Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft is bound for the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver more than 3 tons of cargo to the crew of Expedition 55.
Known as the OA-9 resupply mission, since it's the company's ninth delivery contracted by NASA, the Cygnus liftoff has been rescheduled for Monday (May 21) after weather concerns have forced Orbital ATK to scrap the May 20 launch it had originally planned.
Even with this 24-hour delay, the Cygnus mission is highly anticipated and promises to be exceptionally interesting, judging by the unusual nature of its cargo.
The resupply vehicle is tasked with hauling 7,385 pounds (3,350 kilograms) of science experiments, crew supplies, and vehicle hardware destined to arrive on board the ISS. The science experiments that will soon take off into orbit atop an Orbital ATK Antares rocket are particularly exciting, especially since NASA has included a few oddities among them, notes Space.com.
The media outlet makes a list of the "weird" science that's about to make the trip to space, which was also detailed by NASA earlier this week, both in a news release and in the video below.
The E. Coli Experiment
First off, as the Inquisitr previously reported, the space agency is sending a sample of E. coli bacteria to the ISS in order to test antibiotic resistance in zero-g. The purpose of this experiment is to identify which bacterial genes make the E. coli immune to antibiotics and to find ways of protecting astronauts from contracting antibiotic-resistant bacteria.