Orbital Cargo Ship Finally Flies Atop Hired Rocket

United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launches at 4:44 p.m. with Cygnus spacecraft from Cape Canaveral heading toward the International Space Station.

An uncrewed spacecraft loaded down with Christmas presents, food, children’s books and other cargo is flying through space, on its way to resupply the six residents aboard the International Space Station.

Sunday’s launch was the 60th such launch of the Decatur, Alabama-built Atlas V rocket and is also notable for being ULA’s first mission supporting ISS cargo resupply.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, from his vantage point aboard the International Space Station, photographed the launch of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Launch Weather Office Clay Flinn briefed the Orbital ATK CRS-4 launch team in advance of fueling the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

Orbital’s previous grocery run, its fourth, ended in a fiery explosion seconds after liftoff in October 2014. Its next cargo ship, launched two months later, ended up in the Atlantic following a failure of its Falcon rocket.

The spacecraft will remain connected to the station through most of January as astronauts first unpack the new gear and then load some 3,000 pounds of used and unneeded equipment into the Cygnus along with trash. “With the help of our friends at ULA, who stepped forward and offered us a ride in a very short period of time, we’ve reached this point”, which is, he added, less than 12 months from the first discussion to launch.

On Sunday, the 194-foot tall Atlas rocket, did just that, blazing through cloudy skies over its seaside Florida launch pad as it headed into space.

The Deke Slayton II’s mission, dubbed OA-4, is delivering some 7,700 pounds (3,500 kg) of science experiments and supplies when it arrives at the station on Wednesday. It’s also the first Cygnus mission using the Atlas V launch system.

The ISS is also supplied by deliveries from Russia, Japan and Europe.

Orbital ATK is one of two private space companies NASA hired to service the space station. NASA normally likes to have a six-month stash of food aboard the space station, but it’s down a couple months because of the three failed flights.

Cygnus will be grappled at approximately 6:10 a.m. onWednesday, Dec. 9, by NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, using the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to take hold of the spacecraft.

“We’ve been consuming some of our critical spares”, Kirk Shireman, NASA ISS program manager, said at a December 2 press conference at the Kennedy Space Center.

The launch drew more attention than normal for station resupply missions because of several recent failures.