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Japanese-built Kirobo, which measures at just over a foot tall and looks something like a child's toy, will act as a shipboard companion to future ISS Commander Kochi Wakata.

Two members of Congress want to preserve artifacts from American lunar missions with a national park on the moon, but there are some international hurdles to jump. Still, Space Policy Institute director Dr. Scott Pace says the bill raises intriguing questions about what the future of human-space interaction will look like.

The Cassini spacecraft that's studying Saturn is turning its camera back toward home on Friday. Earth should appear as a tiny blue dot. Saturday, another spacecraft that's orbiting Mercury will also snap photos of Earth.

Just 12 miles across, the little moon was discovered in photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. When scientists recently rejected Vulcan as the name for one of Pluto's moons, Star Trek fans complained. Naming conventions will bar Vulcan from being used for Neptune's moon as well.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have "seen" the deep blue of an alien world, but it's nothing like Earth.

The "angular velocity sensors" were a critical part of the circuitry that was supposed to keep the rocket upright during launch. A young technician got the installation wrong, according to the site Russian Space Web.

"Dear NASA," the letter begins. "My name is Dexter I heard that you are sending 2 people to Mars and I would like to come but I'm 7."

Pluto's two newest moons received their official names this week, and the name that led in the popular vote was Spock's home planet, Vulcan. But it was rejected by the international team of astronomers who must approve every title bestowed upon the universe.

Since its launch in 2003, GALEX photographed nebulae and spiral galaxies, and "used its ultraviolet vision to study hundreds of millions of galaxies across 10 billion years of cosmic time," NASA says.

A massive Proton-M rocket carrying three Russian navigation satellites veered off course shortly after liftoff.