ESTECThe European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, Netherlands, opened its doors to the public last weekend, and The Register braved the rain to grill top brass on spaceships, partnerships and the "B" word. The annual event, which this year saw 9,159 visitors crawl over the European Space Agency's (ESA) …

Elon Musk's SpaceX has claimed that a mysterious comms "bug" was what stopped it from moving its satellites away from an orbital collision course. The European Space Agency carried out a "collision avoidance manoeuvre" earlier this week when it realised one of its satellites was on course to potentially bump into a flock of …

RoundupAs NASA nervously eyed Hurricane Dorian, Roscosmos finally persuaded Soyuz MS-14 to dock with the ISS and India's Chandrayaan-2 enjoyed an amicable separation above the Moon. India: Ready for powered descent? Following a sequence of successful manoeuvres in Lunar orbit, India's Vikram lander earlier today separated from the …

European Space Agency and Roscosmos's 2020 ExoMars launch is in jeopardy after a failed parachute test. The test was focused on the largest of the four parachutes, a predecessor of which had suffered a tear the last time around. Things went awry once more and an issue "similar to the previous test" was observed. Radial tears …

The European Space Agency (ESA) unveiled an experiment it hopes will overcome the problems that prevent encrypted communications between the Earth and orbiting spacecraft. The Cryptographic ICE Cube, launched into orbit in April as part of the NG-11 mission, has been installed on the ISS' Columbus laboratory and is currently …

PicPanic-stricken headlines claiming Earth will be slammed by an asteroid on September 9 this year should be ignored, the European Space Agency (ESA) assures us. The supposedly planet-menacing 100-foot-(30-metre)-diameter space rock, dubbed 2006 QV89, was discovered in August 2006. Following observations over ten days back then, …

The European Space Agency is embarking on a new mission to a faraway comet floating on the outer edges of the Solar System that is yet to be discovered. The mission dubbed "Comet Interceptor" was chosen as part of ESA's Cosmic Vision programme, a series of long term projects launching between 2015 and 2025. Three spacecraft …

RoundupPresidential frothing over NASA's direction was swiftly wiped from the walls last week while ESA continued quietly progressing towards new rockets and vehicles. ESA Rider While space fandom continues to breathlessly anticipate Boeing and SpaceX's latest and greatest reusable capsule, ESA has continued to plough its own furrow …

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft caught a massive whiff of methane from orbit, confirming an earlier gas detection on the Red Planet by America's Curiosity rover. Signs of the hydrocarbon molecule rouses excitement because there is a possibility that it may be produced by biological processes, and therefore …

Britain's Reaction Engines has been given the greenlight to press ahead with an ambitious testing programme for its SABRE air-breathing rocket engine. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the UK Space Agency (UKSA) took a look at the preliminary design for the engine core of the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) …

NASA and the European Space Agency have teamed up to attempt to answer what seems like an impossible question: what is the mass of the Milky Way? The topic has been bugging scientists for a while, and it's a useful figure to know because it's needed in simulations of galaxies and of our galaxy within the universe. Previous …

With a mere 58 days remaining until Brexit, the UK government has published a cheerful insight into the "size and health" of Blighty's space industry. While the UK lacks domestic launch capability, it is responsible for many of the instruments and systems used in spacecraft and launchers. The report (PDF), which looked at the …

PicWithin the next six years, the European Space Agency hopes to drill into the Moon and extract oxygen and water, paving the way for folks to eventually live on the rocky satellite. The ESA this week signed a one-year contract with ArianeGroup, an aerospace biz specializing in space rides and ballistic missiles, to bring the …

Spacewalking cosmonauts clambered outside the ISS yesterday to get an external view of the mystery hole drilled into the Soyuz, which is due to return three crew members to Earth next week. Roscosmos flight engineers Oleg Kononenko (fresh from his launch aboard Soyuz MS-11 earlier this month) and Sergey Prokopyev popped open …

RoundupThis week Rocket Labs launched six satellites into the nether, the British team on ESA's ExoMars mission had a think about where to land their rover on the red planet in 2021, and Japan helped successfully scrap a load of space crap. Rocket Labs declares that it is indeed Business Time as Electron flings sats into orbit The …

A year-long round trip to Mars could give you more than half the maximum radiation dose recommended for an astronaut's entire career, according to data collected by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The spacecraft, weighing in at over 4,000 kilograms (8,801lb), was launched by the European Space Agency and its Russian counterpart …

Researchers at the Technische Universität Wien in Austria have found that solar wind can do far more than project lights in the Earth's night sky. The work, published in the journal Icarus, found that while we on Earth are treated to displays such as the Northern Lights, bodies that lack the Earth's protective magnetic field, …

A team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center gathered last week to bid farewell to a mass spectrometer as it began its journey to the red planet via an assembly plant in Italy. The instrument is a key component of a toaster oven-sized lab, called the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA), which will detect evidence of …