Photos: Delta 4-Heavy launch as seen from press site

An Indian rocket lifted off with two British-built Earth-imaging satellites at 1638 GMT (12:38 p.m. EDT) Sunday — one developed with the financial backing of the UK government to demonstrate radar reconnaissance technology, and another destined for use by a commercial imaging company in Asia.

Russia launched a Soyuz rocket Sunday through a veil of fog over the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying the first spacecraft in a new program to monitor Arctic weather systems and relay emergency communications.

NASA civil servants and the agency’s contractor work force are bracing for high winds and rain from Hurricane Dorian, securing rocket stages, spacecraft assembly areas and even hauling a 6.7-million-pound mobile launch tower, designed for the huge rocket being built for the Artemis moon program, back to the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building for safekeeping.