An exact date has bounced around for the last couple of weeks, and NASA is finally giving SpaceX the go for a rendezvous between the company's Dragon capsule and the International Space Station. It's a landmark launch for SpaceX, and one that's poised to make history for the next generation of manned spacefaring efforts.

Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004. Its mission was scheduled to last 90 Martian days. It's obviously exceeded that, and just when we all thought it was time to say goodbye — just as we did with Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit — the little rover that could braved a fifth Martian winter to declare, yes, there's life on Mars, and its name is Opportunity.

The best looks that we've been able to get at exoplanets are when they pass in front of or behind their parent stars. When that happens, sometimes, if we're lucky, we can get a brief hint atmosphere. For the first time, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has managed to observe a "super-Earth" directly, watching it glow in the infrared.

While the Enterprise may be a space shuttle only in name — it's not actually capable of spaceflight — it was the prototype craft that made the rest of NASA's shuttle fleet possible. Even without the engines to get to orbit or the heat shields to survive the journey, Enterprise completed a series of crucial Approach and Landing Tests. The whole point of the shuttle program was that it would provide what no other space agency had before it: a reusable spacecraft to ferry humans to and from orbit. If we could launch a shuttle up like a rocket, Enterprise proved we could land one like a plane.