Live coverage: International Space Station crew lands in Kazakhstan

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.

In the span of two weeks, United Launch Alliance technicians performed the basic buildup of the Atlas 5 rocket and then mated the advanced GOES-R weather satellite that will be hauled into space on Saturday.

Astronauts have captured views of Hurricane Florence raging in the Atlantic Ocean and heading toward a likely landfall in the Carolinas on the U.S. East Coast, with one flight engineer calling the storm a “no-kidding nightmare.”