The former intelligence analyst, who turns 24 on Saturday, is scheduled to attend a preliminary hearing starting at 9:00 am (1400 GMT) at the headquarters of the top secret National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland.
The so-called "Article 32 hearing," which could last up to a week, is being held to decide whether Manning, who has been in US military custody for over 18 months, should face a formal court-martial.
Manning is accused of downloading 260,000 US diplomatic cables, videos of US air strikes and US military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq between November 2009 and May 2010 while serving in Iraq and transferring them to WikiLeaks.
In instant message chats with Adrian Lamo, the former computer hacker who turned him over to the authorities, Manning said the material "belongs in the public domain" and its release would hopefully trigger "worldwide discussion, debates and reforms."
"I want people to see the truth, regardless of who they are, because without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public," Manning said in the chat logs published by Wired.com in which Manning used the handle "bradass87."
Such statements have made Manning a hero to anti-war activists and his supporters, including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, plan to hold vigils and rallies outside the gates of Fort Meade during the hearing.
The US government, however, denounced the document dump, one of the worst intelligence breaches in American history, as a "criminal" move which endangered national security and foreign policy.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking on Thursday on the eve of Manning's hearing, said it was a "very unfortunate and damaging action... that put at risk individuals and relationships."
Manning is facing a string of charges, the most serious being aiding the enemy, which could land him life in prison. Aiding the enemy can be a capital offense but the military has said it will not seek the death penalty.
Other charges include "wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet," violating military security regulations, computer fraud and theft of public property and records.
Manning was arrested on May 26, 2010 and has been in American military custody since then in Kuwait, at a US Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, and at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
According to Manning's lead counsel, David Coombs, the hearing opening on Friday will provide the defense with an opportunity to "test the relative strengths and weaknesses of the government's case."
Coombs requested the appearance of 48 witnesses at the hearing, including Clinton, former defense secretary Robert Gates and President Barack Obama, but the demand was rejected and the list of witnesses cut to 10.
State department spokesman PJ Crowley resigned after publicly criticising the detention conditions of Mr Manning, and British politicians have also spoken out on the subject.
Mr Manning was brought to the maximum security prison at Quantico in July 2010, where he was held in isolation and was reported to have had his clothing removed at night as a suicide-prevention measure.
But in April 2011 Mr Manning was moved to a lower security prison at Fort Leavenworth, where his lawyers say conditions are better.
Friday's hearing, at Fort Meade in Mayland, is open to members of the public, who can queue up at the base to get in.
Mr Manning's defenders see him as a hero. Some view the release of the cables, with their frank discussion of corruption in some countries, as having contributed to the Arab Spring protests in the Middle East.
Mr Manning was caught after he bragged about his activities to former hacker Adrian Lamo, who turned him in to authorities, Lamo told Reuters.
Lamo said Mr Manning, who worked as an intelligence analyst for the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Brigade in Iraq, told him he would come into work with music on a recordable CD labled "something like 'Lady Gaga." He would then erase the music and download data from the military's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, known as SIPRNet.
Mr Manning said he "listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's song 'Telephone' while exfiltratrating possibly the largest data spillage in (A)merican history," according to a transcript of his Internet chats with Lamo, the details of which were confirmed by Lamo to Reuters and which were published by Wired Magazine.
In his Internet chats with Lamo, Mr Manning appears to acknowledged giving materials to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He wrote to Lamo: "I'm a high profile source ... and I've developed a relationship with Assange."
For his part, Assange is in Britain fighting extradition to Sweden over accusations of rape and sexual assault made by two female former WikiLeaks volunteers in August 2010.
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