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OpenAI rolls back update that made ChatGPT a sycophantic mess

AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, openai / Rejus Almole / April 30, 2025

In search of good vibes

OpenAI, along with competitors like Google and Anthropic, is trying to build chatbots that people want to chat with. So, designing the model’s apparent personality to be positive and supportive makes sense—people are less likely to use an AI that comes off as harsh or dismissive. For lack of a better word, it’s increasingly about vibemarking.

When Google revealed Gemini 2.5, the team crowed about how the model topped the LM Arena leaderboard, which lets people choose between two different model outputs in a blinded test. The models people like more end up at the top of the list, suggesting they are more pleasant to use. Of course, people can like outputs for different reasons—maybe one is more technically accurate, or the layout is easier to read. But overall, people like models that make them feel good. The same is true of OpenAI’s internal model tuning work, it would seem.

An example of ChatGPT’s overzealous praise. Credit: /u/Talvy

It’s possible this pursuit of good vibes is pushing models to display more sycophantic behaviors, which is a problem. Anthropic’s Alex Albert has cited this as a “toxic feedback loop.” An AI chatbot telling you that you’re a world-class genius who sees the unseen might not be damaging if you’re just brainstorming. However, the model’s unending praise can lead people who are using AI to plan business ventures or, heaven forbid, enact sweeping tariffs, to be fooled into thinking they’ve stumbled onto something important. In reality, the model has just become so sycophantic that it loves everything.

The constant pursuit of engagement has been a detriment to numerous products in the Internet era, and it seems generative AI is not immune. OpenAI’s GPT-4o update is a testament to that, but hopefully, this can serve as a reminder for the developers of generative AI that good vibes are not all that matters.

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Firefly’s rocket suffers one of the strangest launch failures we’ve ever seen

alpha rocket, Commercial space, Firefly Aerospace, launch, Lockheed Martin, Science, Space, Vandenberg space force base / Rejus Almole / April 30, 2025

The rocket’s first stage may have exploded moments after it separated from the upper stage.

Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket on its launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Credit: Jack Beyer/Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace launched its two-stage Alpha rocket from California early Tuesday, but something went wrong about two-and-a-half minutes into the flight, rendering the rocket unable to deploy an experimental satellite into orbit for Lockheed Martin.

The Alpha rocket took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base about 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles at 6: 37 am PDT (9: 37 am EDT; 13: 37 UTC), one day after Firefly called off a launch attempt due to a technical problem with ground support equipment.

Everything appeared to go well with the rocket’s first-stage booster, powered by four kerosene-fueled Reaver engines, as the launcher ascended through fog and arced on a southerly trajectory over the Pacific Ocean. The booster stage jettisoned from Alpha’s upper stage two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, and that’s when things went awry.

A blast from below

A bright cloud of white vapor appeared high in the sky, indicating an explosion, or something close to it. A moment later, the upper stage’s single Lightning engine ignited for a six-minute burn to accelerate into orbit.

A ground-based infrared camera caught a glimpse of debris in the wake of the upper stage, and then Firefly’s live video stream switched to a camera onboard the rocket. The rear-facing view showed the Lightning engine stripped of its exhaust nozzle but still firing. Shards of debris were visible behind the rocket, but the video did not show any sign of the discarded first stage booster, which was expected to fall into the Pacific south of Vandenberg.

The upper stage engine kept firing for more than six minutes, when it shut down and Firefly announced that the rocket reached orbit. The rocket was programmed to release its single payload, a nearly 2-ton technology demonstration satellite built by Lockheed Martin, approximately 13 minutes into the mission. Firefly ended its live webcast of the launch before confirming separation of the satellite.

A short time later, Firefly released a statement acknowledging a “mishap during first stage separation… that impacted the Stage 2 Lightning engine nozzle.” As a result, the rocket achieved an orbit lower than its target altitude, Firefly said. The privately held Texas-based launch company amended its statement later Tuesday morning to remove the clause about the lower-than-planned orbit.

Another update from Firefly early Tuesday afternoon confirmed the launch failed. The company said the rocket “experienced a mishap between stage separation and second stage ignition that led to the loss of the Lightning engine nozzle extension, substantially reducing the engine’s thrust.”

The launcher reached an altitude of nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) but did not reach orbital velocity, according to Firefly.

“The stage and payload have now safely impacted the Pacific Ocean in a cleared zone north of Antarctica,” Firefly said. “Firefly recognizes the hard work that went into payload development and would like to thank our mission partners at Lockheed Martin for their continued support. The team is working closely with our customers and the FAA to conduct an investigation and determine root cause of the anomaly.”

While Firefly’s live video of the launch lacked a clear, stable view of first-stage separation, the appearance of white vapor is a sign that the rocket was likely emitting propellant. It wasn’t immediately obvious whether the first stage recontacted the upper stage after separation or if the booster exploded and harmed the upper stage engine.

You can watch a replay of Firefly’s stage separation below.

Whatever the case, it’s an interesting mode of failure. Maybe it’s not as bizarre as Astra’s sideways launch in 2021, something every rocket geek should know about. Also, there’s the time Astra’s upper stage launched itself through a half-open payload fairing in 2022. United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket lost a nozzle from one of its solid rocket boosters on a test flight last year, but the launch vehicle persevered and continued its climb into orbit.

The third flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket failed in 2008 when its first stage collided with its upper stage moments after separation. An investigation determined residual thrust after shutdown of the first-stage engine pushed the booster into the bottom of Falcon 1’s upper stage, so SpaceX lengthened the time between main engine cutoff and staging. SpaceX’s next flight was successful, making Falcon 1 the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.

The only time a rocket’s first stage has exploded after separation, at least in recent memory, was in 2023, when a North Korean booster blew up before it fell into the sea. The explosion did not damage the rocket’s upper stage, which continued into orbit on North Korea’s only successful satellite launch in nearly a decade. The incident fueled speculation that North Korea intentionally destroyed the booster to prevent South Korea or the United States from recovering it for inspections.

Great expectations

Firefly is one of just a handful of active US launch companies with rockets that have reached low-Earth orbit, but its Alpha rocket hasn’t established a reliable track record. In six flights, Alpha has amassed just two unqualified successes. Two prior Alpha launches deployed their payloads in lower-than-planned orbits, and the rocket’s debut test flight in 2021 failed soon after liftoff.

Now, Alpha has again missed its aim and didn’t reach orbit at all.

The Alpha rocket is capable of hauling a payload of up to 2,270 pounds (1,030 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit, putting Firefly’s launcher in a performance class above Rocket Lab’s Electron booster and below larger rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. There’s no reliable commercial launch vehicle in the United States in this middle-of-the-road performance range. One potential competitor—ABL Space Systems—abandoned the satellite launch business last year to focus on missile defense and hypersonic testing.

There are several European launchers in operation or development—Arianespace’s Vega, Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum, and Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA One—with lift capacities comparable or slightly higher than Firefly’s Alpha.

File photo of a Firefly Alpha rocket lifting off in 2023. The launch on Tuesday occurred in foggy conditions.

Firefly argues that its Alpha rocket services a niche in the market for satellites too large to fly with Rocket Lab or too small to merit a dedicated flight with SpaceX. Firefly has some contract wins to bear this out. The launch on Tuesday was the first of up to 25 Alpha flights booked by Lockheed Martin to launch a series of tech demo satellites. The first of these was Lockheed Martin’s 3,836-pound (1,740-kilogram) LM-400 satellite, which was lost on Tuesday’s mission.

NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Reconnaissance Office, the US Space Force, and several more commercial customers have also reserved slots on Firefly’s launch schedule. With these contracts, Firefly has the fourth-largest launch confirmed backlog of any US launch company, following SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Rocket Lab.

While Firefly continues flying the Alpha rocket, its engineers are developing a larger Medium Launch Vehicle in partnership with Northrop Grumman. Last month, Firefly celebrated the most significant accomplishment in its 11-year history—the first fully successful landing on the Moon by a commercial entity.

But while Firefly’s first missions at its founding were to build rocket engines and launch small satellites, other markets may ultimately prove more lucrative.

Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, argues rockets like Firefly’s Alpha are in a “no man’s land” in the launch market. “It’s too small to be a useful rideshare mission, and it’s too big to be a useful dedicated rocket” for smallsats, Beck told Space News.

Firefly might have a good strategy to prove Beck wrong. But first, it needs a more reliable rocket.

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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Montana’s Republican legislators fight back after successful youth climate lawsuit

climate change, climate lawsuit, montana, Policy, syndication / Rejus Almole / April 30, 2025

Montana Environmental Policy Act

Republican backlash could lead to changes in Montana’s courts and environmental laws.

Supporters gather at a theater next to the court house to watch the court proceedings for the nation’s first youth climate change trial at Montana’s First Judicial District Court on June 12, 2023 in Helena, Montana. Credit: William Campbell via Getty Images

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

In the wake of a high-profile court decision that upended the state of Montana’s climate policy, Republican lawmakers in the state are pushing a suite of bills that could gut the state’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The full-court legislative press targets the state’s environmental analysis, air quality regulation, and judicial system. It stems from the Held v. Montana case in which 16 young people sued the state over its contributions to climate change, claiming its fossil fuel-centric approach to energy violated the state constitution’s guarantee of a “clean and healthful environment.” The plaintiffs won, and in December 2024, the Montana Supreme Court upheld their victory.

The case “didn’t just make headlines,” Montana Republican Representative Greg Oblander, a sponsor of one of the bills that could hobble climate action in the state, said in a press conference. “It sent shockwaves through the Montana economy.”

He said the case “was an open invitation for activists to weaponize our environmental laws against the very industries that keep Montana running and Montanans employed.”

The fallout of the Held decision animated the breadth of the state’s 90-day legislative session, poised to end by early May, and bills weakening the state’s bedrock environmental policy are almost certain to be signed into law by the state’s Republican governor. Nonetheless, the battle is likely to continue in the courts.

A clean and healthful environment

The Held decision hinged on Montana’s constitutional protections of the environment. Framers in the state’s 1972 Constitutional Convention took the state’s environmental woes seriously. Extractive industries like mining and logging had left a lasting environmental toll on the air, water, and land in the state, and for decades, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company wielded enormous power at the state legislature, resulting in large-scale mining, logging, and other extractive industry. Today, Montana is home to the largest complex of Superfund sites, or government toxic waste cleanups, in the country.

In response to that environmental degradation, Montana ultimately enshrined some of the strongest environmental protections in the country in its constitution, culminating in the right to “a clean and healthful environment.”

That right played a central role in the Held case. During the trial in the summer of 2023, the state argued that Montana’s contribution to greenhouse gases is but a fraction of a fraction of the world’s pool of emissions.

“Montana’s emissions are simply too minuscule to make any difference,” the state’s attorney argued. “Climate change is a global issue that effectively relegates Montana’s role to that of the spectator.” Meanwhile, the attorney for the young plaintiffs argued that the state’s contributions were equivalent to that of entire countries like the Netherlands, Pakistan, or Argentina, and was actively degrading Montana’s environment.

When the plaintiffs won the case, the state appealed to the Montana Supreme Court. In December 2024, that court also ruled against the state. “Montana’s right to a clean and healthful environment and environmental life support system includes a stable climate system,” Judge Kathy Seeley wrote in the court’s decision.

That decision also hinged on what the state considers when it conducts environmental review.

In 2011, the Montana legislature barred analyses required by the Montana Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA, from considering impacts outside the state. In 2023 the legislature honed MEPA’s focus even more, passing a provision that said greenhouse gas emissions could not be considered in the state’s environmental analyses. That limitation, the Supreme Court ruled, was unconstitutional. MEPA analyses, according to the decision, would have to account for projects’ emissions. Less than a month after the Supreme Court’s decision, Republican legislators set to figuring out how to minimize its impact.

Legislation aims to undercut the Montana Environmental Policy Act

“The backlash [to Held] is profound,” said Anne Hedges, executive director of the Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC), an organization dedicated to protecting the state’s land, air, and water, in an interview. The pushback, in particular, comes from Republicans in the state, who have strong majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. “Their goal is to prevent the state from being able to do anything to address climate change.”

Part of that backlash came in bills that aimed directly at MEPA. One bill, for example, limits the state to looking only at direct, proximate impacts of projects. This would make upstream or downstream impacts outside the scope of environmental analyses.

In, say, a project to expand a coal mine, the direct emissions associated with extracting the coal would be analyzed, according to the bill, but anything that happens next would be left out.

Montana produces about 5 percent of the country’s coal and contains the largest coal reserves in the US, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Colstrip, the largest coal plant in the state—and the dirtiest in the nation—has a footprint larger than the biggest city in Montana. In 2021 alone, the plant emitted about 11 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. But, under this particular bill, the emissions from burning that coal would not be considered as part of any required MEPA analysis of the plant or of mines that provide it with fuel.

“The Held decision was a gift-wrapped decision for radical environmental activists, an open door for endless lawsuits designed to shut down Montana’s fossil fuel industry,” the sponsor of that bill, Montana Republican Senator Wylie Galt, said in a press conference. “It had nothing to do with protecting our environment and everything to do with weaponizing the courts to strangle our economy.”

But, to opponents of the legislation, it is an intentional effort to ignore the reality of what’s driving climate change. “There’s never anything else to do with coal,” Hedges said. “You burn coal.”

Another bill strikes language that connects MEPA to Montana’s right to a clean and healthful environment and eliminates the ability of analyses to look at long-term impacts of projects. “Montana is a resource-rich state,” that bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative Brandon Ler, said in a press conference. “We have energy, we have agriculture, and we have timber. These industries aren’t just sectors on a spreadsheet. They fund our schools, support our businesses, and keep families together.” Neither Galt nor Ler responded to interview requests for this article.

A final piece of legislation attacking the state’s climate policy, sponsored by Republican Representative Greg Oblander, prevents Montana from implementing air quality standards stricter than those of the federal government. “It’s about making sure that when businesses want to invest in our state, they can do it without fear of being buried under layers of unnecessary regulations,” Oblander said. “Montana is open for business, but only if we keep it that way.”

Taken together, the bills effectively “wash [the legislature’s] hands of the whole problem and there is no way to enforce our right to a healthy climate,” Hedges said.

Proponents of the suite of bills, including mining and oil organizations, the state’s departments of environmental quality and natural resources, chambers of commerce, and other groups, said the bills offer stability, predictability, and certainty. Montana’s emissions, they argued, are but a drop in the global bucket.

“We all share the same air,” said John Iverson, with the Treasure State Resources Association, in a hearing on the air quality bill. “Making one table in a bar the non-smoking table doesn’t do much to improve the air quality. Making one corner of the pool the non-peeing section doesn’t improve your swimming experience.”

Some lawmakers and defendants also questioned the extent to which human-caused climate change is happening at all. “There is a strong sentiment of climate denial in the Capitol,” Hedges said. “They’ll complain about droughts, they’ll complain about wildfires, they will complain about all of the impacts either caused or exacerbated by climate change… but they won’t admit what the problem is and they refuse to do anything about it.”

Other testimony by lawmakers and lobbyists in House and Senate hearings also focused on the state’s constitutionally ordained rights. Along with a clean and healthful environment, the Montana Constitution also grants rights to pursuing life’s basic necessities, protecting liberties and protecting property. The MEPA bills, their supporters argued, help strike a balance between these rights when they butt heads.

In all the hearings, voices opposing the bills—including those of MEIC; conservation groups like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Montana Audubon, and Montana Conservation Voters; physicians organizations; citizens and more—have far outnumbered those in favor of the legislation. Testimony focused on the real-time health and environmental impacts of climate change, the importance of the MEPA process and the environmental protections in the Montana constitution.

One additional bill, put forth by a coalition of Democrats, would have revised MEPA to follow the court’s ruling in the Held decision, but it was killed in committee.

Politicizing the judiciary

While legislation directly reacting to Held focused on MEPA and other statutes, another legislative push from Republicans took aim at the branch of government responsible for the decision: the judiciary. Republican frustration with the court system had been building for years, fueled by the Held saga along with other court decisions that blocked laws passed by the legislature rolling back rights for transgender people and abortion access.

After the Held decision, Montana’s Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte put out a statement: “This Court continues to step outside of its lane to tread on the right of the Legislature, the elected representatives of the people, to make policy. This decision does nothing more than declare open season on Montana’s all-of-the-above approach to energy.”

An interim committee of Republican lawmakers put forth more than 27 bills to reform the judiciary ahead of this year’s legislative session. Two could have huge impacts on climate decisions in the courts by politicizing the judiciary. One bill would create a “court of chancery” specifically designed to tackle constitutional questions stemming from legislation. The three judges in that court would be appointed by the governor.

Another bill would politicize the state’s judicial races. Currently, judicial candidates—including state Supreme Court justices—are elected with no official party affiliation. The legislation would make the races partisan, meaning judges can run as Republicans or Democrats. Republican advocates of the legislation contend that through lobbying and campaign contributions, politics have entered the court system already, and this legislation would, as Gianforte argued in his “State of the State” address, “bring light into this darkness” by allowing voters to know the values of the judges for whom they’re voting.

Republican legislators have called the Held plaintiffs and the judges who decided in their favor radicals, activists, even, disparagingly, “little Greta Thunbergs.” Ler, sponsor of one of the MEPA bills, said in a press conference that the judges’ decision in the Held case was driven by an agenda beyond the desire to enforce the constitution’s requirement of a healthy environment. “This isn’t about climate,” he said. “It’s about control.”

Opponents of the judiciary bills—including Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Cory Swanson—stressed the importance of an independent judicial system as part of the government’s checks and balances.

“You are considering a number of bills that well-respected attorneys are telling you violate the constitutional separation of powers,” Swanson warned lawmakers. “I urge you to listen to those arguments.”

Hedges with the MEIC sees the courts as a scapegoat for those pushing bills to politicize the judiciary. Republican lawmakers, she said, “bitch about the courts on the one hand, but then they give the courts nowhere to turn except to overturn their bills that are unconstitutional. It’s like this little round robin the legislature set up.”

What’s next

All three bills designed to mitigate the impact of Held by limiting the extent to which MEPA can analyze greenhouse gas emissions and the level at which the state can regulate them have passed both chambers of the legislature on party-line votes. Gianforte’s office declined to give an interview about the climate issues being addressed in the legislature, but the governor said in a press conference that he’s looking forward to getting the MEPA bills to his desk.

The bills targeting the judiciary, however, have died—despite being championed by the governor and other powerful Republicans in the legislature. However, things could change. The legislative session will wrap up by early May, and there’s a chance the bills could be revived in another form.

Hedges said the MEPA and air quality bills in particular continue to infringe on Montanans’ right to a clean and healthful environment, and they’re likely to end up in the courts.

“It’s depressing,” she said. “It’s going to take us years to unwind what they’re doing here. And they [Republican lawmakers] know it; to them, that’s a win.”

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Tuesday Telescope: Yes, you can see stars in space, and they’re spectacular

daily telescope, Space, tuesday telescope / Rejus Almole / April 29, 2025

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit returned to Earth 10 days ago, landing in Kazakhstan. During his latest mission, his third long-duration on the International Space Station, Pettit brought his brand of wonderment to the assignment.

During his time in microgravity, Pettit, an inveterate tinkerer, said he likes to spend his free time either doing experiments in microgravity he cannot do on Earth or taking images to bring the experience back home. At a news conference Monday, Pettit was asked why he took so many images—670,000!—during his most recent stay on the space station.

“When I’m looking out the window, just enjoying the view, it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, a meteor. Look at that. Man, there’s a flash there. What’s that? Oh, look at that volcano going off. Okay, where’s my camera? I gotta record that.’ And part of this drive for me is when your mission is over, it’s photographs and memories. When you want to share the experience with people, you can share the memories through verbal communication, like we’re doing now, but the photographs are just another dimension of sharing what it’s like. It’s an experience where most people on Earth right now can’t share, and I can try to give them a glimpse through my imagery.”

Tuesday Telescope: Yes, you can see stars in space, and they’re spectacular Read More »

Spain is about to face the challenge of a “black start”

black start, blackout, Energy, grid management, Portugal, power grid, Science, spain / Rejus Almole / April 29, 2025

Local conditions

While the grids in Spain and Portugal are connected to each other, they have limited connections to elsewhere. The only sources of external power to the grid come from France and Morocco, which are small connections, but they could be used to help black start some plants. Both blacked-out countries have significant hydropower, with Spain seeing it cover 10 percent of its demand and Portugal 25 percent. That’s useful because hydro plants need very little in the way of an external power supply to start operating.

Beyond that, both countries have invested heavily in renewables, with Portugal supplying about half of its power from wind and hydro, having closed its last coal plant in 2021. Spain receives about 40 percent of its power from renewables at present.

Solar is not an ideal power source for black-starting the grid, given that it’s unavailable for a significant chunk of the day. But solar panels produce direct current, with electronic systems matching it to the alternating current of the grid. With the right electronics, it can play a key role in keeping frequencies stable as grid segments are repowered. In productive areas, wind can provide black start power to other plants, and doesn’t need much external power to begin operations. It’s unclear, however, whether the local wind hardware is equipped for black starts, or if the local weather will cooperate (a quick check of the weather in various cities suggests it’s relatively calm there).

Batteries have the potential to be incredibly helpful, since they also provide direct current that can be converted to any frequency needed, and so used for both starting up power plants or for frequency stabilization as segments of the grid are brought back online. Unfortunately, neither country has installed much grid-scale battery hardware yet. That’s expected to change over the next few years in parallel with dramatically expanded solar power. But, at the moment, batteries will not be a huge help.

Regardless of how precisely the grid operators manage to handle this task in Spain and Portugal, they face a monumental challenge at the moment. If you’re seeing estimates of several days for the restoration of power, it’s because failing to meet this challenge will leave things back in the state they’re in now.

Spain is about to face the challenge of a “black start” Read More »

ChatGPT goes shopping with new product-browsing feature

Adam Fry, AI, AI shopping, Biz & IT, chatgpt, coffee, eCommerce, Google, Google Shopping, machine learning, openai, wired / Rejus Almole / April 29, 2025

On Thursday, OpenAI announced the addition of shopping features to ChatGPT Search. The new feature allows users to search for products and purchase them through merchant websites after being redirected from the ChatGPT interface. Product placement is not sponsored, and the update affects all users, regardless of whether they’ve signed in to an account.

Adam Fry, ChatGPT search product lead at OpenAI, showed Ars Technica’s sister site Wired how the new shopping system works during a demonstration. Users researching products like espresso machines or office chairs receive recommendations based on their stated preferences, stored memories, and product reviews from around the web.

According to Wired, the shopping experience in ChatGPT resembles Google Shopping. When users click on a product image, the interface displays multiple retailers like Amazon and Walmart on the right side of the screen, with buttons to complete purchases. OpenAI is currently experimenting with categories that include electronics, fashion, home goods, and beauty products.

Product reviews shown in ChatGPT come from various online sources, including publishers and user forums like Reddit. Users can instruct ChatGPT to prioritize which review sources to use when creating product recommendations.

An example of the ChatGPT shopping experience provided by OpenAI. Credit: OpenAI

Unlike Google’s algorithm-based approach to product recommendations, ChatGPT reportedly attempts to understand product reviews and user preferences in a more conversational manner. If someone mentions they prefer black clothing from specific retailers in a chat, the system incorporates those preferences in future shopping recommendations.

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What’s it like to be 70 years old in space? “All those little aches and pains heal up.”

70 years old, don pettit, NASA, Space / Rejus Almole / April 29, 2025

Not many people celebrate their birthday by burning a fiery arc through the atmosphere, pulling 4.4gs in freefall back to planet Earth, thudding into the ground, and emptying their stomach on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

No one has ever done it on their 70th birthday.

Perhaps this is appropriate because NASA astronaut Don Pettit is a singular individual. His birthday is April 20, and when the Soyuz spacecraft carrying him landed at dawn in Kazakhstan, the calendar had turned over to that date. John Glenn, then 77, was older when he went to space. But no one as old as Pettit had spent as long as he had in orbit, 220 days, on a mission.

On Monday, a little more than a week after returning from orbit, Pettit met with reporters at Johnson Space Center. “It’s good to be back on planet Earth,” he said. “As much as I love exploring space, going into the frontier, and making observations, you do reach a time when it’s time to come home.”

Flying in space at 70 years old

Pettit first went into space at the age of 47 for his first of three long-duration missions to the International Space Station. Since then, he has flown a shorter shuttle mission and two more space station increments. All told, he has lived in space for 590 days, the third-most all-time among NASA astronauts.

“I’ve got a few creaks and groans in my body, but basically I feel the same as I did 20 years ago, and coming back to gravity is provocative,” he said.

After every one of his missions, Pettit said the readjustment to gravity for him has been a challenge. He added that the surprising thing about spaceflight is that it’s not so much your large muscles that ache, but the smaller ones.

What’s it like to be 70 years old in space? “All those little aches and pains heal up.” Read More »

50 years later, Vietnam’s environment still bears the scars of war

Science, syndication, vietnam war / Rejus Almole / April 29, 2025

Large amounts of Agent Orange had been stored at the Da Nang airport during the war and contaminated the soil with dioxin. The cleanup project, including heating contaminated soil to high temperatures, was completed in 2018. Credit: Richard Nyberg, USAID

Another major hot spot is the heavily contaminated Biên Hoà airbase, where local residents continue to ingest high levels of dioxin through fish, chicken and ducks.

Agent Orange barrels were stored at the base, which leaked large amounts of the toxin into soil and water, where it continues to accumulate in animal tissue as it moves up the food chain. Remediation began in 2019; however, further work is at risk with the Trump administration’s near elimination of USAID, leaving it unclear if there will be any American experts in Vietnam in charge of administering this complex project.

Laws to prevent future ‘ecocide’ are complicated

While Agent Orange’s health effects have understandably drawn scrutiny, its long-term ecological consequences have not been well studied.

Current-day scientists have far more options than those 50 years ago, including satellite imagery, which is being used in Ukraine to identify fires, flooding, and pollution. However, these tools cannot replace on-the-ground monitoring, which often is restricted or dangerous during wartime.

The legal situation is similarly complex.

In 1977, the Geneva Conventions governing conduct during wartime were revised to prohibit “widespread, long term, and severe damage to the natural environment.” A 1980 protocol restricted incendiary weapons. Yet oil fires set by Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991, and recent environmental damage in the Gaza Strip, Ukraine, and Syria indicate the limits of relying on treaties when there are no strong mechanisms to ensure compliance.

Remediation work to remove dioxin contamination was just getting started at the former Biên Hoà Air Base in Vietnam when USAID’s staff was dismantled in 2025. Credit: USAID Vietnam

An international campaign currently underway calls for an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to add ecocide as a fifth prosecutable crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression.

Some countries have adopted their own ecocide laws. Vietnam was the first to legally state in its penal code that “Ecocide, destroying the natural environment, whether committed in time of peace or war, constitutes a crime against humanity.” Yet the law has resulted in no prosecutions, despite several large pollution cases.

Both Russia and Ukraine also have ecocide laws, but these have not prevented harm or held anyone accountable for damage during the ongoing conflict.

Lessons for the future

The Vietnam War is a reminder that failure to address ecological consequences, both during war and after, will have long-term effects. What remains in short supply is the political will to ensure that these impacts are neither ignored nor repeated.

Pamela McElwee, Professor of Human Ecology, Rutgers University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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“You wouldn’t steal a car” anti-piracy campaign may have used pirated fonts

anti-piracy, antipiracy, ff confidential, fontfont, fonts, monotype, MPA, MPAA, Tech, typefaces, xband, xband rough, you wouldn't download a car, you wouldn't steal a car / Rejus Almole / April 27, 2025

Aquilina, who was speaking generally and not on the specifics of the anti-piracy campaign and its font use, said that using a font from a free source, with an “effectively implied license to use it,” could be “a good defense,” though “not a complete defense.” Typically, a rightsholder would go after websites distributing copies of their font, not after users of the end product.

Fonts used commercially that happen to be exact copies of existing and copyrighted fonts are “fairly common,” Aquilina said, “simply because of the popularity of certain fonts and a desire to use them, to create a certain aesthetic.” But, he said, there is “a very small percentage that could be, or are, litigated.” Even with software licenses at issue, a type foundry faces an uphill battle, as witnessed in the battle over Shake Shack’s typography (paywalled).

Still missing: the source of XBand Rough

A few glyphs from FF Confidential, the font that was not used on some anti-piracy materials, even if it sure looked like that. Credit: MyFonts/MonotType

So where did Xband Rough come from?

The styling of the font name, “XBAND Rough” with the first noun in all-caps, calls to mind the early online gaming network XBAND, launched in 1994 and discontinued in 1997. In some XBand packages, a similar “rough” style can be seen on the lettering. The PDF sleuth, Rib, noted that XBAND Rough “came out four years after the original” (about 1996) and was “near-identical, except for the price.”

Another Bluesky user suggests “a plausible explanation” for the font, suggesting that Xband may have licensed FF Confidential and then given it the internal name “Xband Rough.” A copy of the font with that name could have been extracted from some Xband material and then “started floating around the Internet uncredited.” In the end, though, the real answer is unclear.

We contacted the Motion Picture Association (now just the MPA, sans “of America”), but they declined to comment.

The original “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car” campaign was simple to the point of being simplistic. IP law isn’t really like “stealing a car” in many cases—as has made clearly once again by the recent Xband Rough investigation.

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Weapons of war are launching from Cape Canaveral for the first time since 1988

cape canaveral, hypersonic missile, leidos, Lockheed Martin, military space, national security, Pentagon, Space, us army / Rejus Almole / April 26, 2025

Unlike a recent hypersonic missile test, officials didn’t immediately confirm Friday’s flight was a success.

File photo of a previous launch of the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on December 12, 2024. Credit: Department of Defense

The US military launched a long-range hypersonic missile Friday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a test flight that, if successful, could pave the way for the weapon’s operational deployment later this year.

The Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon fired out of a canister on a road-mobile trailer shortly after sunrise on Florida’s Space Coast, then headed east over the Atlantic Ocean propelled by a solid-fueled rocket booster. Local residents shared images of the launch on social media.

Designed for conventional munitions, the new missile is poised to become the first ground-based hypersonic weapon fielded by the US military. Russia has used hypersonic missiles in combat against Ukraine. China has “the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal,” according to a recent Pentagon report on Chinese military power. After a successful test flight from Cape Canaveral last year, the long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW)—officially named “Dark Eagle” by the Army earlier this week—will give the United States the ability to strike targets with little or no warning.

The Dark Eagle missile rapidly gained speed and altitude after launch Friday morning, then soon disappeared from the view of onlookers at Cape Canaveral. Warning notices advising pilots and mariners to steer clear of the test area indicated the missile and its hypersonic glide vehicle were supposed to splash down in the mid-Atlantic Ocean hundreds of miles north and northeast of Puerto Rico.

Success not guaranteed

A US defense official did not answer questions from Ars about the outcome of the test flight Friday.

“A combined team of government, academic, and industry partners conducted a test on behalf of the Department of Defense from a test site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station,” the official said. “We are currently evaluating the results of the test.”

Liftoff of the LRHW Dark Eagle this morning https://t.co/lCJhUXxT84 pic.twitter.com/YJXXuSxmJK

— Jerry Pike (@JerryPikePhoto) April 25, 2025

This missile launch and a similar one in December are the first tests of land-based offensive weapons at Cape Canaveral since 1988, when the military last tested Pershing ballistic missiles there. The launch range in Florida continues to support offshore tests of submarine-launched Trident missiles, and now is a center for hypersonic missile testing.

The Pentagon has a long-standing policy of not publicizing hypersonic missile tests before they happen, except for safety notices for civilian airplanes and ships downrange. But the Defense Department declared the previous Dark Eagle test flight a success within a few hours of the launch, and did not do so this time.

Hypersonic missiles offer several advantages over conventional ballistic missiles. These new kinds of weapons are more maneuverable and dimmer than other missiles, so they are more difficult for an aerial defense system to detect, track, and destroy. They are designed to evade an adversary’s missile warning sensors. These sensors were originally activated to detect larger, brighter incoming ballistic missiles, which have a predictable trajectory toward their targets after boosting themselves out of the atmosphere and into space.

A hypersonic weapon is different. It can skim through the upper atmosphere at blistering speeds, producing a much dimmer heat signature that is difficult to see with an infrared sensor on a conventional missile warning satellite. At these altitudes, the glide vehicle can take advantage of aerodynamic forces for maneuvers. This is why the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency is spending billions of dollars to deploy a network of missile tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit, putting hundreds of sophisticated sensors closer to the flight path of hypersonic weapons.

Dark Eagle is designed to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5, or 3,800 mph, with a reported range of 1,725 miles (2,775 kilometers), sufficient to reach Taiwan from Guam, or NATO’s borders with Russia from Western Europe. The US military says it has no plans to outfit its hypersonic weapons with nuclear warheads.

In a statement on Thursday, the Department of Defense said the weapon’s official name pays tribute to the eagle, known for its speed, stealth, and agility. Dark Eagle offers a similar mix of attributes: velocity, accuracy, maneuverability, survivability, and versatility, the Pentagon said.

“The word ‘dark’ embodies the LRHW’s ability to dis-integrate adversary capabilities,” the statement said. “Hypersonic weapons will complicate adversaries’ decision calculus, strengthening deterrence,” said Patrick Mason, senior official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology

A US Army soldier lifts the hydraulic launching system on the new long-range hypersonic weapon (LRHW) during Operation Thunderbolt Strike at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on March 3, 2023. Credit: Spc. Chandler Coats, US Army

Dark Eagle is the land-based component of the Pentagon’s effort to field hypersonic missiles for combat. The Navy will use the same system on its ships to provide a sea-launched version of the hypersonic weapon called Conventional Prompt Strike, which will be placed on destroyers and submarines.

The Army and Navy programs will use an identical two-stage missile, which will jettison after depleting its rocket motors, freeing a hypersonic glide vehicle to steer toward its target. The entire rocket and glide vehicle are collectively called an “All Up Round.”

“The use of a common hypersonic missile and joint test opportunities allow the services to pursue a more aggressive timeline for delivery and to realize cost savings,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

A long road to get here

The Congressional Budget Office reported in 2023 that purchasing 300 intermediate-range hypersonic missiles would cost $41 million per missile. Dynetics, a subsidiary of the defense contractor Leidos, is responsible for developing the Common Hypersonic Glide Body for the Army’s Dark Eagle and the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike programs. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor charged with integrating the entire weapon system.

The military canceled an air-launched hypersonic weapon program in 2023 after it ran into problems during testing.

The Pentagon said Army commanders will use Dark Eagle to “engage adversary high-payoff and time-sensitive targets.” The hypersonic weapon could be used against an adversary’s mobile missile forces if US officials determine they are preparing for launch, or it could strike well-defended targets out of reach of other weapons in the US arsenal. Once in the field, the missile’s use will fall under the authority of US Strategic Command, with the direction of the president and the secretary of defense.

Defense News, an industry trade publication, reported in February that the Army aimed to deliver the first Dark Eagle missiles to a combat unit before October 1, pending final decisions by the Pentagon’s new leadership under the Trump administration.

This illustration from the Government Accountability Office compares the trajectory of a ballistic missile with those of a hypersonic glide vehicle and a hypersonic cruise missile. Credit: GAO

Dark Eagle suffered multiple test failures in 2021 and 2022, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Military crews aborted several attempts to launch the missile from Cape Canaveral in 2023 due to a problem with the weapon’s launcher. The program achieved two successes last year with test flights from Hawaii and Florida.

The December launch from Cape Canaveral was an important milestone. “This test builds on several flight tests in which the Common Hypersonic Glide Body achieved hypersonic speed at target distances and demonstrates that we can put this capability in the hands of the warfighter,” said Christine Wormuth, then-secretary of the army, in a Pentagon statement announcing the result of the test flight.

The Dark Eagle readiness tests build on more than a decade of experimental hypersonic flights by multiple US defense agencies. Hypersonic flight is an unforgiving environment, where the outer skin of glide vehicles must withstand temperatures of 3,000° Fahrenheit. It’s impossible to re-create such an extreme environment through modeling or tests on the ground.

While the Army and Navy hope to soon deploy the first US hypersonic missile for use in combat, the military continues pursuing more advanced hypersonic technology. In January, the Pentagon awarded a contract worth up to $1.45 billion to Kratos Defense & Security Solutions for the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) program.

Kratos partners with other companies, like Leidos, Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, and Stratolaunch, to test hypersonic technologies in their operating environment. The program aims for a rapid cadence of suborbital test flights, some of which have already launched with Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. With these experiments, engineers can see how individual components and technologies work in flight before using them on real weapons.

The Biden administration requested $6.9 billion for the Pentagon’s hypersonic research programs in fiscal year 2025, up from $4.7 billion in 2023. The Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2026 is scheduled for release next month.

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With over 900 US measles cases so far this year, things are looking bleak

CDC, elimination, health, measles, MMR, vaccination / Rejus Almole / April 26, 2025

As of Friday, April 25, the US has confirmed over 900 measles cases since the start of the year. The cases are across 29 states, but most are in or near Texas, where a massive outbreak continues to mushroom in close-knit, undervaccinated communities.

On April 24, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had tallied 884 cases across the country. Today, the Texas health department updated its outbreak total, adding 22 cases to its last count from Tuesday. That brings the national total to at least 906 confirmed cases. Most of the cases are in unvaccinated children and teens.

Overall, Texas has identified 664 cases since late January. Of those, 64 patients have been hospitalized, and two unvaccinated school-aged children with no underlying medical conditions have died of the disease. An unvaccinated adult in New Mexico also died from the infection, bringing this year’s measles death toll to three.

The cases and deaths are breaking records. In the past 30 years, the only year with more measles cases than the current tally was 2019, which saw 1,274 cases. Most of those cases were linked to large, extended outbreaks in New York City that took 11 months to quell. The US was just weeks away from losing its elimination status, an achievement earned in 2000 when the country first went 12 months without continuous transmission.

Since 2019, vaccination coverage of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine among US kindergartners has only fallen. National rates fell from 95 percent in 2019—the threshold considered necessary to keep measles from spreading—to 92.7 percent in the 2023–24 school year, the most recent year for which there’s data.

On the brink

In 2019, amid the record annual case tally, cases had only reached a total of 704 by April 26. With this year’s tally already over 900, the country is on track to record a new high. Before 2019, the next highest case total for measles was in 1994. That year, the country saw 899 cases, which 2025 has already surpassed.

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Rocket Report: The pitfalls of rideshare; China launches next Tiangong crew

Arianespace, astra, blue origin, china, human spaceflight, launch, NASA, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, united launch alliance / Rejus Almole / April 25, 2025

This week, engineers ground-tested upgrades for Blue Origin’s New Glenn and Europe’s Ariane 6.

A Long March 2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou 20 spacecraft and a crew of three astronauts, lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on April 24, 2025. Credit: Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images

Welcome to Edition 7.41 of the Rocket Report! NASA and its contractors at Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue building a new mobile launch tower for the Space Launch System Block 1B rocket, a taller, upgraded version of the SLS rocket being used for the agency’s initial Artemis lunar missions. Workers stacked another segment of the tower a couple of weeks ago, and the structure is inching closer to its full height of 355 feet (108 meters). But this is just the start. Once the tower is fully assembled, it must be outfitted with miles of cabling, tubing, and piping, then tested before it can support an SLS launch campaign. Last year, NASA’s inspector general projected the tower won’t be ready for a launch until the spring of 2029 and its costs could reach $2.7 billion. The good news, if you can call it that, is there probably won’t be an SLS Block 1B rocket that needs to use it in 2029, whether it’s due to delays or cancellation.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Fresh details on Astra’s strategic pivot. Astra, the once high-flying rocket startup that crashed back to Earth with investors before going private last year, has unveiled new details about its $44 million contract with the Department of Defense, Space News reports. The DOD contract announced last year supports the development of Rocket 4, a two-stage, mobile launch vehicle with ambitions to deliver cargo across the globe in under an hour. While Astra’s ill-fated Rocket 3 focused on launching small satellites to low-Earth orbit, Astra wants to make Rocket 4 a military utility vehicle. Rocket 4 will still be able to loft conventional satellites, but Astra’s most lucrative contract for the new launch vehicle involves using the rocket for precise point-to-point delivery of up to 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of supplies from orbit via specialized reentry vehicles. The military has shown interest in developing a rocket-based rapid global cargo delivery system for several years, and has a contract with SpaceX to study how the much larger Starship rocket could do a similar job.

Back from the brink … The Alameda, California-based company, which was delisted from Nasdaq in June 2024 after its shares collapsed, is now targeting the first test flight of Rocket 4 in 2026. Astra’s arrangement with the Defense Innovation Unit includes two milestones: one suborbital (point-to-point), and the other orbital with the option to launch from a location outside the United States, as Astra is developing a mobile launcher. Chris Kemp, Astra’s co-founder and CEO, told Space News the orbital launch will likely originate from Australia. Astra’s first launches with the new-retired Rocket 3 vehicle were based from Alaska and Florida.

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The Army has a catchy name for its newest weapon. The Long Range Hypersonic Weapon has a new name: Dark Eagle. The US Army announced the popular name for the service’s quick strike missile this week. “Part of the name pays tribute to the eagle—a master hunter known for its speed, stealth and agility—due to the LRHW’s combination of velocity, accuracy, maneuverability, survivability and versatility,” the Army said in a press release. “In addition, the bald eagle—our national bird—represents independence, strength and freedom.” The Dark Eagle is designed to strike targets little or no warning with a hypersonic glide vehicle capable of maneuvering in the upper atmosphere after an initial launch with a conventional missile. The hypersonic weapon’s ability to overcome an adversary’s air and missile defenses is embodied in the word “dark” in Dark Eagle, the Army said.

Flying again soon … The Army tested the hypersonic weapon’s “all-up round” during a missile launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in December. The test was delayed more than a year due to unspecified issues. The Army appears to be preparing for another Dark Eagle test from Florida’s Space Coast as soon as Friday, according to airspace and maritime warning notices in the Atlantic Ocean. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Northrop’s niche with Minotaur. Ars mentioned in last week’s Rocket Report that Northrop Grumman’s Minotaur IV rocket launched April 16 with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. This was the first Minotaur IV launch in nearly five years, and the first orbital Minotaur launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, in 14 years. The low-volume Minotaur IV uses solid rocket motors from the Air Force’s stockpile of retired Peacekeeper ballistic missiles, turning part of a weapon of mass destruction into, this case, a tool to support the US government’s spy satellite agency. The Minotaur IV’s lift capability fits neatly between the capacity of smaller commercial rockets, like Firefly’s Alpha or Rocket Lab’s Electron, and larger rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The most recent Minotaur IV launch contract cost the Space Force roughly $30 million, more than a mission with Firefly but less than a dedicated ride on a Falcon 9.

Minotaur IV will keep flying … The Space Force has at least two more missions reserved to launch on the expendable Minotaur IV rocket. One of the missions will launch multiple small satellites for the US military’s Space Test Program, and the other will place a military weather satellite into orbit. Both missions will launch from California, with planning launch dates in 2026, a Space Systems Command spokesperson told Ars. “We do have multiple launches planned using Minotaur family launch vehicles between our OSP-4 (Orbital/Suborbital Program) and SRP-4 (Sounding Rocket Program) contracts,” the spokesperson said. “We will release more information on those missions as we get closer to launch.” The Commercial Space Act of 1998 prohibits the use of surplus ICBM motors for commercial launches and limits their use to only specific kinds of military launches. The restrictions were intended to encourage NASA and commercial satellite operators to use privately-developed launch vehicles.

NASA’s launch prices have somehow gone up. In an era of reusable rockets and near-daily access to space, NASA is still paying more than it did 30 years ago to launch missions into orbit, according to a study soon to be published in the scientific journal Acta Astronautica. Adjusted for inflation, the prices NASA pays for launch services rose at an annual average rate of 2.82 percent from 1996 to 2024, the report says. “Furthermore, there is no evidence of shift in the launch service costs trend after the introduction of a new launch service provider [SpaceX] in 2016.” Ars analyzed NASA’s launch prices in a story published Thursday.

Why is this? … One might think SpaceX’s reuse of Falcon 9 rocket components would drive down launch prices, but no. Rocket reuse and economies of scale have significantly reduced SpaceX’s launch costs, but the company is charging NASA roughly the same it did before booster reuse became commonplace. There are a few reasons this is happening. One is that SpaceX hasn’t faced any meaningful competition for NASA launch contracts in the last six years. That should change soon with the recent debuts of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket and Blue Origin’s New Glenn launcher. NASA levies additional requirements on its commercial launch providers, and the agency must pay for them. These include schedule priority, engineering oversight, and sometimes special payload cleanliness requirements and the choice of a particular Falcon 9 booster from SpaceX’s inventory.

What’s holding up ULA’s next launch? After poor weather forced ULA to scrub a launch attempt April 9, the company will have to wait nearly three weeks for another try to launch an Atlas V rocket with Amazon’s first full-up load of 27 Kuiper broadband satellites, Ars reports. The rocket and satellites are healthy, according to ULA. But the military-run Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, is unable to accommodate ULA until Monday, April 28. The Space Force is being unusually cagey about the reasons for the lengthy delay, which isn’t affecting SpaceX launches to the same degree.

Finally, a theory … The publishing of airspace and maritime warning notices for an apparent test launch of the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, or Dark Eagle, might explain the range’s unavailability. The test launch could happen as soon as Friday, and offshore keep-out zones cover wide swaths of the Atlantic Ocean. If this is the reason for the long Atlas V launch delay, we still have questions. If this launch is scheduled for Friday, why has it kept ULA from launching the last few weeks? Why was SpaceX permitted to launch multiple times in the same time period? And why didn’t the first test flight of the Dark Eagle missile in December result in similar lengthy launch delays on the Eastern Range?

Shenzhou 20 bound for Tiangong. A spaceship carrying three astronauts docked Thursday with China’s space station in the latest crew rotation, approximately six hours after their launch on a Long March 2F rocket from the Gobi Desert, the Associated Press reports. The Shenzhou 20 mission is commanded by Chen Dong, who is making his third flight. He is accompanied by fighter pilot Chen Zhongrui and engineer Wang Jie, both making their maiden voyages. They will replace three astronauts currently on the Chinese Tiangong space station. Like those before them, they will stay on board for roughly six months.

Finding a rhythm … China’s human spaceflight missions have launched like clockwork since the country’s first domestic astronaut launch in 2003. Now, with the Tiangong space station fully operational, China is launching fresh crews at six-month intervals. While in space, the astronauts will conduct experiments in medical science and new technologies and perform spacewalks to carry out maintenance and install new equipment. Their tasks will include adding space debris shielding to the exterior of the Tiangong station. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

SpaceX resupplies the ISS. SpaceX launched an uncrewed Cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station early Monday on a resupply mission with increased importance after a transportation mishap derailed a flight by another US cargo ship, Spaceflight Now reports. The Dragon cargo vessel docked at the space station early Tuesday with 4,780 pounds (2,168 kilograms) of pressurized cargo and 1,653 pounds (750 kilograms) of unpressurized payloads in the vehicle’s trunk. NASA adjusted the Dragon spacecraft’s payload because an upcoming flight by Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply freighter was canceled after the Cygnus cargo module was damaged during transport to the launch site.

Something strange … The payloads aboard this Dragon cargo mission—the 32nd by SpaceX—include normal things like fresh food (exactly 1,262 tortillas), biomedical and pharmaceutical experiments, and the technical demonstration of a new atomic clock. However, there’s something onboard nobody at NASA or SpaceX wants to talk about. A payload package named STP-H10 inside Dragon’s trunk section will be installed to a mounting post outside of the space station to perform a mission for the US military’s Space Test Program. STP-H10 wasn’t mentioned in NASA’s press kit for this mission, and SpaceX didn’t show the usual views of Dragon’s trunk when the spacecraft deployed from its Falcon 9 rocket shortly after launch. These kinds of Space Test Program experiment platforms have launched to the ISS before without any secrecy. Stranger still is the fact that the STP-H10 experiments are unclassified. You can see the list here. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

There are some drawbacks to rideshare. SpaceX launched its third “Bandwagon” rideshare mission into a mid-inclination orbit Monday evening from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Space News reports. The payloads included a South Korean military radar spy satellite, a small commercial weather satellite, and the most interesting payload: an experimental reentry vehicle from a German startup named Atmos Space Cargo. The startup’s Phoenix vehicle, fitted with an inflatable heat shield, separated from the Falcon 9’s upper stage about 90 minutes after liftoff and, roughly a half-hour later, began reentry for a splashdown in the South Atlantic Ocean about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) off the coast of Brazil. Until last month, the Phoenix vehicle was supposed to reenter over the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar, near the island of Réunion. The late change to the mission’s trajectory meant Atmos could not recover the spacecraft after splashdown.

Changes in longitude … Five weeks before the launch, SpaceX informed Atmos of a change in trajectory because of “operational constraints” of the primary payload, a South Korean reconnaissance satellite. Smaller payloads on rideshare launches benefit from lower launch prices, but their owners have no control over the schedule or trajectory of the launch. The change for this mission resulted in a splashdown well off the coast of Brazil, ruling out any attempt to recover Phoenix after splashdown. It also meant a steeper reentry than previously planned, creating higher loads on the spacecraft. The company lined up new ground stations in South America to communicate with the spacecraft during key phases of flight leading up to reentry. In addition, it chartered a plane to attempt to collect data during reentry, but the splashdown location was beyond the range of the aircraft. Some data suggests that the heat shield inflated as planned, but Atmos’s CEO said the company needed more time to analyze the data it had, adding that it was “very difficult” to get data from Phoenix in the final phases of its flight given its distance from ground stations.

Ariane 6 is gonna need a bigger booster. A qualification motor for an upgraded solid rocket booster for Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket successfully fired up for the first time on a test stand Thursday in Kourou, French Guiana, according to the European Space Agency. The new P160C solid rocket motor burned for more than two minutes, and ESA declared the test-firing a success. ESA’s member states approved development of the P160C motor in 2022. The upgraded motor is about 3 feet (1 meter) longer than the P120C motor currently flying on the Ariane 6 rocket, and carries about 31,000 pounds (14 metric tons) more solid propellant. The Ariane 6 rocket can fly with two or four of these strap-on boosters. Officials plan to introduce the P160C on Ariane 6 flights next year, giving the rocket’s heaviest version the ability to haul up to 4,400 pounds (2 metric tons) of additional cargo mass to orbit.

A necessary change … The heavier P160C solid rocket motor is required for Arianespace to fulfill its multi-mission launch contract with Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite broadband network. Alongside similar contracts with ULA and Blue Origin, Amazon reserved 18 Kuiper launches on Ariane 6 rockets, and 16 of them must use the upgraded P160C booster to deliver additional Kuiper satellites to orbit. The P160C is a joint project between ArianeGroup and Avio, which will use the same motor design on Europe’s smaller Vega C rocket to improve its performance. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Progress toward the second flight of New Glenn. Blue Origin’s CEO, Dave Limp, said his team completed a full duration 15-second hot-fire test Thursday of the upper stage for the company’s second New Glenn rocket. In a post on X, Limp wrote that the upper stage for the next New Glenn flight will have “enhanced performance.” The maximum power of its hydrogen-fueled BE-3U engine will increase from 173,000 pounds to 175,000 pounds of thrust. Two BE-3U engines fly on New Glenn’s second stage.

A good engine … The BE-3U engine is a derivative of the BE-3 engine flying on Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket. Limp wrote that the upper stage on the first New Glenn launch in January “performed remarkably” and achieved an orbital injection with less than 1 percent deviation from its target. So, when will New Glenn launch again? We’ve heard late spring, June, or October, depending on the source. I’ll note that Blue Origin test-fired the New Glenn upper stage for the rocket’s first flight about four months before it launched.

Next three launches

April 27: Alpha | “Message in a Booster” | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 13: 37 UTC

April 27: Long March 3B/E | Unknown Payload | Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China | 15: 55 UTC

April 27: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-9 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 20: 55 UTC

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Author name: Rejus Almole