Live coverage: H-2A rocket blasts off with latest Japanese weather satellite

Less than two weeks after its launch from Cape Canaveral, a new NOAA weather observatory has boosted itself into a circular orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator, and officials have renamed it GOES-17 ahead of a test series before it enters service later this year.

After assessing any damage to the spaceport caused by Hurricane Dorian as it narrowly missed Florida’s east coast, NASA says the Kennedy Space Center will reopen for normal operations Friday. Teams rolled the Space Launch System’s mobile launch platform from pad 39B back into the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building last week for safekeeping during the storm.

Three experimental satellites sponsored by the U.S. military lifted off on an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s commercial spaceport in New Zealand on Sunday at 0600 GMT (2 a.m. EDT).