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Out-of-control Russian space probe may be 'most toxic falling satellite ever: A Russian space probe aiming to land on a Mars moon was stuck circling the Earth after equipment failure Wednesday, and scientists raced to fire up its engines before the whole thing came crashing down.

Is it just me, or is uncontrolled space junk re-entry becoming trendy?

this was a fantastic mission - ... what a pity!

The cooperation took place through ESA's Networking/Partnering Initiative, which supports work carried out by universities and research institutes on advanced technologies with potential space applications.

really nice, especially since it is an idea that started in the team, led to an Ariadna study by Carlo Menon, RF in biomimetics who then got a research position at simon fraser univ, where he created his own biomimetics group menvra (http://menrva.ensc.sfu.ca) there, struggling as an italian in a canadian university doing space and not having access to the US space market ... the NPI was the first contract he got for a space resaerch project ... its fantastic to see his student now making headlines with this idea

you know what? if you exclude the title it is not so much bullshit! "Send a robot out into space - allow people to experience space via a virtual environment" I have always loved this idea!

yeah i do but input is always more than welcome =)

"I have always loved this idea!" - me too!!!

They look set to replicate project Mercury. At the same costs too. Wonder if they will send any chimps first :).

Russian space hotel, but alcohol banned on board... something's not right here...

Extending quantum communication to space environments would enable us to perform fundamental experiments on quantum physics as well as applications of quantum information at planetary and interplanetary scales. Here, we report on the first experimental study of the conditions for the implementation of the single-photon exchange between a satellite and an Earth-based station. We built an experiment that mimics a single photon source on a satellite, exploiting the telescope at the Matera Laser Ranging Observatory of the Italian Space Agency to detect the transmitted photons. Weak laser pulses, emitted by the ground-based station, are directed toward a satellite equipped with cube-corner retroreflectors. These reflect a small portion of the pulse, with an average of less-than-one photon per pulse directed to our receiver, as required for faint-pulse quantum communication. We were able to detect returns from satellite Ajisai, a low-Earth orbit geodetic satellite, whose orbit has a perigee height of 1485 km.

hello Jose! Interesting it was proposed to do the same with the ISS as part of the ACES experiment. I don't remember the paper but i can look if you're interested

The following images have been accepted by the NSS Space Settlement Calendar Committee as entries in the NSS Space Settlement 2009 Calendar Art Contest.

They planned to use a Maglev rocket to ride to space

Recent study on a moon-based space elevator towards GEO

"Hbar Technologies plans a Kickstarter effort to raise US $200,000 for the next phase design of an antimatter-propelled spaceship. The two scientists behind this design effort are a veteran Fermilab particle accelerator scientist and a former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist and founding director of the U.S. Center for Space Nuclear Research. They originally developed it for NASA at the turn of the millennium."

...obvious use for space...

Indeed, you only need ONE antenna to communicate with your satellite irrespective of its position, since one can freely send the signals right through the Earth. Small disadvantage: you should tell the launcher section to design a new launcher that is capable to bring a 200tons detector to space...

Nobody has ever seen a space-time crystal let alone made one. But now physicists think they know how

StarTiger: similar, yet different from the way the ACT does things. Seems like a very interesting programme.

Nice initiative and also a good approach, problem-oriented within a fixed time frame. Could definitely be a highly motivating approach, similar to GTOC... I think the ACT should do this more often, targeted at future technologies and/or missions. The team could be structured around 'problems' instead of 'research areas', this will promote multidisciplinary work as well, plus it will also focus activities more. The problems, or more broadly concepts, are identified by the team and a few get chosen as main activities. Subsequent RF and YGT hiring is then done to strenghten the research team. These projects have a maximum lifetime maybe of 1 year? Thoughts?

I'm impressed already by what an innovative group of experts and researchers was able to achieve when resourcefully targeted at coming up with the project's name...

Another Star Trek technology :) Might have an positive psychological effect if astronauts on long term missions could virtually escape their confinement - walking through a labyrinth with the blue sky above them. Ok, ISS does not provide enough space, but on Moon or Mars...

Is there not a risk that while walking in circles this way the cable I keep dragging behind will eventually strangle me?

"Developers, designers, innovators all kinds of creative thinkers" aka "nerd objective-C programmers with no life"?

Well, the ACT actually proposed a few of the topics (BEWARE, THERE BE CUCUMBERS!). Some are not necessarily software based, like creating a LEGO model of the ExoMars rover (although they stripped LEGO from the challenge description and now it just says "create an ExoMars rover from hardware" ... ). Also we had no clue that they would host part of the challenge here at ESTEC - so our 5 or 6 challenges will all be hosted in Rome... ...

NASA is setting a $2.25 million competition to design and build a 3-D printed habitat for deep space exploration - new task for the future architect of the team?

I kind of like Thijs's space mirror ablation method as a way of printing :))

A team of researchers at Colorado based Escape Dynamics is reporting that initial tests indicate that it might really be possible to launch space-planes into space using microwaves sent from the ground, to allow for a single stage spacecraft. If the idea pans out, the cost savings for sending satellites (or perhaps humans) into orbit could be considerable.

Not very new, but a very slick video nonetheless! Will it work? I am not so sure whether "just engineering" applies in this case. The array of antenna's required is quite significant to compensate for beam losses. Wall plug efficiency is not that high therefore, then again.. solar energy is for free almost in the future so who cares.. let's go for it! :)

We had some discussion about the Lotus-effect roughly two years ago. Zoe said that NASA surely worked on it. Well, she was right.