Watch the post-launch news conference from the Kennedy Space Center following the successful launch of an Atlas 5 rocket on December 6, carrying the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.
See earlier Cygnus OA-4 coverage.
Our Atlas archive.
SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule arrived at the International Space Station early Sunday with 3.5 tons of supplies and experiments, including an inflatable room to test out technologies for future use on deep space missions. British astronaut Tim Peake captured Dragon with the robotic arm at 7:23 a.m. EDT (1123 GMT).
Teams working in Northrop Grumman’s spacecraft factory in Southern California have connected the spacecraft and science modules of the James Webb Space Telescope for the first time, a major milestone as engineers prepare to verify a fix to tears in the observatory’s sunshield, and begin launch vibration and acoustic testing in the coming months.
Arianespace is returning an Ariane 5 rocket — loaded with three U.S.-built satellites — back to its final assembly building in French Guiana to replace a suspect sensor on the vehicle that prompted officials to cancel a launch attempt Friday. Arianespace said Monday that the swap will delay the launch until around Aug. 14.
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