Live coverage: SpaceX launches its 10th mission of the year

The 20th flight of a Rocket Lab Electron launcher appeared to run into trouble a few minutes after liftoff at 7:11 a.m. EDT (1111 GMT) Saturday from New Zealand, when video showed the rocket’s upper stage tumbling and shutting off its engine prematurely. The rocket was carrying two commercial BlackSky Earth observation satellites into orbit.

A solid-fueled satellite launcher backed by a Chinese start-up named LandSpace fired away from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert Saturday on its inaugural flight, but the rocket failed to place its microsatellite payload into orbit.

The International Space Station’s robotic arm, under the control of engineers on Earth, extracted an experimental inflatable habitat from the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship Saturday and attached it to the orbiting complex.