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Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press Published Sunday, September 22, 2013 7:26AM EDT Last Updated Sunday, September 22, 2013 8:24AM EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A brand new commercial cargo ship making its orbital debut experienced trouble with a computer data link Sunday, and its arrival at the International Space Station was delayed at least two days.

The rendezvous was aborted less than six hours before the scheduled arrival of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus capsule, packed with 1,300 pounds of food and clothes for the space station crew.

The Virginia-based company said it is working on a software repair, but it will be at least two more days until another approach is attempted.

Orbital Sciences said the two orbiting vessels established direct contact early Sunday, four days after the Cygnus' launch from Virginia. But the Cygnus rejected some of the data, which interrupted the entire rendezvous. Until then, everything had been going well.

Because this is a test flight of the Cygnus, nothing valuable or urgent is on board. If necessary, it could keep orbiting the world for weeks, even months, before pulling up at the orbiting lab.

Orbital Sciences is the second private company to launch supplies to the space station. In 2012, the California-based SpaceX began accomplishing that job for NASA. The space agency is paying the two companies to deliver goods to the space station, in the absence of the now-retired space shuttles.

Three astronauts -- an American, Italian and Russian -- currently are aboard the orbiting outpost. On Wednesday, three more crew members will be launched from Kazakhstan. Orbital Sciences will have to work around that manned flight, delaying the Cygnus further if a Tuesday hookup is not feasible.

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Space station supply ship delayed after computer problem

A commercial cargo ship making its maiden flight to the International Space Station aborted its initial approach to the lab complex early Sunday because of suspect navigation data.

Officials with Orbital Sciences Corp., builder of the Cygnus cargo craft, said engineers quickly identified the problem and were developing a software patch, but another approach was on hold until Tuesday.

"This morning, at around 1:30 a.m. EDT, Cygnus established direct data contact with the ISS and found that some of the data received had values that it did not expect, causing Cygnus to reject the data," NASA and Orbital said in web site updates. "This mandated an interruption of the approach sequence.

"Orbital has subsequently found the causes of this discrepancy and is developing a software fix. The minimum turnaround time to resume the approach to the ISS following an interruption such as this is approximately 48 hours due to the orbital mechanics of the approach trajectory."

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The Cygnus cargo ship, launched Wednesday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Island, Va., was developed under a $288 million contract with NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, program.

Orbital is one of two commercial cargo carriers hired by NASA to take over U.S. space station logistics in the wake of the space shuttle's retirement.

If the test flight is successful, Orbital will be clear to begin routine cargo delivery missions later this year under a separate $1.9 billion contract calling for at least eight missions to deliver some 40,000 pounds of supplies and equipment.

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, holds a $1.6 billion contract to conduct at least 12 space station resupply missions with its Dragon cargo ship. SpaceX has conducted two operational flights to the station.

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Commercial cargo ship aborts space station approach