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nice article on space debris

Some ideas on debris mitigation.

I still think, the lizards have evolved at an unexpectedly high rate and have now taken over the satellite...

It is an old one, but it was mentioned in some discussion ... Mainly based on this paper https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102126

OHB and Luxspace venture to ensure human life on the Moon! Research on O2 production and others.....

Has BH at least completed an orbit yet? Or are they still at 10mins in microgravity?

Two aerospace companies are teaming up to launch giant space habitats to orbit, with the first such liftoff targeted for 2020. Bigelow Aerospace will loft its giant, expandable B330 modules - each of which will provide one-third as much usable volume as the entire International Space Station (ISS) - aboard United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rockets, representatives from both companies announced today (April 11).

Combination of the radio occultation method plus change in the orbital plan in order to observe new target (the volcanic outgassing from Io satellite) by passing though the magnetosphere of Jupiter. It poses a challenge in the sensitivity of the electronics. Maybe it is accepted if the risk is low. Idea for the next GTOC challenge maybe? Optimising the cost on the electronics vs the frequency of passages?

looks like one of these visions of the future form the 60s...

Some other crazy guys interested in high precision measurement of time of flight...

Interesting, but obviously something is wrong. How the big giants can remain still if the inner planets and the sun vanish at the same time !

A new social space news and networking site.

At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December, he reported an average figure that was between 0.005 and 0.008 per cent greater than the value for Earth's mass established by the International Astronomical Union. A disc of dark matter around the equator 191 kilometres thick and 70,000 km across can explain this, he says. Harris has yet to account for perturbations to the satellites' orbits due to relativity, and the gravitational pull of the sun and moon. Maybe relativistic GPS could improve this even further? As a side note however, the Juno spacecraft flyby showed an gravity acceleration which matched the calculations, casting doubts on the earlier calculations.

Some locations on Mars are known to have water ice just below the surface, but how much has remained unclear. Dundas et al. used data from two orbiting spacecraft to examine eight locations where erosion has occurred. This revealed cliffs composed mostly of water ice, which is slowly sublimating as it is exposed to the atmosphere. The ice sheets extend from just below the surface to a depth of 100 meters or more and appear to contain distinct layers, which could preserve a record of Mars' past climate. They might even be a useful source of water for future human exploration of the red planet.