Gallery: Antares rocket explodes

Lending a helping hand to resume the stalled U.S. supply chain to the International Space Station, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will send a commercial Cygnus cargo craft in pursuit of the outpost Thursday.

Watch the pre-launch news conference held Monday, March 21 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to preview liftoff of the Orbital ATK commercial Cygnus cargo ship aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket for the International Space Station.

No one had ever lost 26 satellites at once until a launch failure bit Planet Labs last year, temporarily setting back the San Francisco startup’s ambition to map the globe every day.