Atlas V, Cygnus blast off from Cape Canaveral to ISS

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket stands ready for a launch attempt Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, at launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

Sunday’s liftoff was the first time Cygnus flew on board a ULA Atlas V from the Cape, as Orbital ATK continues work to resume use of its own Antares booster from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia next year.

The latest commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station blasted off from Cape Canaveral Sunday afternoon with a hefty load of nearly 8,000 pounds of much-needed food, sundries, hardware and science experiments. Another Cygnus mission on an Atlas V will be launched in March, after which Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket will launch at least two ISS resupply missions in the second and fourth quarters of 2016.

The preliminary launch time is 4:44 p.m. EST at the opening of a 30-minute window.

This story has been corrected to reflect chance of launch is 40 percent, not 60 percent, in paragraph 4.

Cygnus, like most Orbital ATK spacecraft, is compatible with multiple launch vehicles, enabling the use of ULA’s Atlas V launch vehicle on this mission.

The resupply services contract between NASA and Orbital ATK requires 10 missions to the ISS that would total 63,272 lbs of cargo.

– The S.S. Deke Slayton II is now on its way to the International Space Station. And in a separate event earlier this year SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying an uncrewed Dragon capsule disintegrated above Florida, putting those cargo flights on hold as well.

The spacecraft is carrying probably the most cargo ever packed onto a barrel-formed Cygnus, with some 7,300 kilos (3,300 kilograms) of drugs, together with science experiments, prepared-made meals, a jet pack for spacewalking astronauts and even a satellite tv for pc made by elementary faculty college students. “#YearInSpace”, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who commands the station’s six-man crew and is flying a one-year mission to the outpost, wrote on Twitter after launch.

An Orbital rocket exploded on a supply run in October 2014, while SpaceX suffered a launch failure in June.

Over the course of the successful first two flights in Orbital ATK’s $1.9 billion, eight-flight contract with NASA, the company’s Cygnus vehicles have delivered more than 7,940 lbs. NASA aims to keep a six-month supply of food aboard and is now down to a four-month cushion.

The two US launch accidents, plus a failed Russian cargo run in April, have left the station’s storage bins a bit empty.