Video: Atlas 5 rocket launches space station cargo mission

A Soyuz booster set for liftoff Wednesday with a Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer, and a former NASA flight surgeon heading for the International Space Station arrived at its launch pad in Kazakhstan Monday.

NASA officials say the International Space Station’s logistics chain was designed to absorb a launch failure like the mishap that destroyed an Orbital Sciences Corp. cargo craft in October, but pressure is on SpaceX to deliver supplies on time this year.

An attempt to place a small North Korean military spy satellite into orbit May 30 failed a few minutes after liftoff, five days after South Korea successfully launched the country’s homegrown Nuri rocket with several technology demonstration and scientific research spacecraft.