Live coverage: Mission control loses contact with Indian moon lander

A new variant of India’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle with two strap-on solid rocket boosters and an upper stage converted into an experiment-carrying platform debuted Thursday with a launch into polar orbit.

Sunday’s flight of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was scrubbed due to a wildfire burning south of the pad. The launch delay allows crews to remain in place to battle the blaze. The lack of Range availability this week means the next launch try won’t come until Sept. 26.

One of Saturn’s peculiar moons has received an up-close look from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which sent back the best-ever pictures of Atlas, an object shaped like a flying saucer orbiting just outside the planet’s rings.