Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

The quartet is set to liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, July 31. Their Dragon spacecraft, Endeavour, will fly for a record-setting sixth time.

This is the launch timeline to be followed by the Atlas 5 rocket’s ascent into orbit from Cape Canaveral with the GOES-S weather satellite. Launch is scheduled for Thursday during a two-hour window opening at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT).

Eight days after a dramatic spacewalk to inspect the site of a leak in the hull of his Soyuz ferry ship, Russian commander Sergey Prokopyev, German flight engineer Alexander Gerst and NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor geared up to depart the International Space Station Wednesday for a fiery plunge back to Earth.