NASA sent a saucer-like vehicle high into the sky to test technology for a future Mars landing, but its parachute tangled when deployed and the spacecraft splashed into the Pacific Ocean.
An upgraded version of Russian launch vehicle Proton-M has taken off early today from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying Kazakh telecommunications satellite KazSat-3 and Russian relay satellite Luch-5V.
Private US firm SpaceX launched its unmanned Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on Friday, its third trip carrying supplies and equipment to the orbiting lab.
A fridge-sized robot lab hurtling through the Solar System aboard a European probe is about to wake from hibernation and prepare for the first-ever landing by a spacecraft on a comet.
A space module carrying China's first lunar rover is scheduled to land on the moon Saturday evening, state media said, in a huge step for the Asian superpower's ambitious space programme.
What happened to the water on Mars? How did the Red Planet's atmosphere become so thin over time? NASA's MAVEN probe is scheduled to launch Monday on a mission to find out.
India's Mars spacecraft suffered a brief engine failure Monday as scientists tried to move it into a higher orbit around Earth, but controllers denied any setback to the ambitious low-cost mission.