Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

NASA’s small Lunar Flashlight spacecraft, sent to the moon last year to search for water ice deposits at the lunar south pole, will not be able to complete its science mission after a problem with the probe’s propulsion system.

A powerful European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana late Friday and boosted a pair of satellites into space for a seven-year plunge into the inner solar system, a voyage requiring seven planetary flybys to slow down enough in the sun’s gravitational clutches to slip into orbit around hellish Mercury.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 12:13 p.m. EDT (1613 GMT) Saturday to deploy a new Global Positioning System satellite.