Space Station Team Prepares for Launch Set to be Aired Live From Times Square

Final preparations are underway for the launch of the next trio headed for the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata and Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federation are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Nov. 7, docking with the orbiting lab roughly six hours later.

The arrival of the new crew will bring the total number of people aboard the station to nine for the first time without a shuttle since October 2009.

The Olympic torch will also arrive aboard the Soyuz capsule in what will mark its longest leg in the relay prior to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Russian Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy will carry the torch outside the station during a symbolic spacewalk Nov. 9 that will be streamed live on NASA TV.

Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano will bring the torch back with them when they return to Earth Nov. 10, ending their five months in space.

The torch will return to Earth along with Yurchikhin, Nyberg and Parmitano on Nov. 10 when they board their Soyuz for the journey home after more than five months in space. Their departure will free up the port known as Zvezda for the Progress resupply vehicle scheduled to arrive in late November.

Those living in or near New York City will be given the chance to view Mastracchio, Wakata and Tyurin's departure live from Times Square's massive screen beginning at 10:15 p.m.

"The space station serves as a unique laboratory for researchers around the world, home to astronauts from multiple countries, and was built with international cooperation, so it's fitting to show the launch of the next crew in the most cosmopolitan city in the United States," William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said in a statement about the decision.