SpaceX closes in on human spaceflight with this weekend's debut of a new capsule designed for astronauts. The six-day test flight will be real in every regard, beginning with a Florida liftoff Saturday and a docking the next day with the International Space Station. But the Dragon capsule won't carry humans, rather a test dummy — named Ripley after the tough heroine in the "Alien" films — in the same white SpaceX spacesuit that astronauts will wear.

One of the largest virtual reality theme parks in the world has opened its doors in southwestern China, sporting 42 rides and exhibits from VR bumper cars to VR shoot-em-ups. It's part of an effort by Beijing to get ordinary people excited about the technology — part of a long-term bet that VR will come into widespread use.

China has broadcast pictures taken by its rover and lander on the moon's far side, in what its space program hailed as another triumph for the groundbreaking mission to the less-understood sector of the lunar surface.

India sent a spacecraft to explore water deposits on the far side of the moon in a successful launch Monday after a technical problem caused a week's delay. Scientists at the mission control center burst into applause as the rocket lifted off in clear weather as scheduled at 2:43 p.m. from Sriharikota in southern India. K. Sivan, head of India's space agency, said the rocket successfully injected the spacecraft into orbit.

A NASA spacecraft designed to burrow beneath the surface of Mars landed on the red planet Monday after a six-month, 300 million-mile (482 million-kilometer) journey and a perilous, six-minute descent through the rose-hued atmosphere. Flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leaped out of their seats and erupted in screams, applause and laughter as the news came in.

A nonprofit Israeli consortium said Monday that it hopes to make history this week by launching the first private aircraft to land on the moon. SpaceIL and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries told a news conference that the landing craft — dubbed "Beresheet," or Genesis — will take off from Florida, propelled by a SpaceX Falcon rocket on its weekslong voyage to the moon.

China exchanged data with NASA on its recent mission to land a Chinese spacecraft on the far side of the moon, in what was reportedly the first such collaboration since an American law banned joint space projects with China that do not have prior congressional approval.

A Russian Soyuz capsule with NASA's Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Russian Sergey Prokopyev and German astronaut Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency landed on the snow-covered steppes in Kazakhstan. The trio had spent 197 days in space.

A Russian-American crew of three blasted off to the International Space Station early Friday, making a second attempt to reach the outpost after October's aborted launch. A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch along with Roscosmos' Alexei Ovchinin lifted off as planned from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:14 a.m. Friday (1914 GMT Thursday).

A Russian Soyuz capsule with NASA's Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Russian Sergey Prokopyev and German astronaut Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency landed on the snow-covered steppes in Kazakhstan. The trio had spent 197 days in space.