CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A supply run to the International Space Station has been delayed a day by a stray plane.
Everything was going well in Saturday morning’s launch countdown in Virginia. But at the last minute, a plane flew into the restricted airspace at Wallops Island. That prompted NASA’s commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, to call off the liftoff.
The Virginia-based company will try again Sunday morning to launch its unmanned Antares rocket with 7,400 pounds of cargo. The Cygnus capsule contains fresh fruit, vegetables and ice cream bars for the six station astronauts, plus mealworms and micro clover for student experiments.
Sunday’s 7:14 a.m. launch should be visible as far north as Boston and as far south as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. But sunrise will make it hard to see.
This will be Orbital ATK’s first launch from its home base in more than a year. The last time it made a space station delivery, it used another company’s rocket flying from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The space station crew, meanwhile, took advantage of the lull to beam down thanks to U.S. veterans and wish everyone a happy Veterans’ Day.
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Online:
Orbital ATK: https://www.orbitalatk.com/