SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA, then attempted to land on a drone ship at sea. About 80,000 people tuned in to the SpaceX live stream as Falcon 9 blasted from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The entire Falcon 9 rocket is 70 meters tall — a 25-story building headed to space. The SpaceX Dragon CRS-8 mission delivered 6,900 pounds/3,130 kilograms of science, crew supplies and hardware to the International Space Station. The Dragon is expected to stay on the ISS for just over a month and then return back to Earth sometime in May.

credit: NASAKennedy

The rover was tested near the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the Atacama Desert, which is one of the most Mars-like terrains on Earth. The 2018 mission of the ExoMars programme will deliver a European rover and a Russian surface platform to the surface of Mars. A Proton rocket will be used to launch the mission, which will arrive to Mars after a nine-month journey. The mission will drill 30 times deeper beneath the surface of Mars than the currently operating Curiosity rover, reaching a depth of approximately six-and-a-half feet (two meters).

credit: UCL Mathematical and Physical Sciences         Photos: ESO/G. Hudepohl

Today is a extremely sad moment in US history, the end of the Space Shuttle program. Space program ran for an impressive thirty years. The first shuttle, Columbia, blasted off in April 1981. This was followed by four more shuttles, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis. Today (21th July 2011), after decades of inspiring millions around the globe, space shuttle Atlantis made a final touchdown at Kennedy Space Center. Space shuttles will be replace by a new generation of vehicles to fly to the international space station.

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The International Space Station alias ISS is an internationally developed research facility, which is being assembled in low Earth orbit. The ISS can be seen from the Earth with the naked eye. It is the largest artificial satellite orbiting the Earth. This is images of the International Space Station and the docked space shuttle Endeavour. The pictures are the first taken of a shuttle docked to the International Space Station from the perspective of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Credit: NASA.gov