Watch a New US-Russian Crew Launch to Space Station This Pi Day! - Space.com

A trio of astronauts will blast off for a six-month stay at the International Space Station today (March 14), and you can watch the launch live.

It's a Pi Day launch for NASA, with liftoff scheduled on 3/14 at 3:14 p.m. EDT (1914 GMT), mimicking the iconic number, from Russia's launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. You can watch the launch live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV, or directly at the agency's website. NASA's webcast will begin at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT).

The three crewmembers headed to the orbiting laboratory are rookie NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch and veteran Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. Hague and Ovchinin were originally slated to start their space station visit in October, but their rocket suffered a booster anomaly that triggered an emergency launch abort and sent the pair back to Earth.

After liftoff, the trio will spend about 6 hours en route to the International Space Station, where they will join the current crew of NASA astronaut Anne McClain, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, who all arrived in December.

The new crewmembers will need to settle in quickly: Hague and Koch are each scheduled to conduct a spacewalk later this month, both joined by McClain. The second of those excursions, on March 29, will be the first spacewalk conducted exclusively by female astronauts.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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