Last autumn, the European Space Agency’s Orbital Robotics Laboratory hosted three student teams from universities across Europe. After being selected to join the ESA Academy Experiments programme, the students were invited to carry out the experimental part of their research projects in the agency’s test facilities with support and guidance from experts.

The European Space Agency’s innovative Biomass satellite is now fully commissioned, opening free access to a powerful new stream of data that promise a step change in our understanding of forest dynamics and their role in regulating the global carbon cycle.

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On 17 January, the Artemis II Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft were rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to Launch Pad 39B. The 6.5-km journey took around 12 hours and was carried out using NASA's crawler-transporter, which has been moving rockets to launch pads for over 50 years.

At the top of the rocket sits the Orion spacecraft, bearing the ESA and NASA logo and designed to carry four astronauts on a 10-day lunar flyby mission. Artemis II will be the first crewed flight of the Artemis programme

College Station, TX (SPX) Jan 21, 2026
A hundred years ago, quantum mechanics was a radical theory that baffled even the brightest minds. Today, it's the backbone of technologies that shape our lives, from lasers and microchips to quantum computers and secure communications. In a sweeping new perspective published in Science, Dr. Marlan Scully, a university distinguished professor at Texas A and M University, traces the journey

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 21, 2026
A new theoretical framework from physicists at Heidelberg University connects two long standing views of how a single exotic particle behaves inside a quantum many body system of fermions. The work unifies descriptions of an impurity that moves through a Fermi sea and an impurity that is so heavy it is effectively fixed in place. In the standard quasiparticle picture, a lone electron or at

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 20, 2026
Electronic order in quantum materials often arises through intricate, non-uniform patterns that shift across space. A well-known example is the charge density wave (CDW), an ordered electronic state that forms periodic patterns at low temperatures. Although CDWs have been studied for decades, directly observing how their strength and spatial coherence evolve through a phase transition has remain

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
Starfighters Space Inc has completed a dedicated wind tunnel campaign for its STARLAUNCH 1 air launched rocket, marking a key technical milestone in the development of the sub orbital vehicle. The program focused on validating how the rocket separates from the companys supersonic aircraft platform under a range of flight conditions. The test series examined STARLAUNCH 1 separation behavior