After a roughly 36-hour journey, a SpaceX Dragon capsule docked at the International Space Station this week, delivering over three tons of supplies.
Over the past year, an index of stocks linked to space exploration and the space industry compiled by the hedge fund analytics tool Kensho has also soared. Kensho's space index is up over 27 percent in a period where the S&P 500 gained 12.5 percent.
The companies in the Kensho space index design and build rockets, satellites, launch vehicles and their systems.
The top performing components: Boeing, which jumped 82 percent, II-VI, up 68 percent and Aerojet, which gained 53 percent.
For more information on the Kensho indexes, head to CNBC.com/Kensho-indices
Disclosure: NBCUniversal, parent of CNBC, is a minority investor in Kensho.