From Google DeepMind’s ChatGPT-eclipsing AI to SpaceX’s next Starship launch, check out this week’s awesome tech stories from around the web.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A European space telescope blasted off Saturday on a quest to explore the mysterious and invisible realm known as the dark universe.
SpaceX launched the European Space Agency’s Euclid observatory toward its ultimate destination 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away, the Webb Space Telescope’s neighborhood. It will take a month to get there and another two months before it starts its ambitious six-year survey this fall.
Flight controllers in Germany declared success nearly an hour into the flight, applauding and shouting “Yes!” as the telescope phoned home after a smooth liftoff.
In three months, the tool will begin a six year exploration of dark energy and dark matter.
Dark energy and dark matter discovery tool Euclid successfully launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, at 11:11 local time / 16:11 BST / 17:11 CEST on Saturday 1 July 2023. The first stage proceeded to return to Earth to be recaptured and reused at later flights.
Continue reading “Euclid successfully launched into space by Falcon 9 rocket” »
Virgin Galactic successfully flew its first paying customers to the final frontier Thursday, a long-awaited achievement that puts it back on track in the emerging private spaceflight sector.
Italian Air Force officers unfurled their nation’s flag and peered out windows at the curve of Earth while enjoying a few minutes of weightlessness at 52.9 miles (85.1 kilometers) above sea level.
“It was a beautiful ride,” Colonel Walter Villadei told reporters at a press conference, adding that his favorite moment was seeing the contrast between the black of space and the planet beneath.
Elon Musk / Twitter.
Ship 25, the Starship upper stage prototype that will attempt to fly to orbit during the fully-integrated Starship launch system’s second test flight, performed the static fire test on Monday, June 26 at 8:27 pm EDT.
Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism enterprise is carrying a commercial crew of three to the edge of space for the very first time.
Virgin Galactic just performed its sixth spaceflight and first-ever commercial space tourism expedition.
Continue reading “Virgin Galactic just launched its first commercial space tourism flight” »
A team of researchers at Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have come up with an ingenious, origami-inspired robot that can turn itself into a huge number of three-dimensional shapes.
Best of all, it can fold and unfold itself like a piece of flat-pack Ikea furniture, which its creates say makes it an ideal candidate for assisting astronauts inside the cramped environment of a spacecraft.
As seen in a video demonstration, the bot — called Mori3 — can dexterously walk and pose with four flattened limbs, or even roll around once bent into a ring shape.
Monday’s test firing of Ship 25 seems to have gone resoundingly well. On Tuesday afternoon (June 27), SpaceX tweeted images from the previous day’s proceedings, and they highlight the sheer power generated by Starship’s engines. The smoke and dust from ignition managed to stay low enough to the ground, and diffuse enough, for Starship to remain perfectly in frame, engine fire imparting an orange glow to the black tiles of the vehicle’s heat shield.
Related: SpaceX fires up Starship spacecraft ahead of 2nd test flight (video)
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk also tweeted an image from the static-fire test early on Tuesday morning. This one, from an upward perspective, shows the extreme bright light emanating from the flames, with Starship centered in the shine.
This isn’t the first time NASA has encouraged the public to add their names to objects bound for space, including those aboard Artemis I, as well the Preservation Rover and InSight on their multiple trips to Mars. In 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 both launched with gold-plated phonographic records aboard featuring 90 minutes of music, including a concerto by Bach and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
At the time of writing, over 305,000 people from nearly every nation across the world have already signed the Europa Clipper’s roster, and earthbound participants have until the end of 2023 to enter in their names. Until then, you can also tune into regular livestreams of the Europa Clipper’s construction and assembly.
An international team of explorers, led by Japan, will send a tiny robotic rover to the Martian moon of Phobos very soon.
A Japanese-led mission to Mars has just signed an agreement with German and French partners to build a rover to explore Phobos.
Continue reading “Japan, Germany and France to send rover to Martian moon Phobos” »
