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Antares rocket blasts off Wednesday afternoon from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia

WPTV-ANTERES-ROCKET-LAUNCH.jpg
Posted at 2:39 PM, Apr 17, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-17 18:33:11-04

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — A fresh grocery shipment is on its way to the International Space Station after launching from Virginia.

WATCH ROCKET LAUNCH:

Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket blasted off Wednesday from Wallops Island. The company's Cygnus capsule should arrive at the space station Friday, just in time for Easter.

While there's no Easter ham or lamb, NASA says plenty of generic holiday fixings are going up for the space station's six residents, including smoked turkey, pork chops, asparagus and cobbler. Altogether, 800 meals are tucked away.

The 7,600-pound load also includes three free-flying robots to be tested as astronaut helpers, 40 black lab mice and 63 tiny student-research satellites.

Another delivery should be coming by month's end.

NASA's other commercial shipper, SpaceX, is due to launch a shipment from Florida on April 26.