Antares rocket successfully launches, en-route to deliver cargo to International Space Station

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. – With clear skies at NASA’s Wallops Island flight facility, conditions were ideal for the Antares rocket launch carrying the Cygnus spacecraft up to astronauts at the International Space Station.

Early Saturday morning, a dazzling spectacle illuminated the night sky. Out of a billowing plume of smoke, the Antares rocket soared towards the stars sending bands of orange and yellow out into the atmosphere, rattling the earth below.

Vicki Cox, Director of Communications for Northrop Grumman said, “This was a picture perfect launch!”

Bad weather forced NASA to delay this launch by two days.  47 ABC is told the launch needed to be perfect because astronauts are counting on this mission’s success.

Cox said, “We want make sure the astronauts have what they need to continue their experiments and work aboard the International Space Station.”

Fully equipped with food, supplies, and experiment materials the Cygnus cargo-craft is expected to detach from it’s rocket on Monday November 19th and hook up to the space station.

From there, astronauts will unload these items revealing a special holiday surprise.

“On this particular mission they’ve get some thanksgiving treats and they’re gonna be taken care of for quite a few months,” Cox said.

Praising NASA, Northrop Grumman, and several others committed to this joint-effort mission, Cox is relieved that things went as planned over at wallops on Saturday.

“With a rocket launch like this, everything went the way that it should have gone and that’s why everybody was excited to just look up into the sky and see all their hard work pay off.”

There’s a lot of meteorological factors that experts must take into consideration in order to ensure a perfect blast off.

Cox tells 47 ABC it is crucial for the skies to be clear.

If there are certain amounts of cloud cover present in the atmosphere, this can interfere with critical communications.

When there’s interference between communications, this will ultimately throw off a strategically planned mission to space.

Cox said, “All conditions have to be perfect especially when it comes to the weather. We’ve had torrential rains over the past couple of days, high winds, high seas and not good optimal conditions for a rocket launch.”

On Saturday, conditions were ideal for a rocket launch as the skies were finally clear.

This launch was named in honor of John Young.

He was NASA’s longest serving astronaut, and 47 ABC is told he was a space visionary who contributed to the development of the International Space Station among several other career accomplishments.