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The EU14bn ITER fusion reactor currently under construction in Cadarache, France, will require an additional cash injection of EU4.6bn if it is to start up in 2025 - a target date that is already five years later than currently scheduled.

The organization building the ITER fusion reactor in France has asked for more money and more time after presenting a revised schedule and costing to its governing council in November 2015.

The EU1bn Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) fusion experiment at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany, is expected to produce its first plasma this month.

Europe's ?450m Gaia spacecraft has taken up its position 1.5 million kilometres from Earth where it is set to begin producing the most accurate 3D map of our galaxy ever.

The redesign and recosting of the ITER fusion project took a step closer to completion last month when the project's council approved a step-by-step approach to construction designed to reduce the risk of something going wrong. Under the new plan, only a stripped-down reactor will be ready in 2018 to produce a plasma of normal hydrogen. Researchers will not attempt to achieve a burning plasma, which requires a fuel of deuterium and tritium, until late 2026 - up to two years later than planned - after further components have been added.