Bad weather delays space station shipment

The rocket is scheduled to launch at 5:33 p.m. The launch was originally scheduled for Thursday but was delayed due to bad weather.

According to NASA, thick cloud and disturbed weather at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida prohibited the liftoff of the unmanned Orbital Sciences/ATK Cygnus CRS-4 mission and launch control ordered a 24-hr postponement at 6:11 pm EST.

The private Cygnus cargo spacecraft will have to wait a bit longer to make its highly anticipated return to orbit.

The latest commercial resupply mission for the International Space Station was gassed up and ready to go on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Friday evening, but uncooperative weather forced those in charge to scrub the liftoff for a second straight day.

It will be interesting to see if the space spacecraft takes off on Friday as current weather forecasts have predicted only 30% chances of favorable weather conditions. Last year, Orbital’ Antares rocket exploded just seconds into its launch to the ISS. The spacecraft is capable of delivering more than 7,700 pounds of essential crew supplies, equipment and scientific experiments to the International Space Station.

Investigators blamed the botched launch on a defective turbopump in one of Antares’ two main engines, a Soviet-era motor refurbished and sold by Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings. The last successful USA cargo mission to the station was the previous Dragon mission in April.

NASA’s other contracted shipper, SpaceX, has been grounded since a failed launch in June. A fire and explosion in the old Russian rocket engines doomed the October 2014 flight, the company’s fourth resupply mission. It was the company’s first failure since making the first commercial space station shipment in 2012. It will stay docked for a month as supplies are shifted into the ISS and trash is thrown back on the cargo ship, after which Cygnus will move back into Earth’s atmosphere for a “destructive re-entry”, disposing about 3,000 pounds worth of waste. Orbital Sciences later formed part of Orbital ATK following a merger with Alliant Techsystems earlier this year.