In a world-first, an ESA-led team has built and fired an electric thruster to ingest scarce air molecules from the top of the atmosphere for propellant, opening the way to satellites flying... Read more
Tomorrow’s orbit today? This image shows how a large solar sail-equipped satellite could partly offset Earth’s and the Sun’s gravity with the slight but steady pressure of sunlight to hover... Read more
Conservation scientists need to collaborate with space agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), to identify measures wh... Read more
Telecom satellites are set to enter a new age, as ESA, Eutelsat and Airbus Defence & Space begin designing the most flexible payload ever. The Quantum programme is a departure from the t... Read more
By opening up the possibility of economical asteroid water mining , the electric solar wind sail (E-sail, www.electric-sailing.fi) enables frequent and affordable manned Mars flights The E-s... Read more
Picking up an apple is one of those jobs requiring the delicate touch of the human hand – or its robotic counterpart. ESA is developing technologies for advanced human–machine interaction to... Read more
“Our laser communication technology will revolutionize earth observation and satellite communication.” The first ever gigabit transmission via laser of imagery between the radar... Read more
IT TAKES chutzpah to tweet “rockets are tricky” shortly after one you have just launched has deliberately blown itself up. But Elon Musk, founder and boss of SpaceX, is not a man who lacks s... Read more
This loading system simulates an additional 1g bodyweight Researchers at King’s College London are working with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the European Space Agency (ESA... Read more
A mystery that has stumped scientists for decades might be one step closer to solution after ESA tracking stations carefully record signals from NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it swings by Earth... Read more
The ESA wants its operations on other planets to have greater mobility and manoeuvrability. SINTEF researchers are looking into whether snake robots could be the answer. So far, NASA has lan... Read more
This new ability could one day allow for 3-D High Definition video transmissions in deep space to become routine. When NASA’s Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) begins operation... Read more
NASA has big plans for 3-D printing in space, where mined asteroid materials could resupply longer missions The infamous NASA tool bag lost in space during a November 2008 International Spac... Read more
Just as remotely-operated vehicles help humans explore the depths of the ocean from above, NASA has begun studying how a similar approach may one day help astronauts explore other worlds. On... Read more
ESA’s Proba-V has become the first satellite to pick up aircraft tracking signals, allowing aircraft across the globe to be followed in flight from space. “We have succeeded in proving that... Read more