Photos: Delta 4 lights up the sky for night owl launch

Carrying a Cygnus supply ship bound for the International Space Station, an Orbital ATK Antares rocket lifted off Monday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia.

Final preparations began this weekend at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to load super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the massive core stage of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket for the first time as soon as Monday.

Hauling nearly three tons of supplies, hardware and experiments, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket shot into orbit Monday from Cape Canaveral, with a previously-flown Dragon cargo carrier riding a reused first stage booster to kick off a nearly two-day journey to the International Space Station.