Clay Dillow
at 03:00 AM Nov 24 2011
Space // 

Finally, Russia's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has called home. The European Space Agency has confirmed that Roscosmos' marooned spacecraft - stuck in Earth orbit after a failed booster firing failed to set it on a course for Mars earlier this month - made contact with an ESA tracking station in Perth, Australia, yesterday. But no telemetry data was exchanged in the brief contact, and the prospects for the mission are still next to hopeless.

Rebecca Boyle
at 01:30 AM Oct 21 2011
Tech // 

A Soyuz rocket will lift off Friday from the northern coast of French Guiana, carrying two satellites that will formally kick off the European Space Agency's own version of GPS. It will be the first Soyuz ever to launch outside of the former Soviet Union, and its payload will free Europeans from relying on American navigation tech.

Clay Dillow
at 02:09 AM Oct 6 2011
Space // 

The European Space Agency announced its next two space science missions yesterday, and given recent events they may not come as a huge surprise. The first will orbit the sun, coming closer to the solar surface than any previous science spacecraft to measure the solar wind and its influence on the planets to an unprecedented degree. The second will explore dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe--a characteristic whose discovery won three physicists the Nobel prize in physics yesterday.

Staff Writers
at 04:33 AM Aug 19 2011
Space // 

If it's a space race the Russians want, a space race they shall have. But et tu, Europe? Russian news outlet Ria Novosti is reporting that the European Space Agency (ESA), long the ally of Cold War champion NASA, is teaming with Russia on a joint manned mission to Mars, and that their crew will be the first to set foot on the Red Planet.

 
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