An unmanned cargo mission to the orbiting International Space Station has blasted off successfully, a day after the launch was scrubbed when a wayward plane flew into the vicinity of the launch pad.
The US space agency's mission control described a "flawless launch" on Sunday, with the Cygnus cargo space capsule reaching preliminary orbit after separation from the Antares rocket that had blasted off that morning.
The rocket fired at the close of Sunday's five-minute launch window from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the Atlantic coast of Virginia.
Designed and operated for NASA by private contractor Orbital ATK, the spacecraft is carrying supplies, hardware and scientific research equipment to the space station.
"We have payload separation! Go #Cygnus!" the company tweeted.
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The capsule, SS Gene Cernan, named for a US astronaut who was the last person to walk on the moon, is scheduled for rendezvous with the space station on Tuesday.
Frank DeMauro, vice president of Orbital ATK's space launch division, described it as the fastest of eight Cygnus trips from launch to the space station.
"The S.S. Gene Cernan #Cygnus spacecraft is in great shape and everything is performing nominally," the company tweeted a few hours after launch.
Orbital ATK attributed Saturday's postponement to a small aircraft flying into restricted airspace at an altitude of 150 metres, nearly 10 kilometres offshore of NASA's Wallops facility on the Delmarva Peninsula.
The company was forced to unload the rocket's fuel before repeating the fuelling process for Sunday's launch.
The spacecraft is loaded with a 3300-kilogram payload, which includes science experiments and a virtual reality camera for a television documentary.
