Gallery: Antares rocket explodes

Space station astronaut Reid Wiseman, preparing to return to Earth this weekend after 165 days in orbit, said commercial spaceflight represents the “next breakthrough” in aerospace technology, and that he hopes Virgin Galactic can ultimately turn that dream into reality despite the fatal crash of the company’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane.

Northrop Grumman’s launch team aborted an Antares rocket launch from Virginia’s Eastern Shore minutes before liftoff Sunday evening. The rocket is set to loft a Cygnus cargo freighter toward the International Space Station with nearly four tons of supplies and experiments.

Orbital ATK readied an upgraded Antares rocket for launch Monday from Wallops Island, Va., to deliver more than 3 tons of crew supplies, science gear, spare parts and three small satellites to the International Space Station to test miniaturized, low-cost technologies for Earth observation applications.