: Artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Over the last few years, the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars made history by proving it was possible to fly a rotorcraft on another planet. And soon NASA will take that concept one step further by launching a drone mission to explore an even more distant world: Saturn's icy moon of Titan.

The Dragonfly mission is set to explore Titan from the air, its eight rotors keeping it aloft as it moves through the thick atmosphere and passes over the rough, challenging terrain below. The aim is to look for potential habitability, studying the moon to work out if water-based or hydrocarbon-based life could ever have existed there.

Read more