Gallery: Antares rocket explodes

A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket stands on pad 0A at Wallops Island, Virginia, on a frigid morning hours before a planned liftoff with more than 8,000 pounds of cargo heading for the International Space Station.

Three days after launching from the Virginia coastline, an Orbital ATK Cygnus supply ship completed its final approach to the International Space Station on Thursday with more than 7,000 pounds of cargo and experiments. The automated freighter was captured by the station’s robotic arm at 5:26 a.m. EDT (0926 GMT).

A commercial Cygnus supply ship left the International Space Station on Monday after delivering more than 5,000 pounds of cargo and experiments, ready to start a week of standalone operations to include a groundbreaking microgravity fire experiment and deployment of four commercial weather-monitoring CubeSats in orbit.