The supply spacecraft Cygnus was launched last night on a replacement rocket - ULA's Delta 5 for the first time since the explosion of the launcher from the Hunter launcher carrying a supply spacecraft of this model over a year ago during the launch on the coast of Virginia
Last night (December 6, 2015) at 23:44 Israel time, a ULA (United Launch Services) Delta 4 model launcher carrying a Cygnus model supply spacecraft from Orbital ATK destined for the International Space Station was launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force base.
In doing so, Orbital renewed the launches of supply spacecraft for the first time since October 2014, when the Antares launcher, manufactured by Orbital and carrying a Cygnus-type cargo spacecraft, exploded shortly after launch on Wallops Island off the coast of Virginia, but as mentioned, it uses a launcher from another company.
The spaceship carries about 4 tons of supplies, including an experiment facility in the field of life sciences, a micro satellite launcher, Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality glasses set and other equipment. She is expected to arrive at the space station on Tuesday, December 10.
Orbital was forced to purchase the services of the United Launch Alliance (ULA), since it still has not been able to fix the malfunction that caused the explosion during the launch.
Last year there were also two other failures in launching cargo spacecraft to the space station, one in April 2015 by the second commercial company that launches supplies to the space station - SPACEX and in May by a Progress model supply spacecraft of the Russian Space Agency that failed to reach orbit.
Orbital stated that another launch is expected using a Delta 5 rocket in March 2016.
