Japan Launches Rocket Carrying Lunar Lander, X-Ray Telescope

TOKYO - Japan launched a rocket Thursday carrying an X-ray telescope that will explore the origins of the universe as well as a small lunar lander.

The launch of the HII-A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan was shown on live video by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA.

'We have a liftoff,' the narrator at JAXA said as the rocket flew up in a burst of smoke and then