September 2013

Michael Hopkins, Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy in front of the Soyuz rocket used for the launch (Photo NASA/Victor Zelentsov)

A few hours ago the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and after less than six hours reached the International Space Station with three new crew members on board. The Soyuz has used the fast trajectory successfully tested in the recent past.

The three new members of the crew of the International Space Station, who complete the crew of Expedition 37, are astronaut Michael Hopkins and cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy.

Doctor Who - The Robots of Death

“The Robots of Death” is an adventure of the fourteenth season of “Doctor Who” classic series, which aired in 1977 featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela. It follows “The Face of Evil” and it’s a four parts adventure written by Chris Boucher and directed by Michael E. Briant.

A consortium led by the Canadian financial holding company Fairfax Financial has offered $4.7 billion to buy BlackBerry Limited, the producer of the famous mobile phones. The company has signed a letter of intent with this consortium, so the contract is not yet closed but it’s its intention to proceed with the sale.

The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan

The novel “The Clockwork Rocket” by Greg Egan was published for the first time in 2011. It’s the first book of the Orthogonal trilogy.

Yalda lives on a farm but that environment is too limited for her curiosity. Luckily for her, her father had promised her mother to send her to school so Yalda can to get a education higher than her relatives’. Eventually, she even manages to become a university teacher but life isn’t easy for her.

The Deep Impact space probe during its test phase (Photo NASA)

NASA has officially declared the end of the mission of the Deep Impact space probe. On July 4, 2005, an impactor launche by the probe hit the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 in order to analyze its debris but it was also used to study other comets and for the observation of exoplanets. Last month, NASA lost communications with Deep Impact and after a month of failed attempts to establish them again the agency had to declare the end of the mission.