Live coverage: Cygnus rendezvous and arrival journal and webcast

Bulking up NASA’s constellation of tracking stations in the sky that provides critical links between orbiting spacecraft and ground control, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket successfully deployed a new communications hub in space today.

The launch from Cape Canaveral of a small U.S. military satellite built to track objects in geosynchronous orbit has been delayed from mid-July until August, an Air Force spokesperson said.

Orbital Sciences Corp. announced Tuesday it selected United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket to launch a Cygnus space station resupply mission in late 2015 while the company redesigns its Antares booster with a new engine following a catastrophic failure seconds after liftoff in October.