NASA delivery company launches supplies to space station for first time in two years

Reporting from CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  —  One of NASA’s main delivery companies launched its first space station shipment from Virginia in two years Monday night, lighting up the East Coast.

It was the first flight of Orbital ATK’s unmanned Antares rocket since a launch explosion on Oct. 28, 2014, that wrecked the pad and destroyed everything on the space station supply run.

For the long-awaited comeback, the pad underwent a $15-million restoration, and the Antares got new Russian engines to replace the vintage ones from a half-century earlier. As the Antares streaked through the night sky from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, it appeared as though all the work had paid off. Launch controllers applauded when the supply ship reached orbit and victory was declared.

The launch provided a show for sky gazers along much of the East Coast. Reports poured in via Twitter from observers in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, even central Pennsylvania. The potential viewing area stretched as far south as Charleston, S.C., and north to Boston.

Getting a lift from the Antares was Orbital ATK’s Cygnus capsule, loaded with more than 5,000 pounds of food, equipment and research, including some experiments to study flames in space and the robotic toy ball, Sphero, part of an educational effort.

The Cygnus — named after the swan constellation — will have to hang around in orbit until Sunday before delivering the goods. That’s because three astronauts are awaiting launch from Kazakhstan on Wednesday, which would get them to the space station on Friday. NASA wants the new crew to settle in before the Cygnus pulls up.

This will be the sixth Cygnus to arrive at the orbiting outpost since 2013. While the Antares was being redesigned, Orbital ATK made good on two deliveries using another company’s rockets flying from Cape Canaveral.

NASA’s other commercial shipper, SpaceX, has made nine station deliveries since 2012 but is currently grounded, pending an investigation into last month’s launch pad explosion at Cape Canaveral.

Given the riskiness of space flight, Orbital ATK officials expressed nervousness before the launch but said they had full confidence in the final product.

NASA has been relying on Orbital ATK and SpaceX to keep the space station stocked since the shuttles retired in 2011.

Next up will be commercial flights for the station crews, as the space agency works on getting astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.

SpaceX and Boeing are building capsules to carry U.S. astronauts to the 250-mile-high station; those launches are expected in the next couple of years. Until then, NASA will keep flying its astronauts on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

The space station is currently home to an American, a Russian and a third astronaut from Japan. They will be joined by an American and two Russians.

Orbital ATK weathered brief hurricane delays over the past week and a half, then a bad cable at the pad Sunday bumped the launch by a day.

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