India's ambitious mission to land an unmanned probe on the moon suffered a setback when its space agency lost contact with the landing craft minutes before it was to make a critical touchdown on the lunar surface.

The former Soviet Union used unmanned probes to take 301 grams of moon soil samples between 1970 and 1976.

The International Space Station received several tons of supplies this week from an unmanned craft.

On May 14, 1973, a two-staged Saturn V rocket propelled the 90 metric ton unmanned Skylab space station into an orbit above Earth.

Following the docking failure of an unmanned Russian freighter to the International Space Station, its partners are considering a temporary mothballing of the station.