Radish seeds, meats and cheeses launched at the space station

A space station cargo ship went into orbit Friday with a 360-degree camera for walking in space, radish seeds to grow and a smorgasbord of meats and cheeses for a feast.

Northrop Grumman launched his capsule to the International Space Station from the coast of Virginia, providing a nighttime treat for observers from the Carolinas to New England, at least where the sky was clear.

“It was a spectacular launch,” said NASA’s deputy director of the space station program, Kenny Todd. “Creating the artificial sunrise for a few minutes there is just magnificent.”

The 8,000-pound (3,600-kilogram) shipment should arrive at the space station on Monday.

Hidden aboard the Cygnus capsule: tanks of pressurized air to help make up for an annoying leak at the space station, a new $ 23 million titanium toilet customized for women, and a virtual reality camera to provide cinematic views of spacewalks and other outdoor shots.

Plus, there’s more fresh food than usual, given that the space station’s population will expand from six to seven with SpaceX’s second astronaut launch on October 31.

Among the delicacies requested by the astronauts: proscuitto, Genoa salami, smoked gouda and provolone, brie, cherry tomatoes, oranges, walnuts and chocolate covered blueberries in plenty of time for Thanksgiving.

Astronauts will also have the opportunity to enjoy their own harvest. Researchers hope to get 40 radishes from the growing seeds within a month.

While growing radishes in orbit may seem trivial, “it’s actually a transition from basic plant biology in space to a production system” that could benefit explorers of the Moon and Mars, said Karl Hasenstein, professor of biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, who is leading the experiment.

Larger plants like bell peppers and tomatoes should appear in a few years, which will add to the astronauts’ diet.

Meanwhile, NASA’s new toilet will be tested at the orbiting outpost before accompanying astronauts to the moon in a few years. It will join two larger, older-style, Russian-built toilets already there. The new one is designed to better suit women, who are expected to have a growing presence in space exploration.

This particular capsule, in fact the SS Kalpana Chawla, is named after the first Indian-born woman in space. Chawla was one of seven astronauts killed in the 2003 Columbia shuttle crash.

Delivery is a bit late. Bad weather on Wallops Island caused a two-day delay earlier in the week, then software problems forced a last-minute launch abort of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket on Thursday.

Just half an hour later on Friday night, NASA’s other carrier, SpaceX, tried to launch a GPS satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the new US Space Force. But the countdown stopped around the two-second mark.

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