Orbital ATK launches 9th cargo resupply mission to space station

WASHINGTON, May 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. aerospace firm Orbital ATK's unmanned cargo ship blasted off Monday for its ninth resupply mission to the International Space Station.

The Cygnus spacecraft took off atop the company's own Antares rocket at 4:44 a.m. EST (0844 GMT) from the Wallops Flight Facility on the east coast of the U.S. state of Virginia.

Under a commercial resupply services contract with the U.S. space agency NASA, Cygnus carried about 7,400 pounds (3,357 kg) of crew supplies and science experiments to the space station.

Among the cargo were several CubeSats, or small satellites, which will conduct a variety of missions, from testing for NASA's future radiometer missions to the understanding of the Earth's water cycle and weather predictions.

Also, a new cold atom clock will be tested to advance technologies including sensors, quantum computers and atomic clocks used in spacecraft navigation.

The spacecraft is expected to depart the station in July and deploy several CubeSats before its fiery re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

The Virginia-based Orbital ATK is one of the two U.S. companies that provide cargo delivery services to the station for NASA. The other company is SpaceX in the state of California. Enditem