‘Orbital ATK on successful launch: “Very proud of the team”

company orbital a-t-k — celebrated a successful launch of the antares rocket last night. it was a highly anticipated event — considering what happened on that spot nearly 2 years ago — when a rocket exploded just seconds after lift-off. as 47abc’s lili zheng reports — careful decisions were made up to minute of the launch — until the flight time. track 1 a five minute delay monday night — on a mission nearly two years in the making. resulting — in success. nat pop i’m very proud of the team. they’ve done a fantastic job getting ready for this flight, putting everything together track 2 frank culbertson is president of orbital atk’s space systems group — the manufacturer of the antares rocket. monday’s launch — carrying roughly 51-hundred pounds of cargo on the cygnus spacecraft to the international space station — marked the first antares rocket to fly from nasa’s wallops islandfacility since october 2014. that’s when an antares rocket — also carrying cargo meant to resupply the iss — exploded seconds after liftoff. nat pop? this mission — according to culbertson — required absolute confidence from crews. a reason — explaining why the launch was delayed until 7:45 pm. as we got into the last ten minutes of the countdown, they were through things very carefully and the launch conductor decided he wanted to take just a little bit extra time and make sure we didn’t skip anything, miss anything, make any mistakes track 3 according to culbertson — the spacecraft is expected to reach the iss on sunday morning where it will stay until november. lili zheng, 47abc. orbital atk also says — they have six more missions scheduled to fly out of wallops island in the future. find these stories and more online – just logon to 47 abc-dot-com. the 2016 presidential race is being called