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Regulars
Pogo Jumping Robot Could Rule Low Gravity Worlds
Japan, no stranger to work that involves delivering robotics to every facet of human society, thinks it may have figured out the best way for bipedal robots to move on low gravity worlds like the moon. Enter the pogo stick:
Surfing Earth’s Magnetic Field With A Giant Space Ribbon
A Japanese rocket unfurled a 300-metre-long ribbon in space on Monday, testing technology that could one day allow spacecraft to navigate by surfing Earth’s magnetic field.
Japan Sending Mirrorball To Mercury
Fresh from the (possible) success of its Hayabusa comet dust hoover, Japan is planning a new space mission – sending a rotating mirrored probe to the currently fashionable planet Mercury.
Hayabusa Space Probe May Contain Asteroid Dust Or Just Normal Dust
See that? It might be a dust particle from an asteroid! Or it might be a flake of dried skin from a man in the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency factory that built the Hayabusa probe. No one knows yet.
Japan’s Satellite Crashes Into The Moon, Sends Back Footage Of Its Demise
Japan’s Selene satellite has been sending us amazing HD footage of the surface of the moon for a couple of months now, but on June 11th, it finally crashed into the surface. And its final video might be its best.
Videos So Close to the Moon You Can Almost Touch It
Selene— Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s spacecraft mapping and filming the moon in High Definition for the first time—keeps returning crystal-clear videos of the Moon surface. And the video will keep getting closer and closer, until it crashes.
Unmanned Japanese Cargo Spacecraft Could Be NASA’s Next Space Shuttle
With the dinosaur Space Shuttle set to retire in 2010, and Orion due to be finished (optimistically) by 2015, NASA may purchase the US$131 million unmanned HTV cargo vehicle from JAXA, Japan’s space agency, to guarantee fresh shipments of space-Doritos flowing up to the brave souls on the International Space Station. While they had initially planned to fill this gap by relying on commercial space cargo flights by companies like SpaceX, Reuters is reporting that delays in the private-sector space companies have caused NASA to look elsewhere to avoid being crippled by the Shuttle’s retirement. [Reuters]
Video of Space Boomerang Is Exactly What You Expect
We knew that boomerangs work in space because Takao Doi tried one in the International Space Station last month. Now, thanks to JAXA’s obsession with cameras we have proof on video. The usual skeptics who think that Elvis is really the only human that ever went to the moon—and still lives there—will be happy. [JAXA via Pink Tentacle]
First High Definition Moon Map Released, Uranium Sites Located
Selene, Japan’s lunar spacecraft and HD peeping Tom, keeps sending stunningly-detailed information from our crystal clear Moon to trashed Mother Earth. These first-ever high definition global topographic maps of the Moon were created using 1,127,392 point measurements, taken with its laser altimeter. And they are just preliminary versions.
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