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SpaceX begins construction of its next-generation Starship rockets
SpaceX's next-generation rocket, the Starship, is 50 meters long and powered by three Raptor engines, creating a whopping 12,000 kN of thrust. It is designed to haul large amounts of cargo and eventually passengers into space, for missions to the moon and potentially to Mars and beyond as well. After unveiling the design for the Starship Mk 2 last month, and also revealing an ambitious timeline for getting the craft into orbit, construction of three of the rockets has begun.
BILL-E is a cute robot that builds structures block by block
A new robotics breakthrough could revolutionalize how we build everything from airplanes to bridges and even massive superstructures. A team of researchers at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology's Center for Bits and Atoms have created a new type of robot.
Virgin Galactic passengers will wear these Under Armour spacesuits
Yesterday, NASA revealed the spacesuits its astronauts will wear on future Moon and Mars missions. They're impressive but clunky and a little heavy-handed on the patriotic theme. As you might expect, commercial space travel will be a bit more stylish. Today, Under Armour unveiled the space gear -- a base layer, spacesuit and boots -- that it's designed for passengers on Virgin Galactic flights.
The Morning After: Google finally reveals the Pixel 4
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous. Now that Google's big hardware event has happened, we can end the leaks and start playing around with the Pixel 4. Tuesday also brought in big news about League of Legends and Sony's immersive new format for music -- catch up with everything below.
SpaceX is requesting permission to launch 30,000 more Starlink satellites
The SpaceX Starlink constellation may end up almost four times bigger than what the company originally planned. According to SpaceNews, the company has asked the International Telecommunication Union for permission to access spectrum for 30,000 more Starlink satellites. When SpaceX first launched the project, it introduced Starlink as a space-based internet network comprised of 12,000 satellites. The ITU and the US Federal Communications Commission already approved the company's request for spectrum access for those 12,000 -- this new batch of requests is for an additional 30,000 units.
NASA demos spacesuits for its Moon and Mars missions
Today, NASA revealed the two spacesuits that it will use for its Project Artemis. It shared a video of a spacesuit engineer wearing a bulky, red-white-and-blue suit that will be used for work on the Moon and another spacesuit engineer rocking a thinner, orange suit. The latter is what the crew will wear on their way to and from the Moon, and in the event that there's a sudden depressurization of their spacecraft, they'll be able to live inside the suit for days.
Girl Scouts can earn five STEM badges through Microsoft partnership
As part of its ongoing campaign to foster STEM education, the Girl Scouts of the USA has partnered with one of the biggest names in tech: Microsoft. Moving forward, Girl Scouts troop members will be able to earn five separate badges by taking part in free workshops held at Microsoft Stores across the US.
The Morning After: OnePlus unveils the 7T Pro
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous. Dyson won't make an EV, but Toyota's adding a plug to its hybrid RAV4 and has given the fuel cell-powered Mirai a stylish makeover. Also, there's an upgraded OnePlus smartphone coming to some of you, and ESPN is finally jumping into 4K. It's Friday.
NASA's ICON launches to study the boundary between Earth and space
NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer or ICON spacecraft is finally in orbit after years of delays and postponed launches. A Northrop Grumman aircraft carried ICON, which was strapped to a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, to an altitude of 39,000 feet. At 9:59 PM EDT on October 10th, the carrier plane dropped the fridge-sized spacecraft, which has since deployed its solar panels. That means it has power, and it's all systems go for the long-delayed mission.
SpaceX Crew Dragon could fly astronauts to the ISS in early 2020
As expected, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine stopped by SpaceX HQ in California and then did a bit of Q&A with the media while standing next to Elon Musk and two astronauts. You can watch video of the entire session below as it was posted to Bridenstine's Twitter feed, but some of the highlights included comments about the Crew Dragon project and the progress made there. While the administrator emphasized the need for more testing, and allowed that schedules could change depending on what they find there, the capsule could be ready for its first crewed "Demo-2" test flight in Q1 of 2020. According to Elon Musk, drop tests that are about to start will evaluate its "Mark 3" parachute design, which has replaced nylon cords with stronger "xylon" material. They also referenced the explosion on the test stand earlier this year, with Bridenstine praising SpaceX's "fail fast" model, as long as it includes fixes before rockets actually take flight. Musk agreed, saying that if things don't fail then you aren't trying hard enough. The explosion was apparently related to a leak somewhere between the launch abort system and orbital maneuvering system, so that area has been redesigned. Overall, everyone seems to be closer to the same page than in weeks past, but we'll have to wait and see if this gets the Commercial Crew program moving sooner rather than later.
Ubtech’s latest educational, dancing robot is bigger and more lifelike
There are plenty of educational coding robots, but few have moves like UBTECH's dancing robot MeeBot. UBTECH launched the JIMU build-your-own-bot kit for MeeBot in 2016. Today, the company unveiled MeeBot 2.0.
Virgin Orbit plans to send cubesats to Mars as early as 2022
Virgin Orbit plans to be the first private company to send cubesats to Mars. Today, it announced a partnership with the Polish satellite company SatRevolution and a dozen Polish universities to design a series of small-satellite missions to the Red Planet. The first cubesat could launch as early as 2022.
Astronauts bioprint beef in space for the first time
Lab-grown meat is no longer confined to Earth -- Aleph Farms and partners have successfully grown meat in space for the first time. The experiment, conducted aboard the Russian section of the International Space Station on September 26th, used a bioprinter from 3D Bioprinting Solutions to produce a cultivated beef steak. Aleph's growth technique replicates cows' muscle tissue regeneration process, just in artificial conditions -- the only big change for spaceborne creation is the faster maturation, since you can print from all sides at once instead of coping with the limitations of gravity.
Elon Musk and NASA's administrator will talk Crew Dragon on Thursday
Just before Elon Musk took a victory lap to show off SpaceX's Starship in Texas, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine congratulated him while mentioning that his organization "expects to see the same enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer." He was referring to the long-delayed Commercial Crew program that SpaceX is participating in with its Crew Dragon. Musk responded by bringing up NASA's own oft-delayed project, the SLS, when asked about the comment. Bridenstine is scheduled to visit SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, CA for a tour to check on the company's progress, followed by a media availability session. He will be there alongside Musk, as well as the two astronauts scheduled to take flight on Crew Dragon's Demo-2 flight test to the ISS, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.
Northrop's satellite life extension spacecraft launches on October 9th (updated)
Space junk is hard to completely avoid when satellites can only last so long, but that might not be a problem for much longer. Northrop Grumman and NASA are launching a "first-of-its-kind" service vessel, the Mission Extension Vehicle, aboard a Russian rocket on October 9th. The inaugural MEV-1 will dock with an Intelsat satellite in three months' time and provide life-extending services over five years. After that, it should be free to help other satellites -- it'll still have 10 years' worth of use after that.
Floating LED art illustrates the quality of NYC's water
You don't have to check a website to find out whether or not New York City's water is healthy -- for the next few months, you just have to take a look at some art in the water itself. Playlab, Family New York and Floating Point have debuted a floating art installation, + POOL Light, that displays the water quality in NYC's East River using LED lights. The 50x50 feet sculpture glows blue if all is well, but it turns teal if a sensor detects pathogens and pink when those levels venture beyond safe swimming standards. The brightness, frequency and sharpness of the lights respectively indicate the oxygen, turbidity (the cloudiness based on particulates) and pH levels, while the light animation changes to reflect the current's direction.
Toyota is using VR to train robots as in-home helpers
Home robots could make all of our lives easier, and perhaps most importantly, they could allow seniors to live more independently. But training robots to operate in homes is difficult because each home is unique and filled with so many objects in different combinations and layouts. Toyota Research Institute (TRI) may have a solution: using virtual reality to change the way we train robots.
A mind-controlled exoskeleton helped a paralyzed man walk again
A paralyzed man regained the ability to walk with the help of a robotic exoskeleton that he controlled with his mind. Unlike other, more invasive mind-controlled robotics, this one used electrodes implanted above the brain's outer membrane, not in the brain itself. That could reduce the risk of infection and other obstacles that have limited the success of mind-controlled robotics.
Intel wants to use AI to reconnect damaged spinal nerves
AI's use in medicine could soon extend to one of the medical world's toughest challenges: helping the paralyzed regain movement. Intel and Brown University have started work on a DARPA-backed Intelligent Spine Interface project that would use AI to restore movement and bladder control for those with serious spinal cord injuries. The two-year effort will have scientists capture motor and sensory signals from the spinal cord, while surgeons will implant electrodes on both ends of an injury to create an "intelligent bypass." From there, neural networks running on Intel tools will (hopefully) learn how to communicate motor commands through the bypass and restore functions lost to severed nerves.
NASA shares the odd sounds from its Mars seismometer
NASA's InSight lander is providing a veritable soundtrack for Mars. The agency has posted a handful of recordings from the SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) that give a feel for Mars' activity. Two of them are "representative" marsquakes, and might be good for testing the bass response of your headphones or speakers -- they're low, steady rumbles. They suggest that Mars' crust is a blend between Earth's and the Moon's, with seismic events lasting longer than on the Earth (about a minute) but much shorter than its lunar neighbor.