The heart of NASA’s first flight-ready Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket emerged from its factory in New Orleans Wednesday morning for a barge trip to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for an eight-minute test-firing of its space shuttle-era hydrogen-fueled engines.

On the cusp of advancing U.S. weather forecasting, a powerful new satellite was shipped from its Denver factory to the Cape today in preparation for launch in November.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 12:13 p.m. EDT (1613 GMT) Saturday to deploy a new Global Positioning System satellite.