Live coverage: India’s Chandrayaan 2 moon mission blasts off

NASA has announced the nine finalists for the name of the space agency’s next Mars rover — scheduled for launch in July — and invited the public to vote on the candidates before making a final selection in the coming months.

A flight demonstration of an inflatable heat shield that could be used to retrieve reusable engines from United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket, and for the delivery of heavier cargo to the surface of Mars, is planned for launch in late 2021 or early 2022 as a piggyback payload on an Atlas 5 rocket with a NOAA weather satellite.

Stormy weather near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center kept SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on the ground Thursday, delaying liftoff of a commercial supply ship with equipment and experiments for the International Space Station until Saturday.