NASA launches two probes to the moon

NASA launched two probes into space in the first step of a long journey to return mankind to the moon in 2020.

The dual LRO and LCROSS missions were launched on Thursday on an Atlas V rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre on a landmark lunar exploration mission to scout for water sources and landing sites on Earth’s satellite.

Bad weather delayed the launch by about 20 minutes, before officials from the US space agency gave the go-ahead for the mission to blastoff.