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Space Station Supply Ship At Launch Pad Honors John Glenn

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — One of NASA's delivery services is paying tribute to John Glenn, as it gets set to launch supplies to the International Space Station.

A mighty Atlas rocket is providing Tuesday's lift, just as it did for Glenn 55 years ago.

The unmanned rocket is poised to blast off at 10:11 a.m. (CST) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a commercial cargo ship named the S.S. John Glenn.

Following Glenn's death in December, Orbital ATK asked his widow, Annie, for permission to use his name for the spacecraft.

Glenn, an original Mercury 7 astronaut, became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. He returned to orbit in the space shuttle in 1998 at age 77, the oldest person ever to fly in space.

(© Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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