Video: NASA and SpaceX brief media on space station cargo flight

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship — named the S.S. Katherine Johnson for the trailblazing NASA mathematician portrayed in “Hidden Figures” — was loaded with time-sensitive cargo Friday at a launch pad in Virginia for a midday blastoff Saturday toward the International Space Station.

A commercial Cygnus resupply craft that received a new corporate owner while berthed at the International Space Station — thanks to Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of Orbital ATK in June — departed the research complex Sunday. The supply ship was released by Canadarm 2 on the space station at 8:37 a.m. EDT (1237 GMT).

Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken plan to reveal a name for their Crew Dragon spaceship on the day they launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a test flight to restore orbital human spaceflight capability to the United States.