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360 degree view of the Sun
Two identical spacecraft from the NASA STEREO mission (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory), first launched back in 2006, are now sending back images, that for the first time allow a 360 degree view of the Sun. 

The craft are offset from one another, with one flying ahead of the Earth and the other behind, resulting in them being positioned on opposite sides of the Sun, and are now able to send back images, both back and front of the planet.

This should enable scientists to better predict space weather and the violent eruptions that can emit from the sun's surface - eruptions that can result in damage to satellites and disruption in communication and power systems on Earth.

Take a quick look at the short NASA video below to find out a little more.


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Publisher InTech Jan 2011
If you have a few minutes to spare sometime and an interest in some of the things we get up to at the Microgravity Centre, (the Lab I established more than ten years ago), then click on the link below. 

You will be taken to a chapter in a new book in which we feature - Biomedical Engineering, Trends, Research & Technologies, published in January this year by InTech.

Find out more about the eHealth projects that we are involved in, including eResearch, eLearning and eHealth. 

Either read the chapter online, or better still click the download button and read it at your leisure. It's free to you, and the more people that download it, the more worthwhile all our work for the chapter will seem!   

Click HERE to go to the chapter.
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The Mars500 experiment achieved a major milestone this week with the safe ‘arrival’ of the ‘spacecraft’ to Mars, after a virtual interplanetary flight of 244 days.

The $15 million joint experiment by ESA, Russia and China is aimed at studying the complex psychological and technical challenges that need to be solved if long duration spaceflights are to become a reality. The project has now been running at the Institute of Biomedical Problems, Moscow, for more than eight months, using a series of sealed modules to imitate a mock spacecraft.

The crew of six (3 Russians, 2 Europeans, 1 Chinese) have been living and working together, sealed off from the outside world, as if on a real expedition to Mars. Their life onboard is comparable to that of the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), with similar routines and work schedules filled with experiments, daily exercise, and maintenance jobs to do.  

Tuesday 1st Feb 2011, in accordance with the mission scenario, saw the craft ‘enter a circular orbit around Mars’, with three crewmembers destined to ‘land’ on the Red Planet on 12th February, to take part over the next few days in three maneuvers onto a simulated Martian terrain.

Return journey back to planet Earth will begin on 1st March but crew cannot expect to arrive home until early November 2011

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