The United Launch Alliance will try again Saturday to launch an Atlas V rocket after poor weather conditions scrubbed Thursday's and Friday's launch attempts.
Ground wind violations kept the rocket on the pad. The launch window will begin at 5:10:38 p.m. Saturday, with a 30-minute launch window. Weather is only 30 percent go for launch.
- Launch Window: 5:10 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015
- Mission: OA-4 (Supply mission to the International Space Station)
- Cargo: Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft carrying supplies for the ISS
- Vehicle: Atlas V 401 Rocket
- Launch: Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
- View: OA-4 Mission Overview
A mission of firsts
When the rocket does blast off, it will mark the 60th launch of an Atlas V rocket and the 30th launch of the rocket's 401 configuration, but it's the first time this type of rocket will ever launch a cargo ship to the International Space Station.
It's also the United Launch Alliance's first-ever resupply mission to the orbital outpost.
The Atlas V will send Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft into orbit. The cargo craft has been packed with 7,000 pounds of NASA supplies, science equipment and research bound for the ISS.
This launch is also Orbital's return-to-flight mission after a cargo ship was lost last year, when the company's Antares rocket exploded shortly after liftoff at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
- RELATED:
Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket explodes 6 seconds after liftoff, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, in Virginia. (NASA TV)
Not long after the explosion, Orbital chose the Atlas V as a substitute vehicle until they get back to flying themselves.
The Cygnus spacecraft set to launch is dubbed the S.S. Deke Slayton II, after the original Project Mercury astronaut and pioneer of the first privately funded rocket. The original S.S. Deke Slayton was the cargo craft lost in last year's explosion.
The Deke Slayton II is the first ISS-bound spacecraft that had been previously worked on inside the space station.
The mission also marks Orbital's first launch from Florida, and the first cargo mission to the ISS from American soil since SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was lost in June.
- RELATED: (June 28) SpaceX launch ends in failure, cargo lost
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