Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

An Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket carrying eight hurricane research satellites for NASA fired into orbit Thursday at 8:37 a.m. EST (1337 GMT) off the east coast of Florida.

A Soyuz rocket arrived at a launch pad Tuesday in Kazakhstan for liftoff later this week with a satellite to monitor natural disasters and track forest fires from orbit and 72 secondary payloads from Russia, the United States, Germany, Norway and Japan.

The first piloted test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule has been delayed to early 2018 as designers wrestle with the mass of the spacecraft, aerodynamic loads the vehicle will see during launch, and new software requirements levied by NASA, company officials said.