Space station supply ship launches in honor of John Glenn

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – One of NASA's delivery services paid tribute to John Glenn Tuesday  as it launched supplies to the International Space Station.

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

The unmanned rocket is poised to blasted off at 10 a.m. CT 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.