Bad cable delays comeback rocket launch from Virginia

Almost two years after Orbital ATK’s launch of the Antares rocket quickly turned catastrophic, a second launch is set for Monday night.

Cygnus is scheduled to arrive at the space station on 23 October.

According to NASA, the spacecraft will be carrying more than 5,000 pounds of science, supplies and equipment to the ISS space station.

Antare is believed to be NASA’s “biggest show” and the successful launch of the rocket proved that it’s back at Wallops Flight Facility.

NASA is paying Orbital ATK as well as the SpaceX company to deliver more than 5,000 pounds of cargo to the station. On Wednesday, three new crew members will launch aboard a Soyuz rocket for a two-day transit.

The launch comes almost two years after a rocket exploded shortly after takeoff from Wallops Island.

In October 2014, during a mission dubbed Orb-3, an Antares rocket exploded just after it left the launchpad.

Cygnus successfully separated from the Antares rocket and its Russian-made RD-180 engines minutes after takeoff.

Anyone with an interest in space travel has an opportunity tonight to watch the launch of a spacecraft from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Wallops Flight Facility.

The highly-anticipated launch, visible across much of the Mid-Atlantic, was full of drama and tension for Dulles-based Orbital ATK, which lost another unmanned Antares in a massive fireball two years ago.

The safe launch also gave NASA another option to resupply the space station since SpaceX, Orbital ATK’s commercial space company rival, experienced its own explosion last month and is grounded while investigators determined what went wrong, the Post reported.

The mission became more crucial for the USA space agency after a September 1 accident destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and a $200 million Israeli communications satellite. Poindexter, who was selected for NASA’s astronaut program in 1998, flew on two space shuttle missions during his career as an astronaut. Captain Poindexter was killed in a personal watercraft accident on July 1, 2012 in Florida.