'Jules Vernes', the first Automated Transfer Vehicle, will automatically dock with the International Space Station following its launch next year. To ensure that the rendezvous and docking occurs without any problems, Jules Vernes' crucial navigation systems are being qualified at an exceptional test centre 100 km west of Paris, in France.

At the start of the space race, during the Cold War, there was a fear that space could be used for military purposes. In 1967 the UN Outer Space Treaty declared that space belongs to everyone but today there are many areas where current regulations are ambiguous.

By measuring the Earth's gravity field and modelling the geoid, or hypothetical surface of the Earth, with extremely high accuracy and spatial resolution, GOCE will significantly advance our knowledge of how the Earth works in several domains – oceanography, geophysics and geodesy – as well as providing insight into the physics and dynamics of the Earth's interior, such as volcanism and earthquakes.

NASA has decided to launch a Space Shuttle mission in 2008 to repair and upgrade the NASA/ESA observatory. This servicing mission will ensure that Hubble can function for perhaps as many as another ten years and will increase its scientific capabilities in some key areas. Two new scientific instruments will be installed as part of the upgrade: the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera 3. Both will improve Hubble's potential for discovery. Around the same time of this mission, ESA will launch Herschel, the Orbiting Telescope with the largest mirror ever deployed in space. Herschel will complement Hubble in the infrared part of the spectrum.

The STS-116 mission continues a series of complex missions to complete the International Space Station.

With an array of sophisticated instrumentation, MetOp-A promises to provide data of unprecedented accuracy and resolution on a host of different variables such as temperature and humidity, ocean surface wind speed and direction and concentrations of ozone and other trace gases – thus marking a major advance in global weather forecasting and climate monitoring capabilities.

Activity is increasing at the Columbus Control Centre, the ground control facility for Europe's Columbus laboratory. Following the launch of Columbus to the International Space Station in 2007, a team of some 80 scientists and engineers based at the control centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, will monitor on board systems and communicate with the ISS and ground control centres in the United States, Europe and Russia. The team is currently undergoing constant training and simulations to prepare them for the task.

The red planet has revealed the places where water once flowed.

Conditions on Titan may have been suitable for the formation of essential building blocks for life.

Conditions on Titan may have been suitable for the formation of essential building blocks for life.