Photos: Atlas 5 rocket on the pad with WorldView 4 satellite

Several NASA astronauts, plus Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson, recently participated in a training session at Cape Canaveral, practicing how they would evacuate from the Atlas 5 rocket’s launch pad in the event of a countdown emergency.

The second satellite in a quartet of new NOAA weather observatories is awaiting liftoff Thursday aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, heading for a position 22,000 miles from Earth to scan the western United States and Pacific Ocean for typhoons, wildfires and fog.

A Delta 2 rocket has lifted off from California’s Central Coast on Saturday with a NASA environmental satellite designed to improve flood and drought forecasts, map moisture in Earth’s soils, and track the planet’s water cycle.