Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

Rocket Lab’s second mission of 2021 lifted off at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT) Monday from New Zealand carrying six small satellites for customers in Australia and the United States, along with a test platform for a NASA small satellite mission to the moon launching later this year.

Completing an eight-day test flight around the moon to verify technologies for a planned lunar sample return mission, an unpiloted Chinese space capsule re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at blazing speed and parachuted to a successful landing.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, en route to asteroid Bennu to retrieve samples and return them to scientists, slingshot past Earth on Friday, using gravity to change its trajectory for a rendezvous with its target late next year.