Live coverage: Three-man crew, including first UAE astronaut, lands in Kazakhstan

Europe’s ExoMars rover will not be ready for launch in 2018, officials said Monday, forcing a two-year delay for the ambitious mission to drill into the Martian surface and search for the remnants of past life.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket fired away from a California military base and disappeared into an overcast cloud deck Saturday on its final flight, carrying a NASA research satellite into orbit and closing the book on a nearly 30-year legacy of launches.

Arianespace has received its first two confirmed launch contracts for Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, and the company recently announced four more launch bookings to loft communications and weather satellites into orbit aboard Ariane 5 and Soyuz boosters from French Guiana.