The Russian cargo vehicle Progress MS-09 launched on July 9th 2018 carrying approximately 2400 kilograms of supplies for the International Space Station. A pretty typical resupply mission save for two interesting facts:
1: This mission was launched at such a time that it could dock faster than any previous mission to the ISS, spending a little under 4 hours (just 2 orbits) in flight between launch and docking with the station.
2: This mission, when concluded, will remove the Pirs module from the station. This will be the first module of the ISS to be decommissioned, freeing up the Earth facing docking port for the upcoming Nauka module.
As for the launch, it was another wonderful Soyuz flight. Another beautiful night launch as well. For my enjoyment, I actually took to watching the Russian feed only – no NASA feed or any feed with English commentary. I’ve watched enough previous launches to know well the time frames for different events, what’s going on in general during flight, and even a few status updates in Russian. I gotta say it was a pretty awesome, immersive experience.
I don’t need moment by moment commentary to understand what’s going on, unlike fans of a certain other commercial space enterprise.
Below I’ll provide the usual compliment of videos related to the launch and docking of Progress MS-09.
Starting off, the actual full live feed I watched – cued up to the time of the launch. Interestingly, if you go back and skim the video you will see people working on the Soyuz booster, while it is fueled and just an hour away from launch! That’s just plain badass!
Beyond that, below we have launch replays, alternate feeds, the docking, and whatever else I can scrounge up. Enjoy!
Below is a video with the example of commentary that I just chose to skip this time around. Well worth it.
Here we have the docking of Progress MS-09 with the ISS. It’s actually an incredibly beautiful sight watching a Soyuz or Progress vehicle slowly, steadily drift towards its target. Of course, these vehicles actively dock with the station, unlike some other resupply craft.