Russian Progress spacecraft delivers 3 tons of cargo to the ISS (video)

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Russia's robotic Progress 96 cargo spacecraft met up with the space station today (Sept. 19).

Progress 96 launched atop a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday (Sept. 16), kicking off a three-day orbital chase of the International Space Station (ISS).

That chase came to an end today at 9:44 a.m. EDT (1344 GMT), when the freighter docked with the space-facing port of the ISS' Poisk module. The two spacecraft were flying 260 miles (418 kilometers) above the Black Sea at the time, according to NASA's docking webcast.

Russia's Progress 96 cargo spacecraft arrives at the International Space Station on Sept. 19, 2026. (Image credit: NASA)

Progress 96 carried about 3 tons of food, fuel and other supplies for the occupants of the ISS.

There are currently seven of those folks: Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir and Anil Menon of NASA, the European Space Agency 's Sophie Adenot, and Pyotr Dubrov, Andrey Fedyaev and Anna Kikina of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos .

Progress 96 will stay attached to the ISS for about five months. It will then be loaded up with trash and sent to burn up in Earth's atmosphere .

This is the ultimate fate of most ISS resupply spacecraft — every Progress, HTV-X vehicle (which is built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Cygnus (provided by Northrop Grumman). The only reusable freighter in the current fleet is SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

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Editor's note: This story was updated at 9:55 a.m. ET on Sept. 19 with news of successful docking.