Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

A senior NASA official raised concerns Wednesday that “difficulties” with SpaceX’s development of the huge new Starship rocket could delay the Artemis program’s first moon landing with astronauts from late 2025, a mission that will use a derivative of the Starship vehicle to ferry a two-person crew to and from the lunar surface.

Singed and blackened from three fiery trips to the edge of space and back, a Falcon 9 rocket returned to Cape Canaveral on Sunday after a mission last that week carried the Israeli Beresheet moon lander into orbit, ready for inspections before attempting a fourth — and likely final — launch this spring.

India is set to resume satellite launches as soon as early November with a mission to deliver Indian, U.S., and European payloads to orbit, the country’s first space launch in nearly a year after delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.