Live coverage: China launches three-man crew to Tiangong space station

Opher Doron leads the space division at Israel Aerospace Industries, a satellite and aviation contractor that led the industrial team behind the privately-funded Beresheet lander heading to the moon.

Intuitive Machines confirmed plans Wednesday to launch a commercial lunar lander aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Space Coast in 2021 on a mission to deliver multiple payloads to the moon, including up to five science instruments for NASA.

A pair of European-built, NASA-backed research satellites set for launch Tuesday from California will extend 15 years of global gravity field measurements collected by the GRACE mission before it ended last year, supplying scientists with data to help track the melting of Earth’s ice sheets and chart the impacts of floods and droughts.