Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

Rocket Lab announced Saturday it will hold off launching an Electron rocket on an orbital test flight until early 2018 as officials face the end of a 10-day pre-approved launch window, after a series of scrubs to ensure the booster is ready for liftoff and wait for ideal weather conditions.

Boeing is touting a lunar lander concept that the company claims could launch in one piece on an upgraded version of NASA’s Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket — which Boeing largely builds — and deliver astronauts to the moon’s surface in 2024 without going through NASA’s planned Gateway mini-space station.

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.