Tim Peake and space station crew mates return to Earth

The European Space Agency’s ambitious BebiCololmbo probe has completed commissioning and is now clear for the long voyage to Mercury

Emboldened by renewed contact with Europe’s comet lander, engineers are repositioning the mission’s Rosetta mothership this week to establish a reliable a communications link with the dishwasher-sized Philae landing craft, a prerequisite for resuming a science campaign abbreviated by a power shortfall last year.

The European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft has run out of fuel and will burn up in the atmosphere of Venus in January after a successful eight-year mission.