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Cape Canaveral, Florida (CNN) -- Friday's test launch of the Falcon 9 rocket was "essentially a bullseye," SpaceX officials said after the rocket successfully pushed past the earth's atmosphere and deposited a mock-up of its Dragon space capsule in orbit.The successful launch is the latest step toward commercial space ventures that could eventually ferry astronauts and cargo to the international space station.

The design for a huge rocket to take humans to asteroids and Mars has been unveiled by the US space agency Nasa.

The announcement on Tuesday by the Russian space agency that it will delay the launching of the next crew to the International Space Station is a concern for NASA, which is relying solely on the Russians for astronaut transportation.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - President Barack Obama predicted Thursday his new space exploration plans would lead American astronauts to Mars and back in his lifetime, a bold forecast relying on rockets and propulsion still to be imagined and built.

"In a moment that seems likely to live forever in the annals of derring-do, Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner on Sunday rode a balloon to the edge of space, saluted and stepped off a platform 24 miles high with as much ease as any of us mere mortals might step off a curb. The former soldier hurtled through the sky at up to more than 830 mph, breaking the sound barrier in a tumbling, gut-churning four-minute free fall before popping his parachute and making a running landing in the New Mexico desert."

RARITAN TWP. - The Township Committee unanimously voted to approve the Raritan Junction redevelopment plan, which envisions turning the former Yale property into a mixed-use development that will include residences, retail spaces, offices and recreation areas. The intent of the mixed-use design is to create a neighborhood town center on what is an existing brownfield with an abandoned and obsolete industrial facility, township Planner Jamie Sunyak said. The plans will impact student parking at Hunterdon Central High School. Future plans call for a smaller lot with more than 100 spots for students.

Perhaps no space in New York City is governed by as complex a set of social rules as the cramped subway car, that lurching human Petri dish that has spawned a thousand sociology papers. Its nuanced etiquette is known to generations of New Yorkers: head down, body clenched, contact of eyes or limbs a no-no.

The European low-cost airline Ryanair has announced it would remove two of the three lavatories on its planes. Cutting back on bathrooms will allow Ryanair to add up to six extra seats, reports the Daily Mail. Forget about coughing up the extra euro for that overpriced can of soda on Ryanair...you're going to need the bladder space.

We've devoted a lot of space here in recent weeks to Twitter, and for good reason: the June 12 elections in Iran were a major turning point for the social network. Whatever you think of Twitter - a lark, a waste of time, a brain-busting sociological malady - it's incontrovertible that the service allowed Americans a peek into a world that would otherwise have been sealed up pretty tightly.

A dead NASA satellite, intently tracked by people around the world over the last couple of days, finally fell back to Earth - and it may turn out that no one will ever know when and where it fell.

The European Southern Observatory has just announced the discovery of more than 50 new exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), including 16 super-Earths (planets whose mass is between one and 10 times that of our own planet).

The European Southern Observatory has just announced the discovery of more than 50 new exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), including 16 super-Earths (planets whose mass is between one and 10 times that of our own planet).

It is the first planet, astronomers say, that has been definitely shown to be orbiting two stars at once, circling the pair - which themselves orbit each other tightly - at a distance of some 65 million miles.

From double sunrise to double sunset the show goes on, always changing. Sometimes the orange sun rises first. Sometimes it is the red one, although they are never far apart in the sky and you can see them moving around each other, casting double shadows across the firmament and periodically crossing right in front of each other.

NASA revealed on Wednesday a design for its next colossal rocket that is to serve as the backbone for exploration of the solar system for the coming decades.

(CNN) -- A defunct satellite has entered the atmosphere, the German Aerospace Center reported Sunday morning. "There is currently no confirmation if pieces of debris have reached Earth's surface," it said.

Not Such a Stretch to Reach for the Stars It may seem a fantastical notion, but hardly more so than the idea of building a starship of any kind, especially with NASA's future uncertain at best.

A defunct satellite has entered the atmosphere, the German Aerospace Center reported Sunday morning. "There is currently no confirmation if pieces of debris have reached Earth's surface," it said.