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NASA launches rocket from Wallops Island

A fresh grocery shipment is on its way to the International Space Station after launching from Virginia on Wednesday afternoon.

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — The latest rocket to launch from Virginia's spaceport to the International Space Station is carrying a payload that will help with more than 40 scientific investigations including into Alzheimer's, hearts, atmospheric carbon dioxide, and free-flying robots.

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 (3,450-kilogram) load also includes three free-flying robots to be tested as astronaut helpers, 40 black lab mice and 63 tiny student-research satellites.

RELATED: INSIDE ACCESS: NASA Wallops to launch another rocket to International Space Station

The experiments will examine Alzheimer's and other chronic disease treatments, track astronauts' hearts and physical fitness, test carbon dioxide removal in the ISS and robots to look outside.

Two of the cube-shaped Astrobee robots will be tested inside by the station crew, while the third - called Seeker and the size of a bread loaf - will wait until the Cygnus departs in July before being released and flying solo in orbit. The mice are part of tetanus-vaccine testing.

Brenda Dingwall with NASA says satellites built by students will be on board. 

The satellites will collect measurements of the earth's atmosphere to help accurately predict orbits for small satellites. The measurements will also provide a better understanding of how space weather affects the devices.

The schools that are involved are Hampton University, Old Dominion, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. They're part of what's called The Virginia Cubesat Constellation mission.

Credit: Virginia Space Grant Consortium
Virginia CubeSat Constellation team members give a “happy thumbs up” at the successful integration of their satellites in the Nanoracks deployer. From l to r: Conor Brown, Nanoracks; Madison Brodnax, Virginia Tech; Kim Wright, ODU; Erin Puckette, UVA; and Tristan Prejean, Nanoracks.

This particular Cygnus is named the S.S. Roger Chaffee after the youngest of the three astronauts who died in the 1967 Apollo 1 spacecraft fire.

Northrop Grumman said it's honoring Chaffee ahead of the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing, because he made the ultimate sacrifice without ever reaching space.

Another space station 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. SpaceX Dragon capsules have been making station deliveries since 2012 and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus capsules since 2013.

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