Powered by two Russian-made RD-181 main engines, a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket fired into a mostly sunny sky Saturday afternoon over Virginia’s Eastern Shore carrying nearly 7,500 pounds of equipment to the International Space Station.

Kirk Shireman, NASA’s program manager for the International Space Station, is retiring from the space agency later this month to take a position in private industry.

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skriprochka and Alexey Ovchinin finish their training in Star City in preparation for launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station on March 18.