Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

A Japanese H-2A rocket launched at 5:58 p.m. EDT (2158 GMT) Sunday from the Tanegashima Space Center with the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope orbiter, the UAE’s first probe to Mars.

Elon Musk’s space transport company — chartered with a long-term goal of colonizing Mars — plans to send the first commercial mission to the red planet as soon as 2018, SpaceX announced Wednesday.

A pair of Air Force surveillance satellites headed to geosynchronous orbit today to reconnoiter the high ground, departing Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket at 12:52 a.m. EDT (0452 GMT). It is the 375th Delta rocket flight since 1960.