Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

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.

A critical test-firing of the Space Launch System’s core stage engines cut off about a minute into a planned eight-minute burn Saturday on a test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The rocket’s four engines ignited at 5:27 p.m. EST (2227 GMT) for a test that was to pave the way for the core stage’s shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations.

Five European satellites, including a Italian radar surveillance craft and an ESA exoplanet probe, lifted off Wednesday at 0854 GMT (3:54 a.m. EST) from French Guiana aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. A launch attempt Tuesday was scrubbed due to a software concern with the launch vehicle.