An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen as it launches from Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Thursday, January 9, 2014, Wallops Island, VA.
NASA may have retired its fleet of space shuttles, but a growing fleet of privately-owned spacecraft is rushing to fill in the gaps. The most recent voyage was made by an unmanned spacecraft from Orbital Sciences Corp. which made its first successful delivery to the International Space Station on Sunday.
CNN reports that Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft docked at the space station with 2,780 pounds of supplies. It is the second private carrier after SpaceX to have begun fulfilling NASA’s shipment orders to outer space.
[CNN]