Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft arrives at space station

NASA’s robotic InSight spacecraft, carrying a pair of European-built science instruments, successfully landed Monday on a broad, flat equatorial Martian plain named Elysium Planitia. Touchdown was confirmed at 2:54 p.m. EST (1954 GMT) to begin a science mission focused on studying the deep interior of Mars.

A Japanese HTV cargo freighter departed the International Space Station Friday and headed for a destructive re-entry, disposing of trash and obsolete solar array batteries replaced with more capable power packs on a series of spacewalks outside the orbiting research lab.

A Vega rocket lifted off from a tropical launch pad in French Guiana at 1351 GMT (8:51 a.m. EST) Monday with Gokturk 1, a sharp-eyed reconnaissance satellite built in France and owned by the Turkish armed forces.