Gallery: Antares rocket explodes

A commercial cargo craft owned and operated by Orbital ATK wrapped up a two-day journey to the International Space Station on Tuesday, delivering ice cream and pizza for the lab’s six-person crew and hardware for a slew of research experiments, including CubeSats slated for orbital deployments in the coming weeks.

An Atlas 5 booster core and Centaur upper stage have been stacked to launch another commercial freighter with supplies and scientific research gear to the International Space Station next month.

NASA officials say the International Space Station’s logistics chain was designed to absorb a launch failure like the mishap that destroyed an Orbital Sciences Corp. cargo craft in October, but pressure is on SpaceX to deliver supplies on time this year.