Space station resupply rocket gassed up for launch

Poor wind conditions grounded a critical space station delivery for NASA on Friday, the second day in a row the rocket launch has been delayed by weather.

An Orbital Cygnus spacecraft, perched atop an Atlas 5 rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA), which is a joint venture between, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, had been due to take off at 5:55p.m. EST.

That means another attempt will be made Friday, at 5:33 p.m., from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, to send the Orbital ATK capsule full of supplies into space aboard an Atlas V rocket.

An unmanned Atlas rocket stood ready to lift off at sunset with 7,400 pounds of supplies for the International Space Station, representing the first USA delivery in months.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 will launch the Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft on the initial leg of its cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It’s the first launch for Orbital since the company’s Antares rocket exploded on the launchpad last October, so the pressure to succeed is particularly high. Check back here at 4:30PM ET to watch the launch live. Thursday’s launch attempt was rained out. But if the spacecraft launches later in its 30-minute launch window, its rendezvous with the station will slip to Tuesday (Dec. 8), NASA officials explained in the update. “The forecast tomorrow calls for a 30% chance of acceptable conditions at launch time”, NASA reported. Orbital Sciences later formed part of Orbital ATK following a merger with Alliant Techsystems earlier this year. The other is SpaceX, which has a $1.6 billion contract to fly 12 missions for NASA using Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rockets. But it’s since picked up the slack, along with Japan. The last successful US supply run was in April.

A spacesuit and some water filters are among the key hardware on board, along with science experiments, food, clothes and probably Christmas presents for some of the station’s six-person crew, including a pair participating in a yearlong mission: American Scott Kelly and Russian Mikhail Kornienko.