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So far everything looks good for a possible docking with the station on Friday by the company's Dragon capsule.

The United States, Russia, Japan, the European Union, and SpaceX: what do they all have in common? If all goes smoothly over the next few days, each entity will have successfully brought a vessel to the International Space Station. Yesterday, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and its unmanned Dragon capsule lifted off en route to the International Space Station, marking the first ever flight for a commercial spacecraft bound for the space station. Michael Lopez-Alegria, former NASA astronaut and current president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and Miles O'Brien, science correspondent for PBS NewsHour, discuss the future of space travel.

NASA wants to take you on a mission to Mars. No, not that NASA -- the other one based out of the lower Manhattan studio of artist Tom Sachs. His installation, "Space Program: Mars," opened at the 55,000 square-foot drill hall of the Park Avenue Armory on Wednesday.

And according to our partner the BBC, the contract for a project called "Solar Orbiter" is set to be signed today. A project of the European Space Agency, the Solar Orbiter will get closer to the sun than any satellite up until now. Dr. Michio Kaku knows a lot about outer space and about future possibilities. A theoretical physicist, he’s the author of the New York Times bestseller "Physics of the Future." He’s here to walk us through what we might learn from this new space project.

The Lyrids aren't known for their flashy shows, but this year they're getting some help. The height of the showers is expected Sunday morning before dawn, and darker skies will make viewing more exciting.

The first of NASA's retired space shuttles will make its way to its new retirement home on April 17. The well-traveled orbiter will be flown low over the nation's capital before being placed on permanent display at the Smithsonian.

SpaceX and Orbital will be the first private companies to fly missions to the International Space Station. The two companies have multi-billion dollar contracts to supply cargo to the station after the NASA shuttle program shut down. BBC's science reporter Neil Bowdler was granted exclusive access to Orbital's launch facilities in Virginia.

Sean Cole tries to square the idea that the fallout from a war between teensy organisms and teensier viruses can be seen from space. Luckily, he finds a perspective-shaking demo built by two 14-year-old boys that helps him get his bearings. Read more, and play with the demo, here.

After half a century at the forefront of space exploration, NASA’s been hit by hard times. Last year, its groundbreaking and celebrated space-shuttle program was shuttered. The cosmos won’t see another American spacecraft for at least another decade, and that once dreamed of trip to Mars — not too long ago a serious interest of the U.S. government — isn't even close to being a priority.

Why do astronauts lose their sense of smell in space, and what's this got to do with their preference for fiery condiments? No one is sure, but NASA food scientists have some plausible ideas.

Edward Dolnick tells an escape story involving God, humanity, and a huge rewrite of cosmic laws. It began in 1665. A plague hit Cambridge University. All of the students were sent home. One of them is a twenty-something Isaac Newton, who spent his forced summer vacation solving "the problem of ...

Michael Woolf, director of the documentary “Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott’s Road to the Stars,” and the film’s subject, Richard Garriott, discuss Garriott’s lifelong quest to become the first son of an astronaut to blast into space. When eye problems made a career at NASA impossible, he turned to private space travel to launch into space. “Man on a Mission” opens at Cinema Village January 13.

Seven years after Sputnik 1 was launched into orbit, and just six weeks after the U.S. space probe Ranger 7 sent back the first close range photos of the moon, civic leaders and Nobel Laureates gathered in Flushing Meadow, Queens, on a hot September day in 1964 to dedicate the World's Fair Hall of Sciences as a permanent structure committed to science education and exploration in New York City.

Astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley announced that they had discovered the two most massive black holes to date. Their findings situate the black holes at between 10 and 21 billion times the mass of the sun. They are being published in journal Nature. Theoretical astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma led the team that made these discoveries, and she joins The Takeaway to discuss what this all means.

NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed the discovery of a planet in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. A NASA researcher says the Earth-like planet would have a surface temperature around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes it a so-called "Goldilocks planet" — not too hot, not too cold, just right to support life. Researchers have also measured the largest black holes yet. A team of UC Berkeley scientists have confirmed the discovery of the two biggest black holes yet to be documented. Each black hole is 10 billion times larger than our sun.

The planet, dubbed Kepler-22b, isn't much larger than Earth and is orbiting a star in a region that's not too hot and not too cold — just the kind of place that could be home to liquid water, and maybe even life. But don't pack your bags just yet: It's 600 light-years away.

On Saturday, NASA will be launching the new rover "Curiosity," also known as Mars Science Laboratory. The mission is meant to examine chemical ingredients to see if the planet can support human life. The spacecraft will explore a crater the size of a large lake. Curiosity is delivering a rover equipped to test if there is methane in the air. This could be a key sign that the "Red Planet" may be able to support life.

Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter is part of the team that was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery that the expansion of the universe is not slowing down but is accelerating. The results of that research suggest the universe is filled with dark energy.

Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack talk about modern cosmology and the origins of the universe. Their book The New Universe and the Human Future brings the new scientific picture of the universe to life. It interprets what our human place in the cosmos may mean for us and our descendants. It offers unique insights into the potential use of this newfound knowledge to find solutions to seemingly intractable global problems such as climate change and unsustainable growth.

One of the brightest supernovas in the last century is now visible. Discovered shortly after its light reached Earth in August, the supernova will last for more than a decade, but it won't stay in view for amateur astronomers for much longer.