Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

Rocket Lab’s first launch of the year lifted off Thursday at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT) after a four-day delay to replace a video transmitter and wait for improved weather. The company’s Electron rocket launched from Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand’s North Island with a technology demonstration satellite for DARPA, the U.S. military research and development agency.

Amid questions from lawmakers about the cost of the Trump administration’s proposal to accelerate a human return to the moon’s surface to 2024, the chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for helping write NASA’s budget said this week he favors keeping to the space agency’s earlier schedule for a crewed lunar landing by 2028.

The sixth satellite in a series of seven orbiting navigation aids lifted off from India on Thursday, streaking into orbit aboard a 145-foot-tall Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.