Russia supplies KH-35 cruise missiles to North Korea

North Korea appears to have acquired a sea-based copy of a Russian cruise missile, the latest step in an effort to enhance its maritime strike capability, a US think-tank said Tuesday.

A state propaganda film disseminated on social media sites, including YouTube, provides a very brief glimpse of the missile being launched from a naval vessel.

Writing on the closely watched 38 North website of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis said the missile would mark "a new and potentially destabilising addition" to North Korea's military arsenal.

Lewis identified the weapon as a copy of the Russian-produced KH-35, a sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missile developed during the 1980s and 90s.

Although the range and payload of the KH-35 fall below the threshold set by the Missile Technology Control Regime, any export of cruise missiles to North Korea would be a violation of UN sanctions.

"Although direct sale from Russia seems most likely, it is possible that North Korea obtained them from a third party like Myanmar," said Lewis, who is director for East Asia at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

As well as Myanmar, Russia has exported sea- and land-based cruise missiles to Algeria, India, Vietnam and Venezuela.

"The possibility that North Korea might sell KH-35 technology to others ... is not a happy thought," Lewis said.

The development of the North's conventional weaponry has largely been overshadowed by concerns over its nuclear weapons programmes.

Last month, 38 North published satellite photos showing two new North Korean warships, the largest it has constructed in 25 years.

The website said the two helicopter-carrying frigates represented an "important wake-up call" about the effectiveness of sanctions.

The flip-side of the North's naval capability was shown in pictures released Monday by the official KCNA news agency, showing supreme leader Kim Jong-Un riding in the turret of a rusted Romeo-class submarine developed by the Soviets in the 1950s.

"The submarines that our Navy holds are far superior," commented South Korean Defence Ministry spokesperson Kim Min-Seok.

ESA ATV Albert Einstein undocks from ISS

The European Space Agency’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) undocks from the aft port of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module. Image Credit: NASA TV

The European Space Agency’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4), also known as the “Albert Einstein,” undocked from the aft port of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module at 4:55 a.m. EDT Monday.

Its departure sets the stage for the relocation of a Soyuz spacecraft currently docked at the station and the arrival of three new crew members.

Expedition 37 Flight Engineers Luca Parmitano and Oleg Kotov, who together closed up the hatches to the ATV-4 Friday, monitored the automated departure from a control panel inside Zvezda, ready to take control of the process if needed.

Meanwhile Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin photographed the departing space freighter to capture imagery of its docking assembly and a set of sensors at the forward end of the spacecraft.

At the time of undocking, the station was orbiting about 260 miles above Kazakhstan.

Fyodor Yurchikhin

ATV-4, now filled with trash and unneeded items, fired its thrusters to back a safe distance away from the orbiting complex.

An engine firing Saturday will send it into the Earth’s atmosphere for a planned destructive re-entry over an uninhabited area of the southern Pacific Ocean.

The “Albert Einstein,” named in honour of the famed German-born theoretical physicist and icon of modern science, delivered more than 7 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the orbiting complex when it docked automatically on June 15.

During its time at the station, the ATV-4 also provided an additional reboost capability for the complex, as flight controllers periodically commanded its engines to fire to adjust the station’s orbit.

The fifth and final ATV, designated the “Georges Lemaître” after the Belgian astronomer who first proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, is scheduled to launch in mid-2014 for a six-month mission at the station.

More than 32 feet long -- about the size of a traditional London double-decker bus – the ATV is the largest and heaviest vehicle in the station’s resupply fleet.

The departure of ATV-4 clears the way for Parmitano, Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Karen Nyberg to relocate their Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft from its docking port on the Rassvet module to the newly vacated Zvezda port on Nov. 1.

3D printers could use Moon rocks to make supplies, say scientists

Future Moon colonists should be able to use lunar rocks to create tools or spare parts, according to a study.

US researchers have used a 3D printer to make small objects out of melted simulated lunar rocks.

They say the technique could help future missions to minimise the weight and the expense of carrying materials into space as a digital file would be enough.

But one expert says such a printer would have to be extremely precise.

In 2010, Nasa asked a team from Washington State University to see whether it was possible to use lunar rocks for 3D printing.

It supplied the researchers with simulated Moon rocks, or lunar regolith simulant, containing silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron and magnesium oxides.

Many hundreds of kilograms of Moon rocks were collected during Nasa missions, but the scientists did not use them because they are considered a national treasure in the US.

Lunar regolith simulant is commonly used for research purposes at Nasa.

"It sounds like science fiction, but now it's really possible," said Prof Amit Bandyopadhyay, the lead author of the study, published in the Rapid Prototyping Journal.

His team created simple 3D shapes by sending a digital file or scan to a printer which then built the items layer by layer out of melted lunar regolith, fed via a carefully controlled nozzle to form a shape. The process is known as "additive manufacturing".

A laser was used to melt the material.

"As long as you can have additive manufacturing set up, you may be able to scoop up and print whatever you want. It's not that far-fetched," said Prof Bandyopadhyay.

The research demonstrates the latest advances in 3D printing technology, which is already in use in medicine, fashion, car manufacturing and other industries.