America's first crewed spaceship in decade splashes down off Florida

Yahoo – AFP, Issam AHMED, August 2, 2020

Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley seen carrying out final preparations in
the SpaceX "Endeavour" which should land off the coast of Pensacola at
2:48 pm (1848 GMT) (AFP Photo/Handout)

Washington (AFP) - America's first crewed spaceship to achieve orbit since the Space Shuttle era splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour's four main parachutes gently floated down after the vessel landed off the coast of Pensacola at 2:48 pm (1848 GMT).

Pilot Doug Hurley, one of the two astronauts on board, said: "It's truly our honor and privilege" as radio communications became choppy and cut out.

A recovery boat speeded to collect Hurley and commander Bob Behnken, who spent two months on board the International Space Station.

The successful mission demonstrated that the United States once again has the capacity to send its astronauts to space and bring them back.

President Donald Trump -- who had travelled to Florida for the capsule's launch two months ago -- hailed its safe return.

"Thank you to all!" he tweeted. "Great to have NASA Astronauts return to Earth after very successful two month mission."

The United States has had to rely on Russia for this purpose since the last Space Shuttle flew in 2011.

In this file photo taken on May 30, 2020 NASA astronauts Bob Behnken (R) and Doug 

Hurley prepare for lift-off to the International Space Station (AFP Photo/JOE RAEDLE)

Tropical Storm Isaias, which had scuppered Endeavour's original landing site in the Atlantic, was nearing Florida's east coast Sunday morning, hundreds of miles away.

The mission is also a major win for Elon Musk's SpaceX, which was founded in only 2002 but has leap-frogged its way past Boeing, its main competitor in the commercial space race.

The US has paid the two companies a total of about $7 billion for their "space taxi" contracts, though aerospace giant Boeing's efforts have badly floundered.

Atmospheric re-entry

The Crew Dragon capsule performed several precise procedures in order to return home safely.

At 1:51 pm (1751 GMT), it jettisoned its "trunk" that contains its power, heat and other systems, which will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up.

Endeavour then fired its thrusters to maneuver itself into the proper orbit and trajectory for splashdown.

At 2:32 pm (1832 GMT) re-entered the atmosphere at a speed of around 17,500 mph (28,000 kph).

NASA's first crewed mission since 2011 (AFP Photo/Laurence CHU)

The ship's heat shield needed to withstand temperatures of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1900 degrees Celsius), which caused a communications blackout for a few minutes.

Endeavour then deployed two sets of parachutes on its descent, bringing its speed down to a mere 15 mph (24 kph) as it hits the water.

Over the next few minutes, two astronauts will be brought on board a recovery ship for a medical checkup before being taken ashore.

Astro dads

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft set off from the ISS Saturday evening.

Footage showed the capsule drifting slowly away from the ISS in the darkness of space, ending a two month stay for the crewmates.

During a farewell ceremony on the station, Behnken said that "the hardest part was getting us launched. But the most important part is bringing us home."

Addressing his son and Hurley's son, he held up a toy dinosaur that the children chose to send on the mission and said: "Tremor The Apatosaurus is headed home soon and he'll be with your dads."

This NASA video frame grab image shows SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft with 

NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken watching an infrared view of the 

International Space Station on their screens after undocking from it (AFP Photo/Handout)

Behnken and Hurley's return marks only the beginning for the Crew Dragon as SpaceX and NASA look ahead to future missions.

Endeavor will be brought back to the SpaceX Dragon Lair in Florida where it will undergo a six-weeks-long inspection process, as teams pore over its data and performance in order to certify the vessel as worthy of future low-Earth orbit missions.

The next mission -- dubbed "Crew-1" -- will involve a four member team: commander Michael Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Shannon Walker of NASA, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission specialist Soichi Noguchi.

Take-off is set for late September and the crew are due to spend six months on the space station.

Boeing reports first loss since 1997 as MAX costs rise to $18.6 bn

Yahoo – AFP, John BIERS, January 29, 2020

Boeing reported its first annual loss in more than two decades as the lengthy
grounding of the 737 MAX weighed on revenues and added to costs (AFP Photo/
Jason Redmond)

New York (AFP) - Boeing reported its first annual loss in more than two decades Wednesday as the lengthy grounding of the 737 MAX undercut the company's revenues and exploded costs.

The aerospace giant reported a $1.0 billion loss in the fourth-quarter and a loss of $636 million for all of 2019, the company's first year in the red since 1997.

Newly-installed Chief Executive David Calhoun, who took the reins this month to stabilize the situation, pledged to turn the company around even as Boeing disclosed $9.2 billion in additional costs connected to the MAX, essentially doubling the bill from the disaster.

Some analysts had expected new costs twice as high, and despite the hefty charges, Boeing shares advanced Wednesday.

The MAX has been grounded since March following two crashes that killed 346 people that opened the doors to intense scrutiny of Boeing's safety practices, as well bruising congressional investigations which have revealed a troublesome culture at the aviation giant.

"We are committed to transparency and excellence in everything we do," Calhoun said in a statement. "Safety will underwrite every decision, every action and every step we take as we move forward."

Calhoun has been at the helm of Boeing only since January 13 after Dennis Muilenburg was ousted in December following criticism of his handling of the crisis, and immediately after a damning series of internal communications were released.

Calhoun is targeting mid-2020 to win approval from aviation regulators to resume flights on the MAX, which is seen as a realistic timeframe after Muilenburg repeatedly pushed a more optimistic schedule.

Calhoun told CNBC that he was "confident as a CEO can be" of the current timetable, adding that "we put together a schedule we think we can make."

Higher costs

The grounding of the MAX dented Boeing's earnings in multiple ways, among the most damaging of which was a halt in deliveries of new planes to customers, a major source of revenue.

Boeing revenues in the fourth quarter plunged 36.8 percent to $17.9 billion, while revenues for all of 2019 dropped 24.3 percent to $76.6 billion.

The crisis also prompted the manufacturer to first reduce and then halt production of the MAX.

Boeing said Wednesday the changes in the production schedule added $2.6 billion in costs connected to airplane deliveries, plus another $4 billion in "abnormal production costs," which are primarily in 2020 and associated with the suspension of the MAX plus a "gradual resumption" of production.

Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith said MAX production will be at "low rates" in 2020, with increases "over the next few years."

The company set aside $2.6 billion to compensate airlines that have been forced to cancel thousands of flights due to grounded MAX planes and undelivered aircraft.

With these costs and expenses disclosed previously, the total impact on Boeing is $18.6 billion.

Ripple effects

The MAX crisis has also weighed on numerous suppliers, such as Spirit AeroSystems, which announced earlier this month that it would lay off 2,800 employees in Kansas due to the production stoppage.

And General Electric, which builds engines for the MAX, said the crisis lowered cash flow by $1.4 billion for 2019.

Boeing also announced Wednesday that it would again cut back production of the 787 Dreamliner, a top-selling plane that has supported revenues during the protracted 737 MAX grounding.

The aerospace giant plans to trim production to 10 airplanes a month in early 2021 through 2023 based on the "near-term market outlook," Boeing said.

The company in October had dropped production to 12 a month from 14 due to lower orders from China.

A note from JPMorgan Chase said Boeing's charges on the MAX were "less than feared," although the company was expending cash at a faster rate than expected. Boeing has reportedly lined up $12 billion in loans, but "balance sheet management" in 2020 will be an area for questions, the note said.

In another non-MAX development, Boeing set aside $410 million to cover costs of an additional uncrewed mission after the December NASA flight did not reach the International Space Station.

"NASA is evaluating the data received during the December 2019 mission to determine if another uncrewed mission is required," Boeing said.

Boeing shares rose 2.2 percent to $323.66 in early-afternoon trading.

US makes history with first all-female spacewalk

Yahoo – AFP, Issam AHMED, October 18, 2019

This image taken from NASA TV shows astronaut Christina Koch during a
spacewalk outside the International Space Station on October 18, 2019 (AFP Photo/HO)

Washington (AFP) - US astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir on Friday became the first all-female pairing to carry out a spacewalk -- a historic milestone as NASA prepares to send the first woman to the Moon.

"It symbolizes exploration by all that dare to dream and work hard to achieve that dream," Meir said after the 7-hour, 17-minute spacewalk to replace a power controller on the International Space Station.

The mission was originally planned for earlier this year but had to be aborted due to a lack of properly fitting spacesuits, leading to allegations of sexism.

Koch and Meir began the walk with standard safety checks on their suits and tethers, before making their way to the repair site on the station's port side, as the sunlit Earth came into view.

In a call to reporters just a few minutes before, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine emphasized the symbolic significance of the day.

"We want to make sure that space is available to all people, and this is another milestone in that evolution," he said.

"I have an 11-year-old daughter, I want her to see herself as having all the same opportunities that I found myself as having when I was growing up."

Suit flub

The first all-female spacewalk was supposed to take place in March but was canceled because the space agency had only one medium-sized suit. A male-female team performed the required task at a later date.

This undated combination photo obtained from NASA shows astronauts 

Christina Koch (L) and Jessica Meir (AFP Photo/HO)

The failure by traditionally male-dominated NASA to be adequately prepared was denounced in some quarters as evidence of implicit sexism.

When Koch and Meir had been outside the space station for about five hours, President Donald Trump reached them in a video call and told them they had made history.

"You are very brave, brilliant women," Trump said.

"You represent this country so well," the president added. "We are very proud of you."

Meir, a 42-year-old marine biologist who was recruited by NASA in 2013, answered by paying tribute to female pioneers of the past.

"We don't want to take too much credit because there have been many other female spacewalkers before us," she said.

"There's been a long line of female scientists, explorers, engineers and astronauts. We have followed in their footsteps, to get to where we are today."

After the call, the astronauts got back to their repair work.

"That is a view," one of them -- it was not clear which -- said at one point, as the earth was lit up in bright light from the sun.

Koch, an electrical engineer who is leading the mission, was carrying out her fourth spacewalk and was hooked up to the station's robotic arm.

Meir, making her first spacewalk, carefully made her way using handles.

The two were working to replace a faulty battery charge/discharge unit, known as a BCDU.

The station relies on solar power but is out of direct sunlight for much of its orbit and therefore needs batteries. The BCDUs regulate the amount of charge that goes into them.

US President Donald Trump (C), Vice President Mike Pence (L), Advisor to the 

President Ivanka Trump (3rd R) and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (2nd R) 

speak to NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir during the first 

all-woman spacewalk (AFP Photo/JIM WATSON)

The current task was announced Monday and is part of a wider mission of replacing aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with higher-capacity lithium-ion units.

Artemis

The US sent its first female astronaut into space in 1983, when Sally Ride took part in the seventh space shuttle mission, and has now had more women astronauts than any other country.

But the first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, followed by compatriot Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982, who was also the first woman spacewalker two years later.

NASA acting associate administrator Ken Bowersox said he hoped that an all-female spacewalk would soon be a "routine" matter that would not require celebration.

Asked why it had taken so long -- Meir is the 14th US woman spacewalker -- he said men's added height provided an advantage.

"There have been a lot of spacewalks where very tall men were the ones that were able to do the jobs because they were able to reach and do things a little bit more easily," he said.

Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris said the spacewalk was more than historic.

"It's a reminder that for women, even the sky doesn't have to be the limit," she tweeted.

NASA plans to return to the Moon by 2024 for the first time since the Apollo landings of 1969-1972. The new mission is named Artemis, after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology.

The mission will likely see the first woman set foot on the lunar surface, perhaps as part of a male-female combination, as the space agency looks ahead to a crewed Mars expedition in the 2030s.

The shifting of the Earth’s poles means a change at Cork Airport

The poles ain’t where they used to be, apparently.

Thejournal.ie, Jan 20th 2016

Image: Sean Barry via Flickr/CC

CORK AIRPORT IS to change the numbers assigned to its runways for the first time ever.

The move comes after shifts in the earth’s magnetic poles.

Each airport runway is assigned a runway designator number. The runway designator is made up of a two digit number displayed at each side of the runway, which shows its magnetic heading nearest the full 10 degrees.

The main runways at Cork Airport have been numbered as runway 17 and runway 35 since 1961 and the drifting of the Earth’s magnetic poles has shifted the runways’ magnetic headings, which now stand at 164°M and 344°M, respectively.

Pole shift is a constantly occurring geological phenomenon, in which the Earth’s magnetic field shifts.

Nasa says:

Earth’s polarity is not a constant. Unlike a classic bar magnet, or the decorative magnets on your refrigerator, the matter governing Earth’s magnetic field moves around. Geophysicists are pretty sure that the reason Earth has a magnetic field is because its solid iron core is surrounded by a fluid ocean of hot, liquid metal.

The numbers are required to change in April 2016 in order to remain safety compliant and licensed by the Irish Aviation Authority.

Speaking about the change Ciaran Carton, General Manager of Operators at Cork Airport said:

This is an unusual occurrence for Cork Airport as an airport runway number only changes approximately once in every 50 years. The different runway numbers are crucial for pilots during take-off, landing and taxiing.

“There will also be an alteration of software systems, new airfield mapping and a change in communications with private and commercial pilots. Additionally, we will be replacing the taxiway signage and painting new designation numbers on runway thresholds.”

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Europe-Russia mission departs on hunt for life on Mars

Yahoo – AFP, Kirill Kudryavtsev, 15 March 2016

A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying the ExoMars 2016 spacecraft blasts off from

 the launch pad at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome on March 14, 2016

(AFP Photo/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

Baikonur (Kazakhstan) (AFP) - A joint European-Russian mission aiming to search for traces of life on Mars left Earth's orbit Monday at the start of a seven-month unmanned journey to the Red Planet, space agency managers said.

The Proton rocket carrying the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to examine Mars' atmosphere and a descent module that will conduct a test landing on its surface had earlier launched from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe at 0931 GMT.

The spacecraft detached from its Briz-M rocket booster just after 2000 GMT before beginning its 496-million-kilometre (308-million-mile) voyage through the cosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

At 2129 GMT the probe and the lander, dubbed Schiaparelli, sent "signals confirming that the launch had gone well and that the space vehicle is in good condition" ESA said in a statement later Monday.

The TGO probe "is alive and talking," ESA said on Twitter.

The ExoMars 2016 mission, a collaboration between the ESA and its Russian equivalent Roscosmos, is the first part of a two-phase exploration aiming to answer questions about the existence of life on Earth's neighbour.

The TGO will examine methane around Mars while the lander, Schiaparelli, will detach and descend to the surface of the fourth planet from the Sun.

The landing of the module on Mars is designed as a trial run ahead of the planned second stage of the mission in 2018 that will see the first European rover land on the surface to drill for signs of life, although problems with financing mean it could be delayed.

Details of the ExoMars mission to be launched on March 14. (AFP Photo/Paz

Pizarro, Jonathan Jacobsen, Simon Malfatto, Laurence Saubadu)

'Nose in space'

One key goal of the TGO is to analyse methane, a gas which on Earth is created in large part by living microbes, and traces of which were observed by previous Mars missions.

"TGO will be like a big nose in space," said Jorge Vago, ExoMars project scientist.

Methane, ESA said, is normally destroyed by ultraviolet radiation within a few hundred years, which implied that in Mars' case "it must still be produced today".

TGO will analyse Mars' methane in more detail than any previous mission, said ESA, in order to try to determine its likely origin.

One component of TGO, a neutron detector called FREND, can help provide improved mapping of potential water resources on Mars, amid growing evidence the planet once had as much if not more water than Earth.

A better insight into water on Mars could aid scientists' understanding of how the Earth might cope in conditions of increased drought.

Schiaparelli, in turn, will spend several days measuring climatic conditions including seasonal dust storms on the Red Planet while serving as a test lander ahead of the rover's anticipated arrival.

The module takes its name from 19th century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli whose discovery of "canals" on Mars caused people to believe, for a while, that there was intelligent life on our neighbouring planet.

The ExoMars spacecraft was built and designed by Franco-Italian contractor Thales Alenia Space.

A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying the ExoMars 2016 spacecraft blasts off from 

the launch pad at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome on March 14, 

2016 (AFP Photo/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

'Need more money'

As for the next phase of ExoMars, ESA director general Jan Woerner has mooted a possible two-year delay, saying in January: "We need some more money" due to cost increases.

The rover scheduled for 2018 has been designed to drill up to two metres (around seven feet) into the Red Planet in search of organic matter, a key indicator of life past or present.

ESA said the rover landing "remains a significant challenge" however.

Although TGO's main science mission is scheduled to last until December 2017, it has enough fuel to continue operations for years after, if all goes well.

Thomas Reiter, director of human spaceflight at ESA, said in televised remarks ahead of the launch he believed a manned mission to Mars would take place "maybe in 20 years or 30 years".

Russian-American duo Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly earlier this month returned from a year-long mission at the International Space Station seen as a vital precursor to such a mission.

The ExoMars mission will complement the work of NASA's "Curiosity" rover which has spent more than three years on the Red Planet as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission.

Curiosity, a car-sized mobile laboratory, aims to gather soil and rock samples on Mars and analyse them "for organic compounds and environmental conditions that could have supported life now or in the past," according to NASA.

Space has been one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and the West that has not been damaged by ongoing geopolitical tensions stemming from the crises in Ukraine and Syria.

SpaceX rocket landing opens 'new door' to space travel

Yahoo – AFP, Kerry Sheridan, December 22, 2015

This 9-minute time exposure shows the launch, re-entry, and landing burns
 of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which successfully landed in an upright position
on December 21, 2015 at Cape Canaveral in Florida (AFP Photo)

Miami (AFP) - SpaceX successfully landed its powerful Falcon 9 rocket for the first time, a major milestone in the drive to cut costs and waste by making rockets as reusable as airplanes.

Its engines burning bright orange against the dark night sky, the Falcon 9 made a graceful arc back to Earth and touched down upright at Cape Canaveral, Florida, minutes after launching a payload of satellites to orbit, video images showed.

"The Falcon has landed," a commentator said above the screams and cheers of people gathered at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

SpaceX, headed by Internet tycoon Elon Musk, is striving to revolutionize the rocket industry, which currently loses many millions of dollars in jettisoned machinery and sophisticated rocket components after each launch.

"I still can't quite believe it," Musk said in a teleconference after the landing.

"I think this is a revolutionary moment. No one has ever brought an orbital class booster back intact."

Previous attempts to land the Falcon 9's first stage on a floating ocean platform have failed -- with the rocket either colliding with the autonomous drone ship or tipping over.

But this time, video images on SpaceX's live webcast showed the tall, white portion of the rocket -- known as the first stage -- appearing to settle down firmly and stick the landing.

The rocket reached a height of 125 miles (200 kilometers) before heading back to Earth and touching down at a former US Air Force rocket and missile testing range that was last used in 1978.

Video images were cut off within seconds of the landing, and the SpaceX live webcast returned to its commentators, who described the successful deployment of the rocket's payload of 11 satellites for ORBCOMM, a global communications company.

The US space agency NASA applauded the feat.

"Congratulations @SpaceX on your successful vertical landing of the first stage back on Earth!" NASA said in a tweet.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket pictured on December 16, 2015 (AFP Photo)

High stakes

The stakes were high for SpaceX, which has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to supply the astronauts living at the International Space Station over numerous back-and-forth trips with its Dragon cargo ship.

Just six months ago, a devastating explosion -- caused by a faulty strut -- destroyed the Falcon 9 about two minutes after launch, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in cargo and equipment bound for the ISS.

The company fixed that problem and also made the newest version of the Falcon 9 about 30 percent more powerful than previous iterations, Musk said.

Adding to the competitive nature of the commercial space industry, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's rocket company Blue Origin announced last month it had successfully landed its New Shepard rocket after a suborbital flight.

"Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club," Bezos said on Twitter Monday night.

Analysts have pointed out that although New Shepard was first, that SpaceX's feat would be harder to accomplish because the Falcon 9 flies higher in altitude.

"Because SpaceX's vehicle was designed to place a constellation of satellites in orbit, the Falcon 9's first stage flew at significantly greater speeds and more than double the altitude of what New Shepherd reached last month," the Commercial Spaceflight Federation said in a statement.

It called the landing an "incredible achievement" in an industry that is seeking to drive down costs and make spaceflight cheaper and more accessible to tourists and adventurers.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield added his congratulations.

"That was a hard landing to stick. Opens a brand new door to space travel. I look forward to the details," he wrote on Twitter.

One big step for man as astronaut controls robot from ISS

Yahoo – AFP, Jo Biddle, September 8, 2015

The blue-and-white Interact Centaur fibreglass robot, which cost less than 200,000
euros ($224,000) to build, has a camera on its head which allows the controller to
directly see the task it is performing (AFP Photo/Jo Biddle)

Noordwijk (Netherlands) (AFP) - European experts have pulled off a major advance that might one day help build new worlds in space after an astronaut in the International Space Station remotely guided a robot on Earth by feel.

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen performed the breath-taking experiment in which he placed a peg into a very tight hole on Monday under the careful control of the European Space Agency.

While orbiting some 400 kilometres (250 miles) above Earth, Mogensen took control of the Interact Centaur rover which has a pair of arms for delicate, high-precision work.

The blue-and-white fibreglass robot, which cost less than 200,000 euros ($224,000) to build, also has a camera on its head which allows the controller to directly see the task it is performing.

But sight is not the most important sense in this project. It is touch.

In real-time, thanks to super swift signals bouncing off a dedicated complex system of satellites working in synchronisation, the astronaut manoeuvered the robot into place.

He then very slowly lowered a metal pin held by the robot into a tight hole in a task board with less than a sixth of a millimetre of wriggle room.

Using a joystick

For the first time -- thanks to force-feedback technology -- when the pin was not aligned correctly Mogensen felt it hit the sides of the hole via the joystick he was operating on the space station.

Cheers erupted when after several long nail-biting minutes the rover -- which slightly resembles Disney's WALL.E cartoon character -- dropped the pin successfully into place.

Scientists and engineers believe applications of this kind of tactile technology are huge -- allowing humans to guide robots in delicate tasks by feeling their way.

The technology will allow people "to project a human-like presence into the robots, to do human-like tasks on the surface" of a planet, Andre Schiele, head of ESA's Telerobotics and Haptics Laboratory, told AFP.

With space engineers hoping at some point to fly people to Mars, "we have to bring them back" which means before they first step foot on the planet "you would have to build an entire launch-platform on the planet."

Robots like the Centaur -- also affectionately dubbed the "blue bug" by some of its designers -- could be put in place first to do the building.

"There's going to be a need for a set-up, some building before a human even sets foot on the planet and for that we could send down robots and control them from a space station," said industrial designer Emiel den Exter.

The 18-month project was a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA)and students from Delft University of Technology.

"Even something like lacing your shoe is something you rely entirely on your tactile senses" for, Schiele told journalists gathered at the ESA headquarters in the Dutch town of Noordwijk.

Earthly uses

On Earth this cutting-edge technology known as haptics could also be used "everywhere where you basically don't want to send humans," said Schiele.

"Feeling" robots would have been useful to cap the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, or help seal the reactors at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant after the 2011 meltdown.

Professor Frans van der Helm, from Delft University's mechanical engineering unit, said one scheme was looking at using such robots to work in a massive nuclear fusion project in France.

Inside the costly, multipartner International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) -- if it is built -- "the heat will be about one million degrees," Van der Helm told AFP.

"So everything starts to deform" making it hard for robots to complete a task which they have been programmed for, he said.

In this case, telepresence technology would allow a human to feel their way through and fix a problem.

For 27-year-old Turkish student Doga Emirdag, who helped design the Centaur's exo-skeleton as part of his masters degree, Monday's demonstration was a big day.

"The robot as it is wouldn't go into space. But the technology being developed will go to space," he said with a broad smile.

Related Article:

Intel invests €45m in Delft University quantum computer centre

Russia delays return of ISS crew members after supply ship failure

Yahoo – AFP, 12 May 2015

A picture taken on September 17, 2006 shows the International Space

Station over Earth (AFP Photo)

Moscow (AFP) - Russia said Tuesday it would delay the return of three astronauts from the International Space Station after the recent failure of a supply ship.

The journey home of the three crew members, originally scheduled for Thursday, has been postponed until June, senior space official Vladimir Solovyov said.

"We have now proposed for this landing to take place in early June," Solovyov was quoted by the state TASS news agency as saying.

Russia's Progress M-27M cargo ship 

blasts off from the launch pad at the

 Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in

Kazakhstan on April 28, 2015 (AFP Photo)

Meanwhile, the mission to replace the three astronauts -- one from Russia, one from NASA and one from the European Space Agency -- has been set back to late July, Solvyov said.

There are currently six crew members on board the International Space Station (ISS).

The delayed rotation follows the recent failure of an unmanned Russian Progress supply ship to dock with the ISS after suffering a communications breakdown.

The Progress craft eventually burnt up as it plummeted back to Earth last week, in a fiery end to a mission to deliver oxygen, water and supplies.

A commission is currently investigating the cause of the incident.

The exact date for the next launch to the ISS will be announced after it comes out with its finding on May 22.

Russia's space agency said Tuesday a provisional investigation showed a problem with the separation of the Progress spacecraft from the Soyuz rocket taking it into orbit.

The malfunction meant the cargo craft ended up on an orbit that was about 40 kilometres too high, the agency said in a statement.

Since the mothballing of the US Space Shuttle programme, Moscow has had a monopoly on sending astronauts to the ISS from its Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

But Russia has recently suffered a series of problems exposing shortcomings in its own programme.

A Progress supply ship crashed in Siberia shortly after launch in 2011. Moscow has also lost several lucrative commercial satellites.

Unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft falling towards earth

Russia's Roscosmos space agency is scrambling to regain control of the Progress M-27M vessel, currently unresponsive in earth's orbit. It could take over a week for it to tumble into the atmosphere, probably burning up.

Deutsche Welle, 29 April 2015

Officially, Russian authorities are yet to give up hope of regaining control over the unmanned Progress M-27M, designated by NASA as Progress 59. Contact was lost with the ship - originally scheduled to dock with the International Space Station on Thursday, April 30 - soon after its launch on Tuesday. The launch went off without a hitch.

News agency AFP quoted a Russian official familiar with the situation, who declined to be named, as saying that mission control had lost genuine hope of re-establishing communication with the ship.

"It has started descending. It has nowhere else to go," the official was quoted as saying. He added that it was clear that "uncontrollable reactions have begun," saying that two more planned attempts to restore contact would be undergone "to soothe our conscience."

Progress is currently traveling at 4.64 miles per second (nearly 17,000mph, more than 28,500km/h) and spinning out of control, rotating a full 360 degrees every five seconds.

Bad thing to see out the spaceship window https://t.co/tIIFAEXe4W Russian unmanned Progress cargo ship tumbling. Ground control attempt soon
— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) 28 april 2015

It could take between seven and 10 days to tumble back towards the earth.

Low odds of damage below

Even though the craft appears to be on an uncontrolled collision course with the earth below, any danger to people on the ground is negligible: most, perhaps all, of the vessel should burn up during its uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere; should any parts make it down to the planet's surface, then roughly two-thirds of the earth's land mass is water, and built-up urban areas comprise less than five percent of the actual land.

Some info/context (in picture format) re the Russian Progress 59 unmanned cargo craft 'hurtling towards earth' http://t.co/WcbdiblRWf
— Tim Smith (@GasheadAu) 29 april 2015

The vessel had been set to dock with the ISS on April 30, bringing cargo for the crew of six currently aboard. NASA said that the missed delivery would pose no danger to the astronauts and cosmonauts on the ISS.

The Progress vessel was carrying "1,940 pounds (880 kilos) of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water, and 3,128 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiment hardware," bound for the International Space Station, NASA said.

It was also carrying a copy of the Soviet Victory Banner flag, the red flag three Red Army soldiers raised above the Reichstag building in Berlin on May 1, 1945. The Russians aboard the ISS were scheduled to wave the flag as a greeting to those on the ground on the May 9 Russian commemorations of Germany's capitulation at the end of the World War II, 70 years ago.

The next cargo delivery, by private company SpaceX, is currently scheduled for June 19.

msh/lw (AFP, AP, dpa)