Gallery: Antares rocket explodes

Closing out a three-day chase from a launch pad in Virginia, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo freighter arrived Thursday at the International Space Station with nearly 7,400 pounds of equipment, delivering food, a quantum physics experiment, and CubeSats for later deployment in orbit.

No one had ever lost 26 satellites at once until a launch failure bit Planet Labs last year, temporarily setting back the San Francisco startup’s ambition to map the globe every day.

Loaded with over 7,300 pounds of goods for the International Space Station, a commercial Cygnus cargo vessel was mounted atop its Atlas 5 rocket booster Friday for launch Dec. 3.