Cargo ship rocketed to International Space Station

This picture provided by NASA shows the Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket launching from Pad-0A with the Cygnus spacecraft on board on July 13, 2014, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

A private US company has rocket-launched a supplies-laden cargo ship towards International Space Station.

Contracted by the US space agency, Orbital Sciences Corporation shot Cygnus into space this weekend, the cargo carrier having been loaded with meals for astronauts, equipment and science experiments.

The ISS robotic arm is to take hold of the vessel, which is scheduled to birth on Wednesday. This is Orbital's third station shipment. 

Since the US space shuttle program ended in 2011, National Aeronautics and Space Agency has relied on commercial companies and foreign space agencies to keep the USD-100-billion station supplied. 

Orbital Sciences has a USD-1.9-billion contract with NASA to launch eight cargo missions through 2016.The mission, known as Orb-2, is the second of the eight.

SpaceX, another private US company, also has a NASA contract, worth USD 1.6 billion, to send 12 missions to the station using its Dragon capsule.
The Cygnus will remain at the space station for about a month. It will be filled with trash and cut loose for a fiery reentry.

Orbital's cargo ships burn up on reentry into Earth's atmosphere, unlike SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which makes an intact splash landing in the ocean.