Private Spacecraft Ready For First Space Station Trip Launch From Virginia In September

A new commercial U.S. spacecraft announced that it is ready to make its first flight to the International Space Station later this year, paving the way for regular cargo deliveries to the orbiting laboratory.

Spaceflight company Orbital Sciences announced its launch window was between Sept. 14 and 19 to send its first cargo ship Cygnus spacecraft on a demo flight to the space station from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia, reports Space.com.

In 2008, Orbital was awarded a $1.9 billion NASA contract for at least eight deliveries to the station using Antares and Cygnus. If September's demonstration is successful, the first of these fully operational trips should take place by the end of 2013.

According to the Washington Post, the company launched its Antares rocket in a successful debut flight at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility back in April. Orbital initially had planned for its demonstration mission to take place earlier than mid-September, but the launch of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Experiment Explorer, or Ladee, is first priority at Wallops. That lunar-orbiting spacecraft is set to investigate the moon's transient atmosphere and levitating dust particles sometime between Sept. 6 and Sept. 10.

Cygnus has already been fueled and packed with about 1,300 lbs. of cargo, but another 250 pounds is expected to be loaded at a later date, the company said in a statement. Cygnus is scheduled to dock with the space station on Sept. 22.