VENTURE CAPITAL POST

In a bid to bring home the $20 million prize money in the Google Lunar X Prize competition, Penn State launched a crowdfunding campaign on Rockethub to raise $400,000 by February to build its own moon rover prototype.

The Government Accountability Office said the spinoff of SAIC Inc invalidated the health services contract awarded to it by the National Aeronautics Space Administration, Bloomberg reported.

California, US-based firm Planet Labs has closed a fresh $52 million from a recent funding round to launch small satellites into space and gather data about the Earth.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will turn over one of its idled space-shuttle launch pad to Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), according to officials on Friday.

Investors remain inclined to take markets higher in the absence of anything that would suggest equities should fall. The market seems to have hit a stage where strong data helps and weak data affirms the Fed's intentions to keep policy accommodative, which also helps stocks.

The crews of Boeing, US Energy Department and NASA have been spread across a Cold War rocket test site to clean up and prevent contamination.