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June 5 (UPI) -- SpaceX successfully launched its Crew Resupply Mission 28 to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida late Monday morning after scrubbing the liftoff twice over the weekend. The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Cargo Dragon capsule took off at 11:47 a.m., with the first stage landing on the company's drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean about 8 minutes after launch.
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On Sunday, SpaceX called off the launch because of high winds in the booster recovery zone. On Saturday, the space company said in a Twitter post that it delayed the liftoff to "allow more time for the weather to improve."
The mission will resupply the orbiting space station with equipment and supplies needed by astronauts and hardware for the months ahead.
The mission is carrying new solar panels for the space station along with private industry science experiments from around the world.
A European Space Agency science project called Thor will observe thunderstorms in Earth's atmosphere. The agency said Thor will measure the frequency and altitude of blue discharges produced by internal phenomena and structures within thunderstorms.
NASA had transferred some of the mission payload from the Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply vehicle to SpaceX because of the delayed launch of Northrup Grumman's N-19 spaceship.
"[SpaceX's CRS-28 mission is] making up for the delays we had in our NG Cygnus vehicle arriving at [International Space] station," NASA's space station chief scientist Kirt Costello said.
"So, we're sending up lots of extra logistics crew supplies for the crew to keep them going throughout the end of the year."
