spacetoday.net: Antares launches cargo mission to ISS

Posted: Fri, Jan 10, 2014, 6:44 AM ET (1144 GMT)
Antares launch of Cygnus on Orb-1 (NASA)

An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket launched a Cygnus cargo spacecraft on a mission to the International Space Station on Thursday. The Antares rocket lifted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia, at 1:07 pm EST (1807 GMT) and released the Cygnus cargo spacecraft into low Earth orbit 10 minutes later. The spacecraft, carrying 1,260 kilograms of cargo, will berth with the ISS on Sunday. The Cygnus payload includes supplies and experiments for the ISS, as well as a number of smallsats that will be deployed later from the ISS, including 28 smallsats for commercial remote sensing company Planet Labs. The launch was scheduled for last month but postponed because of work to repair a coolant system on the ISS; the launch slipped this week because of cold weather conditions at the launch site and, most recently, because of elevated space radiation levels from a solar flare.