S.S. J.R. Thompson launches towards space station on OA-9 mission.

Orbital ATK successfully launched their ninth contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station earlier this morning with a predawn liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia.  The Antares 230 launch vehicle lifted off from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at 4:44am EDT. After nine minutes of powered flight, the Cygnus spacecraft reached orbit with 7,400 pounds of cargo. 

Among the items being delivered to the space station is an experiment by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory called the Cold Atom Laboratory, which will attempt to cool an atom to just a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, the absolute coldest that an object could be. Also launched was an experiment to monitor the behavior of concrete in microgravity which could help engineers construct more resilient planetary habitats.

Sixteen bread loaf-sized cubists were launched, ten for transfer to the ISS for deployment and six for launch from Cygnus itself following the end of its resupply run in July.

Cygnus will arrive at the orbiting laboratory at 5:20am Thursday morning to begin a nearly two-month stay. Towards the end of its mission, Cygnus will perform a reboot maneuver to boost the space station into a higher orbit. This will be the first time a commercial cargo vehicle will boost the laboratory; currently, only Russian Progress freighters have the ability to boost the station.

Click here for all our Antares and Cygnus mission coverages.