Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

Rocket Lab’s second launch from Virginia took off at 6:38 p.m. EDT (2238 GMT) Thursday. The company’s carbon fiber Electron small satellite launcher carried two commercial radar remote sensing satellites into orbit for Capella Space.

Operating with on-board autonomy more than 140 million miles from Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft succeeded Tuesday in a rehearsal for the sample return mission’s touch-and-go landing on an asteroid later this year.

The European Space Agency has confirmed a parachute for the ExoMars rover mission set for launch next July failed during a test over Sweden earlier this month, the project’s second parachute test accident since May.