NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio's First Launch to the Space Station (Official NASA Broadcast)

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, a member of NASA's 2017 astronaut candidate class, is set to begin his first mission to space this Wednesday, Sept. 21. Rubio will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin. MS-22 is scheduled to lift off at 9:54 a.m. EDT (13:54 UTC) Wednesday, Sept. 21; NASA TV coverage will begin at 9 a.m. After a two-orbit, three-hour journey, the Soyuz will dock to the International Space Station at 1:11 p.m. Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin are scheduled to spend six months aboard the station.