Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that NASA should land astronauts near the south pole of the moon within five years “by any means necessary,” calling for “new urgency” in the U.S. space program and sounding a warning for entrenched aerospace contractors to better meet schedule and cost commitments, or else lose work to other companies.

Flying on autopilot more than 200 million miles from Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on track for a daring touch and go landing on an asteroid Tuesday to grab a sample for return to scientists eager to scan the specimens for clues about the history of the solar system.

Twenty-eight thousand students across the United States submitted essays and proposed names for NASA’s newest Mars rover and on Thursday, the agency announced the winner: Perseverance, submitted by Virginia seventh-grader Alexander Mather.