22.02.11

Google Plans to Launch Disruption-Tolerant Internet Into Space This Year

Talk about cloud computing. Google wants to install "InterPlanetary internet protocols" (IP IP?) on spacecraft, using them as an interwoven network of new space-based communication nodes. That's according Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, in an interview
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Japan Plans to Send its Own Tweeting Humanoid Robot to the ISS in 2013

When the humanoid Robonaut takes off for the ISS next week aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, his days as the sole humanoid in orbit may already be numbered. JAXA, the Japanese space agency, has announced that it plans to send its own humanoid
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Enormous Solar Flare Set to Slam into Earth Tonight, Disrupting Communications

It appears Tuesday's massive solar eruption is already impacting communications in southern China and may disrupt satellites in orbit
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Stardust Mission's Close-Up Shots of Tempel 1 Depict a Comet in Flux

Images from the Stardust-NExT mission's Valentine's Day rendezvous with comet Tempel 1 began hitting the Web yesterday--there are 72 total images, but each one took a dial-up-worthy 15 minutes to download--with most of them depicting a grainy rock at a distance. Now NASA
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New NASA Designs for a Reusable Manned Deep-Space Craft, Nautilus-X

This tubular spacecraft could serve as a reusable vehicle for lunar and deep-space missions, holding a crew of six and enough supplies for a two-year expedition. Dubbed Nautilus-X, for "Non-Atmospheric Universal Transport Intended for Lengthy United States eXploration,"
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With Robotic Cargo Ferry Launch, Europe Will Become an Official Supplier to the ISS This Month

The ESA's newest Automated Transfer Vehicle--ATV-2, otherwise known as Johannes Kepler--is loaded up and primed for its February 15th launch to the International Space Station, marking a several significant milestones for the European Space Agency and its contribution
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Japan Teams Up With Fishing Net Maker To Haul In A Catch of Space Debris

The proliferation of space debris surrounding our planet isn't just a theoretical problem--flying extraterrestrial garbage can cause damage to satellites, manned and unmanned space missions, and even the International Space Station. So we've seen quite a few proposed
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Researchers Call For Creation of Standardized METI Protocol For Talking To Extraterrestrials

Since the first binary code sent from Puerto Rico in 1974, our messages to aliens have been increasingly complicated and cryptic, possibly so much that extraterrestrials won't get what we're saying. A trio of astrophysicists from the US and France hope to change
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Hubble Peers 13.2 Billion Years Back in Time to Capture the Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen

While the astronomical community anxiously awaits the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope keeps reminding us just how remarkable of an instrument it really is. Astronomers studying ultra-deep imagery from Hubble have located what could
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Who Owns the Moon's Water? Future Moon Mining Missions May Face Legal Disputes

Would-be moon miners will need good lawyers if they want to keep the lunar resources they're harvesting, according to space policy experts. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 appears to permit extraction of lunar water and other resources, but it's not clear
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Hubble 3D IMAX Trailer Released, Looks Amazing

Just refrain from trying to touch the screen NASA launched one of its boldest space missions in 2009 to repair and save the aging Hubble Space Telescope. Now everyone can get a glimpse of astronaut derring-do in a preview trailer for the upcoming Hubble 3D IMAX film
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Violent Star Birth Spawns Serene Snapshot of the Lagoon Nebula

Without a telescope, the Lagoon Nebula is faintly visible with the naked eye as a unremarkable patch of gray in the heart of the Milky Way. Observed up close with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, it looks slightly
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First Mars Landers Might Have Found Organic Material In 1976, and Destroyed It By Accident

The building blocks of life might exist in Martian soil after all, according to a new study. Evidence from the late Phoenix Mars lander suggests its Viking forebears might have found
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Five Contests That Recognize The Science Achievements of the Everyman

There's a long tradition of offering big cash prizes to entice talented and creative individuals to solve problems that have stymied industry and governments for decades. For example, in 1810, French cook Nicolas Appert won a 12,000-franc government prize for a food preservation
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Again, Space Station Has to Be Moved Out of The Way of Space Junk

It's getting to be real crowded up there. Today, Russian aerospace authorities had to shift the orbit of the International Space Station to get it out of the way of a piece of hurtling debris. A similar maneuver was planned just a couple of months
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Infographic: Which Asteroids Are Swinging Closest to Earth?

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about a planet-killing asteroid is that we might never see it coming. But this infographic by Mechanicsville, Md.-based designer Zachary Vabolis helpfully visualizes which candidate
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'Moon Bombing' Data Shows South Pole Crater is Wetter Than Some Parts of Earth

The moon's south pole could be a pleasantly moist place to put a moon base When NASA "bombed" the moon back in October there was a lot of fanfare leading up to a visually
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Video: Virgin's VSS enterprise makes its first crewed test flight

Virgin Galactic just released some nice video of its latest SpaceShipTwo (aka VSS Enterprise) test flight, the first with the spacecraft's two-pilot flight crew aboard.
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NASA's Tasty-Sounding O/OREOS Mission Launches Today to Study Life's Origins In Outer Space

A nanosatellite no bigger than a loaf of bread -- and named after cookies -- is set to launch today to study the origins of life in the universe. Its name stands for Organism/Organic
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Robonaut 2 Sentenced to Additional Month In Crate

With shuttle launch postponed, our hearts go out to a passenger NASA has just announced it will postpone the 39th and final launch of space shuttle Discovery until November 30 at the earliest, after a hydrogen gas leak stalled this afternoon's scheduled liftoff. Meanwhile,
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Liquid mirror breakthrough could make state-of-the-art optics cheap

A $136 million Earth-based telescope using brand new adaptive optics just trumped Hubble's deep space image clarity three-fold, but such high tech optics aren't just reserved for high-dollar observatories. A breakthrough in deformable liquid mirror technology
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Satellite creates first global gravity map of Earth

Using only two months of data, the GOCE gravity-tracking satellite has built the first-ever full map of Earth's gravitational field. The map, called a geoid, reflects the bumps and valleys of Earth's gravitational effects. The map shows what the Earth would look
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Water found on the moon

Colonisation is now a (distant) possibility! The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on the Indian
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Mozzie-Zapping Laser Entrepreneur Turns Sights on Space Power

A laser-obsessed entrepreneur whose mosquito-zapping project demoed at the TED 2010 conference has bigger plans for energy beams. Tom Nugent envisions using lasers to deliver energy over long distances -- whether that means juicing up an aerial drone's batteries or beaming solar space power
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NASA's Orion Capsule to Be Reborn as Escape Pod for Space Station

NASA's Orion crew capsule, which was part of the cancelled Constellation program, has been revived as an escape pod for the International Space Station. A smaller version of the capsule could launch on an Atlas or Delta rocket and eliminate the need to buy a multimillion-dollar Russian Soyuz
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Japan to Launch Solar-Sail-Powered Craft Out Beyond Orbit for the First Time

After lots of talk and testing, Japanese researchers are ready to go space sailing. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced its intention to launch its first "space
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First crew members selected for 520-Day Mars mission simulation

The first two members of Russia's upcoming 18-month "Mars mission" have been selected by the European Space Agency; Frenchman Romain Charles and Colombian-Italian Diego Urbina will join 3 Russians and
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While hiding behind the sun, jupiter loses one of its belts

The science world is upside down this morning. First North Korea announces it has cracked the nut on nuclear fusion. Now Jupiter has
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Rocket scientists use Darwinian software to evolve better ion engine designs

Charles Darwin's theories of evolution have revolutionized the way mankind understands its origin. Now, engineers suggest that the process of natural selection may have surprising implications for spacecraft
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Asteroid explorer capsule to land in Australian desert

A badly damaged and unmanned asteroid explorer will make its belated return to Earth this weekend, releasing a sample capsule in the remote South Australian desert. The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa was launched by the Institute of Space
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