Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

An ambitious mission of exploration launched from Japan at 0422 GMT Wednesday (11:22 p.m. EST Tuesday). An H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center with Hayabusa 2, starting a six-year journey to collect rocks from an asteroid and return them to Earth.

Flying on its 40th mission, a Japanese H-2A rocket lifted off at 0408 GMT (12:08 a.m. EDT) Monday from the Tanegashima Space Center carrying Japan’s GOSAT 2 satellite to measure greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere and the KhalifaSat Earth observation satellite for the United Arab Emirates.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 4:39 a.m. PDT (7:39 a.m. EDT; 1139 GMT) Wednesday, and SpaceX successfully landed the rocket’s first stage on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. The mission’s primary objective is the deployment of 10 Iridium Next communications satellites into low Earth orbit.