This image, acquired by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument on 9 March 2010, captures sea ice in the Sea of Okhotsk off the northeastern coast of Russia's Sakhalin Island (top left) and the northern tip of Japan's Hokkaido Island (bottom left). Sea ice began forming in the northern area over the Sea of Okhotsk in November 2009. Since then, it extended down to about 30 km off the northern coast of Hokkaido and has likely reached its maximum. Credits: ESA. Download: HI-RES JPEG (Size: 1541 kb) HI-RES TIFF (Size: 27 954 kb)

Astronaut and Everest climber Scott Parazynski recently posted some new images of the Everest summit rock and Apollo Moon rocks that were installed inside the cupola attached to the ISS node Tranquility last month. You can see more of them here.

Astro_Soichi: Small Fine Arm (Ko-Bot) unveiled. This is not CG. Real robot arm in real space!

Space Florida is pleased to announce that it has secured Real Property Licenses for Space Launch Complexes 46 and 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. As a result, the 45th Space Wing now grants Space Florida full rights to proceed with construction and refurbishment work at either launch location.

RSC Energia: Specialists from the S.P.Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia continue their work at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), FL, USA on the processing for launch of the Mini Research Module MRM1 (Rassvet). At the SPPF facility of the Astrotech company (formerly Spacehab) stand-alone electrical tests and leak tests of the module and the airlock which is to be delivered on it have by now been completed.

The work has started on preparing the airlock and the radiative heat exchanger for installation onto MRM1. These items will be structurally integrated with the module and delivered to the Russian Segment of the International Space Station (ISS) to await the docking of the Multi-Purpose Laboratory Module (MLM) with the space station. They will be transferred to MPL to operate as parts of that module.

The launch of the Rassvet module onboard the Space Shuttle is stipulated by an agreement between Russia and US under the ISS program and is scheduled for May 2010. The Multi-Purpose Laboratory Module is expected to be added to the space station in 2012.

Fruits of J. curcas. Fruits are produced terminally in the branches, and each fruit contains three seeds. Image credit: Dr. Wagner A Vendrame, University of Florida at Homestead

What if space held the key to producing alternative energy crops on Earth? That's what researchers are hoping to find in a new experiment on the International Space Station.

NASA has announced opportunities to test emerging technologies during flights on an airplane that simulates the weightless conditions of space. The technologies should have potential use in future NASA projects, support future exploration systems, or improve air and space vehicle capabilities.