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The International Space Station received its first shipment from a private, Virginia-based company in more than two years Sunday following a sensational nighttime launch observed 250 miles up and down the East Coast.
Orbital ATK's cargo ship pulled up at the space station bearing 5,000 pounds of food, equipment and research.
"What a beautiful vehicle," said Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, who used the station's big robot arm to grab the vessel. The capture occurred as the spacecraft soared 250 miles above Kyrgyzstan; Onishi likened it to the last 195 meters of a marathon.
Last Monday's liftoff from Wallops Island was the first by an Antares rocket since a 2014 launch explosion. Orbital ATK redesigned its Antares rocket and rebuilt the pad. While the Antares was grounded, Virginia-based Orbital ATK kept the NASA supply chain open with deliveries from Cape Canaveral, Florida, using another company's rocket.
NASA is paying Orbital ATK and SpaceX to stock the station, but now SpaceX is grounded. The California company is investigating why one of its Falcon rockets exploded in a massive fireball during launch pad testing on Sept. 1.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:22AM
You never will, and this is because there IS no vehicle. The "space program", which comes into the "private sector" variety these days is a hoax: no machines "orbit" the Earth, as common sense and physics can tell you. Satellites allegedly measure in the tens of thousands, yet nobody ever seen one.
Are there moving lights on the dome? You bet. Have they been put there by NASA and "the private space sector" (which audaciously advertises itself as a thing)? No, they have not.
One word: thermosphere.