Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

Indian engineers called off the launch of the Chandrayaan 2 lunar landing mission Sunday after observing a “technical snag” during the final hour of the countdown, India’s space agency said.

After three frustrating days of weather delays, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 4:44 p.m. EST (2144 GMT) today to send Orbital ATK’s commercial Cygnus cargo freighter to the International Space Station.

The rock-coring drill fixed to the end of the Curiosity rover’s robot arm has suspended operations to allow engineers on the ground to diagnose, and officials hope correct, a problem traced to the mechanism that pushes the drill bit onto rocks to collect powder samples.