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A Northrop Grumman rocket carrying more than 4 tons of supplies for the International Space Station will have to wait at least one more day to launch after a fire alarm at its mission control center thwarted a liftoff early Sunday (Nov. 6). The Antares rocket was about 10 minutes away from a planned liftoff at 5:50 a.m. EST (1050 GMT) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, when Northrop Grumman called off the flight. A fire alarm at the company's control center in nearby Dulles, Virginia, forced a building evacuation, preventing launch controllers from going through with...

Any Freepers on the Delmarva know about rocket launches scheduled for this evening. I’m sitting here on my porch high atop Chapel Hill, NC with a view to the north from east to west. I just saw what appeared to be a rocket ascend from the horizon up to about 20 degrees and fade out. It was followed by 3 more, each appearing shortly after the previous ones disappeared. Unlike the airliners I can see from 30 or 40 miles out, these were all glowing red and followed similar paths. Figured the closest launch facility was at Wallops (I have...

The long-awaited launch of an Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station today has been delayed until Monday, a 24-hour slip, due to a glitch with ground support equipment, NASA officials said Sunday (Oct. 16). Antares is now scheduled to launch Monday (Oct. 17) at 7:40 p.m. EDT (2340 GMT) from Pad-0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility here. "Today's launch of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket is postponed 24 hours due to a ground support equipment (GSE) cable that did not perform as expected during the pre-launch check out," Keith Koehler, a...

Engineers erected a commercial Antares rocket vertical on its launch pad on Virginia’s Eastern Shore Friday, positioning the 13-story booster for liftoff Sunday night with more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station. With a Cygnus supply ship enclosed in its nose cone, the rocket rolled out of its Horizontal Integration Facility on a self-propelled transporter starting around 5:12 p.m. EDT (2112 GMT) Thursday for the mile-long journey to launch pad 0A on Wallops Island, Virginia. Orbital ATK’s ground team secured the rocket after reaching the seaside launch pad at dusk, then hoisted the booster...

The Cygnus space cargo craft atop the Antares rocket exploded just after launch. The Rocket lifted off, gained about 100 feet, there was an explosion, then the rocket fell back down and exploded on the pad at Wallops Island.

A space station deliver rocket scheduled launch Tuesday evening exploded and crashed as it took off from Wallops Island.

A private rocket NASA is counting on to make robotic cargo flights to the International Space Station achieved a key milestone today (Oct. 1), as its first stage rolled out to its Virginia launchpad for the first time. The first stage of Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket arrived today at its pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), which is located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia. The move marks the beginning of on-pad preparations for a series of important trials with Antares that will take place over the next few months, Orbital officials said. The company aims to...