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.

Like a hard-driving athlete whose joints need help, the giant "Mars antenna" at NASA's Deep Space Network site in Goldstone, Calif. has begun major, delicate surgery. The operation on the historic 70-meter-wide (230-foot) antenna, which has received data and sent commands to deep space missions for over 40 years, will replace a portion of the hydrostatic bearing assembly. This assembly enables the antenna to rotate horizontally.

An historic 12-day journey to space by legendary game developer and space explorer Richard Garriott will have its world premiere at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin.

Indian Space Research Organisation conducted the static test of its liquid core stage (L110) of GSLV Mk III launch vehicle, for 150 seconds at its Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) test facility at Mahendragiri at 16:00 hrs on March 5, 2010.

DLR: On 13 March 2008, the International Space Station (ISS) passed across the field-of-view of Germany's remote sensing satellite, TerraSAR-X, at a distance of 195 kilometres (122 miles) and at a relative speed of 34,540 kilometres per hour (over 22,000 mph). The encounter lasted for about three seconds, but this brief moment was long enough for the synthetic aperture radar on TerraSAR-X to acquire an image of the ISS, a structure measuring about 110 metres by 100 metres by 30 metres. Larger image

Forty years ago, Apollo astronauts placed the first of several retroreflector arrays on the lunar surface. Their continued usefulness for laser-ranging might suggest that the lunar environment does not damage optical devices. However, new laser ranging data reveal that the efficiency of the three Apollo reflector arrays is now diminished by a factor of ten at all lunar phases and by an additional factor of ten when the lunar phase is near full moon.

My Dream of Stars: From Daughter of Iran to Space Pioneer

Keith Cowing: I have been reading books about space since, well, since I learned how to read. Indeed, this is how I learned to really read a book - since the books I had to read in school were lame. Nearly half a century later, I have read an unknown number of books that chronicle the life stories of those who have come to be involved with the exploration of space. Every book is different yet every book is the same since the paths that people took were similar and overlapping. Some came from Nazi Germany, others from small towns in America or Russia.

But until now I had not read a story of someone who aspired to touch the stars from the midst of revolution-racked Iran.