An unmanned Orbital ATK cargo ship rocket packed with food and supplies for the astronauts living at the International Space Station blasted off Tuesday from a NASA launch pad. <\/p>\n
The barrel-shaped Cygnus spacecraft, nestled atop a white Atlas V rocket, soared into the blue sky over Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:11 am (1511 GMT). <\/p>\n
\"Liftoff of the Atlas V rocket with Cygnus and the S.S. John Glenn, extending the research legacy for living and working in space,\" said US space agency commentator George Diller. <\/p>\n
The cargo ship was named after John Glenn, the famed astronaut who was the first American to orbit the Earth and who died last year at age 95. <\/p>\n
\"Cygnus is healthy and both solar arrays are deployed,\" Orbital ATK said in a statement later in the day. <\/p>\n
The mission is the company's seventh as part of a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to ferry supplies to the orbiting outpost. <\/p>\n
SpaceX also has a cargo contract with NASA worth $1.6 billion. <\/p>\n
The Cygnus spacecraft is loaded with 7,626 pounds (3,459 kilograms) of crew supplies, hardware and dozens of experiments aimed at studying fire, growing food and cancer therapies. <\/p>\n
- Plants and fire - <\/p>\n
It contains the Advanced Plant Habitat, which will help astronauts grow food and practice techniques for sustaining themselves on future long duration flights. <\/p>\n
The spacecraft is also carrying 38 small satellites called Cube Sats, which will be deployed later on. <\/p>\n
The Cygnus should arrive at the station on April 22, after the scheduled docking Thursday of a Russian Soyuz spaceship carrying cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and American astronaut Jack Fischer. <\/p>\n
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Peggy Whitson of NASA will operate the space station's robotic arm to grab the Cygnus and bring it in to berth at the lab at 6:05 am (1005 GMT) on Saturday, NASA said. <\/p>\n
After the astronauts unpack the Cygnus, they will reload it with trash that will burn up along with the spacecraft upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere on July 25. <\/p>\n
But before its mission comes to a fiery end, Cygnus will spend a couple of hours running an automated experiment to see how a large-scale fire acts in microgravity. <\/p>\n
\"While in space, after traveling a safe distance from the station, the fire is lit and data is collected before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere,\" said a statement from NASA. <\/p>\n
Known as Saffire-III, the experiment is the third in a series and aims to better understand how fire acts in space in order to safeguard future space missions. <\/p>\n
\"The experiment lasts about two-and-a-half hours, of which 20 minutes is the actual burn of a fabric panel measuring 0.4 meters (yards) wide by one meter long.\" <\/p>\n
A 360-degree live stream of the launch was broadcast on http:\/\/youtube.com\/nasatelevision<\/a>. <\/p>\n With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. <\/p>\n Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. <\/p>\n If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n See original here: An unmanned Orbital ATK cargo ship rocket packed with food and supplies for the astronauts living at the International Space Station blasted off Tuesday from a NASA launch pad. The barrel-shaped Cygnus spacecraft, nestled atop a white Atlas V rocket, soared into the blue sky over Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:11 am (1511 GMT). \"Liftoff of the Atlas V rocket with Cygnus and the S.S. Continue reading
\nOrbital ATK launches cargo to space station - Space Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"