The European Space Agency’s new boss elaborated Friday on his vision for a multinational research village on the Moon—a leading contender for a project to succeed the International Space Station. For now, it is just an idea—called “crazy” by some—but one that Jan Woerner said was being widely discussed as the end of the ISS…

North Korea said Wednesday it had carried out a “successful” hydrogen bomb test, a claim that — if true — massively raises the stakes over the hermit state’s banned nuclear program. International condemnation was swift with neighbors South Korea and Japan decrying a gross violation of UN Security Council resolutions, while the White House said…

The sun-powered plane Solar Impulse 2, grounded in Hawaii since the summer for repairs, will be ready to fly again by April 20, the project’s spokeswoman told AFP Wednesday. The plane completed nearly half of an unprecedented round-the-world journey without using a drop of fuel before battery pack damage during a gruelling five-day leg from…

Three astronauts from the United States, Russia and Japan on Friday successfully completed a rare nighttime landing on Earth in the wintry Kazakh steppe after returning from the International Space Station. “They have landed safely and the recovery team have found them. Everything is according to plan,” a spokesman for Russian space agency Roscosmos told…

Flashing some interplanetary gold bling and sipping “space water” might sound far-fetched, but both could soon be reality, thanks to a new US law that legalizes cosmic mining. In a first, President Barack Obama signed legislation at the end of November that allows commercial extraction of minerals and other materials, including water, from asteroids and…

Testing of aerial drones to track the movements of sharks in Australian waters began Wednesday as the government admitted there was “no easy way” to protect swimmers from the predators. The trials began at Coffs Harbour, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales state which has endured 13 attacks by the creatures this year,…

Russia and China have agreed on the sale of 24 advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighters to Beijing, the Russian state holding Rostec said on Thursday. The deal – which military experts say could be worth more than $2 billion – represents the first time a foreign state has purchased the Su-35. A representative of Rostec, speaking…

Almost every aspect of America’s newest bomber is top secret, but experts predict the warplane will be very “stealthy,” packed with sensors — and able to deliver nuclear payloads anywhere. The Pentagon this week announced Northrop Grumman as the winner of the much-anticipated contest to build the Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRSB, in a…

Six Russian women on Wednesday clambered into a mock spaceship to begin a unique experiment testing how an all-female crew would interact on a trip to the Moon and back. For eight days, the female volunteers will live inside a wood-panelled suite of rooms at Moscow’s Institute of Biomedical Problems, renowned for its wacky research…

Russian spies likely tried to hack into the Dutch Safety Board’s computer systems to access a sensitive final report into the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, experts said Friday. The cyberattacks were revealed by security experts Trend Micro which blamed a shadowy group dubbed Operation Pawn Storm, “an active economic and political cyber-espionage…

The US Air Force recently lost control of two armed Predator drones in separate incidents in Turkey and Iraq, a US military official said Wednesday. The Predators were both carrying air-to-surface Hellfire missiles when they crashed, but these were safely recovered along with the aircraft. In the first case on October 17, a Predator crew…

ll off as it was preparing for takeoff last week. “The aircraft was immobilised and tests are under way,” the spokesman, Roman Ladenko, told AFP, confirming a report in the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. As a result of the incident, which occurred at an air base in Estonia, the army had stopped Eurofighters from flying unless…

Hackers’ arsenal was beefed up with a drone armed with weapons to crack into wireless computer networks at close range, whether they be in skyscrapers or walled compounds. David Jordan of US-based Aerial Assault was at an infamous Def Con hacker gathering on Sunday, showing off a drone that could be dispatched on missions to…

The German military is to invest billions of euros to fix recurring problems with its aircraft, helicopters and other military equipment, an official said on Friday. “We will invest up to 6 billion euros ($6.5 billion) in the next seven to eight years to obtain improvements in these areas,” a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.…

Sunshine-powered Solar Impulse 2, which has made an impromptu stop in Japan on its way around the world, was under cover in its mobile hangar Wednesday as the team waited out the weather before heading to Hawaii. The featherweight flying machine had been exposed to the elements since its arrival in the central city of…