Yesterday’s launch of the Falcon 9 rocket to send the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station for the CRS-2 (Cargo Resupply Service 2) mission was perfect. However, after entering into orbit, Dragon had problems that endangered its mission. Thanks to the hard work of NASA and SpaceX engineers, now it seems that the only consequence will be a delay in its arrival to the Station.

A Falcon 9 rocket just took off from Cape Canaveral beginning the CRS-2 (Cargo Resupply Service 2) mission, the second of 12 missions that include sending the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station with a cargos and then return to the Earth, again with a cargo.

Yesterday, at a press conference, millionaire Dennis Tito officially announced the project of its Inspiration Mars Foundation to send two astronauts on a journey to Mars and back. According to his intentions, the mission is supposed to start in early 2018 to take advantage of the closeness between the Earth and Mars and last 501 days.

NASA stated that a group of researchers at its Marshall Space Flight Center have made a step forward on the road to the production of a nuclear-powered space rocket. The test used non-nuclear material to merely simulate some stress in terms of pressure and temperature that a rocket of this type should bear. Still, the Marshall’s Nuclear Thermal Rocket Element Environmental Simulator (NTREES) is considered a realistic simulator.

Yesterday, NASA and ESA signed a cooperation agreement in the project of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) spacecraft commonly known as Orion. ESA will build the service module, the one that will provide propulsion, power, thermal control and water to the Orion.