Live coverage: NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter

A robotic lander and rover lifted off Friday (U.S. time) from China’s Xichang space center, kicking off a journey that will culminate in an attempt in early January to touch down on the far side of the moon for the first time.

Carol Raymond helps lead the Dawn science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where she oversees research investigating comets and asteroids, including the two objects visited during Dawn’s decade-long mission: Vesta and Ceres.

The Japanese Hayabusa 2 spacecraft dropped within a half-mile of asteroid Ryugu last week, probing its gravity field ahead of key decisions in the coming days to settle on a target site for the robotic mission’s first sample collection attempt, and the best touchdown location for a European lander stowed on the mothership.