Space

While you may be aware of NASA's historic Curiosity mission (and the current problems it's facing), you might not have heard of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. The craft has been in orbit around the Red Planet since 2006 and its latest research, a 3D scan of a huge underground channel system, has provided researchers with an insight into the planet's recent hydrologic activity.  Read More

The phrase "engage the ion drive" still has the ring of a line from Star Wars, but these engines have been used in space missions for more than four decades and remain the subject of ongoing research. Ion engines have incredible fuel efficiency, but their low thrust requires very long operating times ... and therein lies the rub. To date, erosion within such an engine seriously limits its operational lifetime. Now a group of researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has developed a new design that largely eliminates this erosion, opening the gates for higher thrust and more efficient drives for manned and unmanned missions to the reaches of the Solar System.  Read More

The rotation of a supermassive black hole (SBH) has been definitively measured for the first time by combining x-ray data obtained by the x-ray space telescopes XMM-Newton (soft x-rays) and NuSTAR (hard x-rays). The SBH at the center of a galaxy called NGC 1365 was found to be spinning at 84 percent of the maximum speed allowed by general relativity – or roughly speaking, the edge of the black hole is rotating at 84 percent of the speed of light.  Read More

While Japan is gearing up to send a miniature humanoid robot to the International Space Station, the DFKI Robotics Innovation Center and the ZARM (Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity) are working on a pair of robots that may one day help explore craters on the Moon in search of water ice. The RIMRES (Reconfigurable Integrated Multi Robot Exploration System) project combines a six-legged robot that can be picked up and moved with a faster wheeled transporter.  Read More

Despite being only a couple of months into the year, the various telescopes of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have already provided some truly breathtaking sights. From dusty stellar nurseries to giant star clusters, here's a look at the best ESO images of 2013 so far.  Read More

Today at 8:56 AM EST, the Spacex Dragon CRS-2 mission berthed with the International Space Station (ISS). The unmanned cargo ship was captured using the station’s robotic arm at 5:31 AM by ISS Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and Tom Mashburn of NASA before being secured to the Earth-facing port of the station’s Harmony module.  Read More

SpaceX has announced that its Dragon spacecraft’s docking with the International Space Station (ISS) has been rescheduled for 6:01 AM EST (11:01 GMT) Sunday, March 3. SpaceX managers and NASA gave clearance today for the rendezvous, which will see the craft captured by NASA Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn using a robotic arm.  Read More

This morning (Mar. 1), the SpaceX Dragon CRS-2 mission lifted off successfully from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida at 10:10:13 AM EST (1010:13 GMT) only to experience a major malfunction in Dragon’s thruster pods. SpaceX reported at 10:43 AM (1543 GMT) that three of the unmanned Dragon spacecraft’s four thruster pods have failed to activate – placing Dragon’s rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) in peril.  Read More

The Japanese communication robot destined to join the crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) this summer recently underwent some zero gravity testing. The Kibo Robot Project, organized by Dentsu Inc. in response to a proposal made by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, unveiled the final design of its diminutive humanoid robot and its Earthbound counterpart. Watch the cutest robot-related video of the year after the break.  Read More