Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

Eight more satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation fleet will be built by Germany’s OHB System AG and Britain’s Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. under a contract worth more than $350 million.

Astra was gearing up for the first orbital test flight of its small satellite launcher, named Rocket 3.0, from Alaska on Monday, but officials scrubbed the launch after detecting a problem with a guidance, navigation and control system in the final minute of the countdown. Poor weather at the launch site also prevented liftoff over the weekend on the first of two missions under the auspices of DARPA’s Launch Challenge.

Boosted off planet Earth by a Russian Proton rocket, a European-built space probe departed for Mars on Monday, beginning a mission to test future landing technologies and search for methane, a potential signature of microbial life.