Prime contractor for the 6, 000-pound (2.7 ton) satellite was France's Alcatel Space, a joint venture between Alcatel and Thomson-CSF.

CNN: Ariane rocket blasts into space, launches two satellites

KOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) -- A Russian space capsule docked with the orbiting station Mir on Monday to allow a joint Russian-French-Slovak crew to embark on what could be the last mission to the aging craft.

CNN: Space crew reaches Mir for possibly last mission

The two monkeys were part of the joint Russian-American Bion 11 mission in 1997, flying aboard the space shuttle.

BBC: 'Hidden health risks' of space travel

One senior Russian space agency official told Russian news agency Itar-Tass that a similar joint project was started 10 years ago.

BBC: Mars rover (Nasa)

Now, at the 2005 Joint Assembly meeting organised by the American Geophysical Union, space scientists say they are confident - and agreed - that Voyager has gone beyond the termination shock and is flirting with deep space.

BBC: Voyager impression (Nasa)

No space -- meaning no cartilage between the two bones that make up the knee joint -- can cause tremendous pain.

CNN: What you need to know about total knee replacement

The European Space Agency and the Russian Institute of Biomedial Problems are scheduled to run a joint 520-day mock Mars expedition this year aimed to study the effects of extreme isolation and confinement on 12 volunteers.

CNN: Mars on the brain? Red Planet pioneers to face cosmic mind trip

As it turns out, the crux of the invention was head-slappingly simple: though a patent-pending idea Smith calls "get out of the way control, " the unit measures the load on each joint as its operator moves about, and figures out the direction it needs to move in 3-D space to literally move out of the way.

ENGADGET: Raytheon's Sarcos XOS 2 military exoskeleton just does the heavy lifting -- for now

Prime contractor for the AfriStar satellite was Alcatel Space with Marta Marconi Space, a joint venture of Britain's General Electric and France's Lagardere the major sub-contractor.

CNN: Ariane rocket orbits U.S. communications satellites