Just as sat-nav did away with the need to argue over the best route home, scientists from the University of Surrey have developed a new method to find the optimal routes for future space missions without the need to waste fuel. The paper is published in the journal Astrodynamics.

The new method uses mathematics to reveal all possible routes from one orbit to another without guesswork or using enormous computer power.

Danny Owen, who developed the technique at the Surrey Space Center, said, "Previously, when the likes of NASA wanted to plot a route, their calculations relied on either brute force or guesswork.

"Our new technique neatly reveals all possible routes a spacecraft could take from A to B, as long as both orbits share a common energy level.

"This makes the task of planning missions much simpler. We think of it as a tube map for space."

In recent decades, space missions have increasingly relied on the ability to change the course of a satellite's path through space without using fuel.

Even intense exercise by astronauts cannot compensate for muscle atrophy caused by microgravity. Atrophy occurs, in part, by way of an underlying mechanism that regulates calcium uptake. Recent research has shown exposure to spaceflight alters the uptake of calcium in muscles. However, the molecular mechanisms that drive these changes are not well studied.

Researchers at Ames Research Center investigated these mechanisms by applying machine learning (ML) to identify patterns in datasets on mice exposed to microgravity. ML methods are particularly effective in identifying patterns in complex biological data and are suited for space biological research where small datasets are often combined to increase statistical power.

A piece of space junk recently crashed through the roof and floor of a man's home in Florida. Nasa later confirmed that the object had come from unwanted hardware released from the international space station.

The 700g, 10cm-long piece of hardware was expected to burn up, Nasa said. Even a relatively small piece of junk can cause considerable damage when falling from space.

This raises several important questions. Who is liable for damages caused by human-made objects that fall from the sky? Can anything be done to prevent this happening? Luckily, international treaties provide some answers to the first question, while recent developments help with the second.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner, set to take its first humans on board during the Crew Flight Test mission next month, was transported from Boeing's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a 10-mile trip to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

It arrived at United Launch Alliance's Vertical Integration Facility early Tuesday where it was placed atop an Atlas V rocket ahead of the planned launch from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 41 as early as May 6. The capsule will take NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a planned eight-day mission to the International Space Station.

Boeing completed fueling its spacecraft at the Starliner production facility adjacent to KSC's massive Vehicle Assembly Building earlier this month.

"Samples were taken and specialized tests were conducted throughout the propellent loading process to ensure the safety of the team performing the operation and the safe operation of the spacecraft on orbit," said Mark Sorensen, Starliner CFT Crew Module lead.

Before it left the building, Boeing performed a final weigh-in that also acted as the center-of-gravity check.