Live coverage: Indian PSLV launches with RISAT 2B radar satellite

Seeking to become the fourth nation to successfully land on the moon, India launched an ambitious robotic lunar mission named Chandrayaan 2 on Monday, targeting a touchdown near the lunar south pole Sept. 6.

The Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for its late-night ascent to deploy the NROL-42 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

United Launch Alliance technicians raised the first stage of the company’s next Atlas 5 rocket onto a mobile launch platform at Cape Canaveral Thursday, kicking off the launch vehicle’s build-up for a mission scheduled for liftoff May 16 with the U.S. military’s hush-hush X-37B spaceplane.