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Wallops Rocket Payload Delivered to Space Station

nasa.gov

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The International Space Station has accepted delivery of more than 7,000 pounds of supplies from Virginia.

A commercial cargo ship arrived at the orbiting lab Thursday, three days after launching from Wallops Island.

Virginia-based Orbital ATK shipped the goods for NASA in a Cygnus capsule, which is named after the swan constellation. The space station's U.S. crew used a big robot arm to snag the Cygnus from orbit 250 miles up.

The astronauts will unload the food, equipment and science experiments, then fill the capsule with trash for a fiery re-entry in several weeks.

Six men call the space station home: three Americans, two Russians and a Japanese. Three of them will return to Earth in just over a week.

Don Rush is the News Director and Senior Producer of News and Public Affairs at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.