Commercial space station delivery faces more windy weather

If successfully launched, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s commercial cargo flights to the station will restart, ending its dependence on Russian and Japanese rockets.

With two hours remaining in the countdown, forecasters announced that the wind that had spoiled previous launch attempts finally had eased, and the sky was clear save for a few wispy clouds.

“Saturday’s attempt was called off because of high winds that were expected to violate launch criteria throughout the 30-minute launch window”, Xinhua quoted NASA as saying in a statement. The forecast for December 5 shows a 30 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for the launch tomorrow. The team will try again Sunday. Orbital ATK bought another company’s rocket, the veteran Atlas V, for this supply mission.

The mission also marks Orbital’s first launch from Florida, and the first cargo mission to the ISS from American soil since SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was lost in June.

Orbital’s last grocery run ended in a fiery explosion seconds after liftoff in October 2014.

The rocket holds 7,400 pounds of supplies, all packed into a capsule named Cygnus after the swan constellation.

Apart from much needed food, Orbital’s Cygnus cargo resupply vehicle also contains clothing and toiletries for six astronauts including spacewalking equipment and air supply tanks, along with scientific experiments. Space station program manager Kirk Shireman expects it will take another year to get the pantry full again – provided there are no more accidents.

The launch of the Cygnus cargo ship to the International Space Station (ISS) was rescheduled to Sunday due to bad weather, U.S. space agency NASA has said.