Q&A with Kurt Eberly, Orbital ATK’s Antares deputy program manager

NASA and Orbital ATK have agreed to schedule the launch of the next Cygnus supply ship for Nov. 10 from Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, a delay of a month from the mission’s earlier target launch date to allow the flight to carry more cargo to the International Space Station, officials said.

China led the world with 34 orbital launch attempts in 2019 — including two failures — followed by 22 flights from Russian-operated launch pads and 21 satellite delivery missions originating from U.S. spaceports, all of which were successful.

SpaceX rolled a fully-assembled Falcon 9 booster out of its hangar and lifted it on top of a launch pad Friday for the first time since an explosion grounded the commercial rocket last year, setting the stage for a one-second launch window Saturday to take off from California’s Central Coast and deploy the first 10 satellites in orbit for a $3 billion upgrade to Iridium’s globe-spanning message relay network.