Video: Time lapse of ATV’s final departure from ISS

Ground teams at the Kennedy Space Center were packing last-minute cargo into a commercial Dragon supply ship Sunday, a day before the automated freighter is set for liftoff on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a two-day trek to the International Space Station.

Orbital ATK’s upgraded Antares rocket, featuring newly-built RD-181 main engines, completed a 30-second test firing on a launch pad on Virginia’s Eastern Shore on Tuesday.

Emboldened by renewed contact with Europe’s comet lander, engineers are repositioning the mission’s Rosetta mothership this week to establish a reliable a communications link with the dishwasher-sized Philae landing craft, a prerequisite for resuming a science campaign abbreviated by a power shortfall last year.