Gallery: Antares rocket explodes

An eight-ton cargo ship destined for the International Space Station was hoisted aboard its United Launch Alliance Atlas-Centaur booster rocket today in preparation for liftoff to the orbiting laboratory next week.

The detective work into the Atlas 5 rocket’s first stage performance trouble during the Cygnus cargo ship launch a week ago has implicated the fuel system as the likely culprit for using up the liquid oxygen supply too quickly.

A commercial supply ship owned and operated by Orbital ATK departed the International Space Station on Friday, heading for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean with more than 1.5 tons of trash. The station’s robotic arm released Cygnus at 1226 GMT (7:26 a.m. EST).