If a simple majority votes in favour, as is expected, Ms Rousseff will be automatically suspended from office.
Ms Rousseff made a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court to stop proceedings, but the move was rejected.
The
president is accused of illegally manipulating finances to hide a
growing public deficit ahead of her re-election in 2014, which she
denies.
- Anxiety over benefits for Brazil's poor
- Crisis timeline
- How did Brazil get here?
- Rousseff fights on
- Could Rousseff be impeached?
- Who could replace Rousseff?
Senator Fatima Bezerra from Ms Rousseff's Workers's Party said she would "vote against this farce".
"Those who back this coup d'etat won't ever be forgiven," she warned.
The other senators four senators from other parties who opposed the impeachment.
They
were Temario Mota of the Democratic Workers' Party, Randolfe Rodrigues
of REDE, Roberto Requiao of the PMDB and Vanessa Grazziotin of the
Communist Party of Brazil.
Senator Grazziotin said the impeachment
was just a pretext to put an end to the social programmes Ms Rousseff's
Workers' Party had brought in.
But the senators speaking out in favour of the impeachment were many more.
Senator
Alvaro Dias said that "they [the government] have already stolen so
much from us, don't let them steal our hope for a better future".
Among those who backed the impeachment trial was Aecio Neves, who lost to Ms Rousseff in the 2014 presidential election.
Earlier,
former football player Romario, who is now a senator for the Brazilian
Socialist Party, also referred to Brazil's economic problems, calling it
"a very serious crisis".
Football star-turned-senator Romario said he would vote in favour of the impeachment trial
One of the most passionate speakers in favour of the impeachment trial was Magno Malta of the Party of the Republic.
He compared the government of Ms Rousseff to "gangrene" which needed to be removed to make Brazil healthy again.
But the atmosphere in the upper house is a far cry from the packed lower house session on 17 April.
Mr Calheiros called the senators to order and told them to "pay attention and put their phones away".
A critical moment: Analysis by Wyre Davies, BBC Brazil correspondent
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (centre) has vowed to fight to the end
What has been a long, damaging and divisive
political process is at a critical moment as the 81 members of the
Brazilian Senate prepare to vote on whether or not to subject Dilma
Rousseff to a full impeachment trial.
The beleaguered president
denies the charges against her - that she illegally concealed the scale
of the budget deficit. Brazil's first female leader says that what is
really happening, first in the lower house of Congress and now in the
Senate, is a judicial coup by her political opponents to remove her
from office.
Whatever the real reasons for impeachment, there is
no doubt that Ms Rousseff's leftist Workers' Party is deeply unpopular,
with Brazil in the middle of an economic crisis and her government
embroiled in a huge corruption scandal.
In a recent interview with
the BBC, Ms Rousseff appeared to acknowledge that she would be
suspended pending an impeachment trial but she said would fight to clear
her name and fully intended to resume the final two years of her
presidency.
If the vote goes against her, Ms Rousseff will be replaced by Vice-President Michel Temer while the impeachment trial lasts.
She says Mr Temer is a traitor who is taking part in a political coup against her democratically elected government.
Her
chief of staff, Jaques Wagner, said Ms Rousseff was "outraged by the
injustice committed against her, but standing firm awaiting the
Senators' decision.
Ms Rousseff and her chief of staff, Jaques Wagner,
could be seen looking out from a window in the presidential palace
She has promised to fight to the end.
"I will
not resign. That never crossed my mind," she said during a speech at a
women's rights conference in the capital Brasilia on Tuesday.
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