Live coverage: Station crew lands in Kazakhstan

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 Japanese resupply freighter and its H-2B rocket booster rolled out of the vehicle assembly building at the Tanegashima Space Center just before sunrise Friday for the half-hour trip to the launch pad.

Ground crews loaded time-critical experiments, including 20 mice to help scientists study muscle atrophy, into SpaceX’s commercial Dragon cargo capsule Thursday, a day before a launch planned from Cape Canaveral toward the International Space Station.