Smith testified before the US Senate in September that Russia, China, and Iran had stepped up their digital efforts to interfere in global elections this year, including in the US.
However, Microsoft’s own security standards have come under fire in recent months. A damning report by the US Cyber Safety Review Board in March said its security culture was “inadequate,” pointing to a “cascade… of avoidable errors” that last year allowed Chinese hackers to access hundreds of email accounts, including those belonging to senior US government security officials, that were hosted on Microsoft’s cloud systems.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has said in response that the company would prioritize security “above all else,” including by tying staff remuneration to security.
The company is also making changes to its Windows operating system to help its customers recover more quickly from incidents such as July’s global IT outage caused by CrowdStrike’s botched security update.
Beyond cyber security, Smith said it was “a little early” to determine the precise impact of a second Trump administration on the technology industry. Any anticipated liberalization of M&A regulation in the US would have to be weighed up against continued scrutiny of dealmaking in other parts of the world, he said.
Smith also reiterated his plea for the US government to “help accelerate exports of key American digital technologies,” especially to the Middle East and Africa, after the Biden administration imposed export controls on AI chips, fearing the technology could leak to China.
“We really need now to standardize processes so that American technology can reach these other parts of the world as fast as Chinese technology,” he said.
The company is understood to be particularly wary of being targeted as unreliable or uncooperative as Donald Trump is set to become the next US president.
This year, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” the US chip industry, and suggested TSMC could move its production back home after pocketing billions of dollars in subsidies from Washington for building fabrication plants in the US.
A person close to TSMC said its move was “not a show for Trump but definitely designed to underscore that we are the good guys and not acting against US interests.”
Being cut off from TSMC could hurt Chinese tech giants that have bet on making their most advanced AI chips in Taiwan. Search giant Baidu, in particular, is aiming to build a full stack of software and hardware to underpin its AI business.
Near the center of those efforts is its Kunlun series of AI chips. Its Kunlun II processor is made by TSMC on its 7-nanometer level of miniaturization, according to Bernstein Research.
“Kunlun chips are now especially well-suited for large model inference and will eventually be suitable for training,” Baidu founder Robin Li told a conference last year. Li added that the group had been effective in cutting costs by designing its own chips.
The people briefed on the situation said TSMC’s new rules were clear in targeting AI processors, but it was so far unclear how widely that would be applied to other chips. China has a number of leading start-ups designing AI chips for self-driving, including Hong Kong-listed Horizon Robotics and Black Sesame International Holding.
Executives and company materials at both groups have indicated their newest generation of chips would be made by TSMC on the 7-nanometer node.
The people close to TSMC said its new restrictions would not have a major impact on its revenue. TSMC’s October revenue increased 29.2 percent to NT$314 billion ($9.8 billion), a slight deceleration of growth compared with preceding months.
In a statement, TSMC said it was a “law-abiding company and we are committed to complying with all applicable rules and regulations, including applicable export controls.”
The news was first reported by Chinese media site ijiwei.com.
The world’s first wooden satellite arrived at the International Space Station this week.
A Falcon 9 booster fires its engines on SpaceX’s “tripod” test stand in McGregor, Texas. Credit: SpaceX
Welcome to Edition 7.19 of the Rocket Report! Okay, we get it. We received more submissions from our readers on Australia’s approval of a launch permit for Gilmour Space than we’ve received on any other news story in recent memory. Thank you for your submissions as global rocket activity continues apace. We’ll cover Gilmour in more detail as they get closer to launch. There will be no Rocket Report next week as Eric and I join the rest of the Ars team for our 2024 Technicon in New York.
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.
Gilmour Space has a permit to fly. Gilmour Space Technologies has been granted a permit to launch its 82-foot-tall (25-meter) orbital rocket from a spaceport in Queensland, Australia. The space company, founded in 2012, had initially planned to lift off in March but was unable to do so without approval from the Australian Space Agency, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports. The government approved Gilmour’s launch permit Monday, although the company is still weeks away from flying its three-stage Eris rocket.
A first for Australia … Australia hosted a handful of satellite launches with US and British rockets from 1967 through 1971, but Gilmour’s Eris rocket would become the first all-Australian launch vehicle to reach orbit. The Eris rocket is capable of delivering about 670 pounds (305 kilograms) of payload mass into a Sun-synchronous orbit. Eris will be powered by hybrid rocket engines burning a solid fuel mixed with a liquid oxidizer, making it unique among orbital-class rockets. Gilmour completed a wet dress rehearsal, or practice countdown, with the Eris rocket on the launch pad in Queensland in September. The launch permit becomes active after 30 days, or the first week of December. “We do think we’ve got a good chance of launching at the end of the 30-day period, and we’re going to give it a red hot go,” said Adam Gilmour, the company’s co-founder and CEO. (submitted by Marzipan, mryall, ZygP, Ken the Bin, Spencer Willis, MarkW98, and EllPeaTea)
North Korea tests new missile. North Korea apparently completed a successful test of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile on October 31, lofting it nearly 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers) into space before the projectile fell back to Earth, Ars reports. This solid-fueled, multi-stage missile, named the Hwasong-19, is a new tool in North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated arsenal of weapons. It has enough range—perhaps as much as 9,320 miles (15,000 kilometers), according to Japan’s government—to strike targets anywhere in the United States. It also happens to be one of the largest ICBMs in the world, rivaling the missiles fielded by the world’s more established nuclear powers.
Quid pro quo? … The Hwasong-19 missile test comes as North Korea deploys some 10,000 troops inside Russia to support the country’s war against Ukraine. The budding partnership between Russia and North Korea has evolved for several years. Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on multiple occasions, most recently in Pyongyang in June. This has fueled speculation about what Russia is offering North Korea in exchange for the troops deployed on Russian soil. US and South Korean officials have some thoughts. They said North Korea is likely to ask for technology transfers in diverse areas related to tactical nuclear weapons, ICBMs, and reconnaissance satellites.
The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s and Stephen Clark’s reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.
Virgin Galactic is on the hunt for cash. Virgin Galactic is proposing to raise $300 million in additional capital to accelerate production of suborbital spaceplanes and a mothership aircraft the company says can fuel its long-term growth, Space News reports. The company, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, suspended operations of its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane earlier this year. VSS Unity hit a monthly flight cadence carrying small groups of space tourists and researchers to the edge of space, but it just wasn’t profitable. Now, Virgin Galactic is developing larger Delta-class spaceplanes it says will be easier and cheaper to turn around between flights.
All-in with Delta … Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic’s CEO, announced the company’s appetite for fundraising in a quarterly earnings call with investment analysts Wednesday. He said manufacturing of components for Virgin Galactic’s first two Delta-class ships, which the company says it can fund with existing cash, is proceeding on schedule at a factory in Arizona. Virgin Galactic previously said it would use revenue from paying passengers on its first two Delta-class ships to pay for development of future vehicles. Instead, Virgin Galactic now says it wants to raise money to speed up work on the third and fourth Delta-class vehicles, along with a second airplane mothership to carry the spaceplanes aloft before they release and fire into space. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
ESA breaks its silence on Themis. The European Space Agency has provided a rare update on the progress of its Themis reusable booster demonstrator project, European Spaceflight reports. ESA is developing the Themis test vehicle for atmospheric flights to fine-tune technologies for a future European reusable rocket capable of vertical takeoffs and vertical landings. Themis started out as a project led by CNES, the French space agency, in 2018. ESA member states signed up to help fund the project in 2019, and the agency awarded ArianeGroup a contract to move forward with Themis in 2020. At the time, the first low-altitude hop test was expected to take place in 2022.
Some slow progress … Now, the first low-altitude hop is scheduled for 2025 from Esrange Space Centre in Sweden, a three-year delay. This week, ESA said engineers have completed testing of the Themis vehicle’s main systems, and assembly of the demonstrator is underway in France. A single methane-fueled Prometheus engine, also developed by ArianeGroup, has been installed on the rocket. Teams are currently adding avionics, computers, electrical systems, and cable harnesses. Themis’ stainless steel propellant tanks have been manufactured, tested, and cleaned and are now ready to be installed on the Themis demonstrator. Then, the rocket will travel by road from France to the test site in Sweden for its initial low-altitude hops. After those flights are complete, officials plan to add two more Prometheus engines to the rocket and ship it to French Guiana for high-altitude test flights. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
SpaceX will give the ISS a boost. A Cargo Dragon spacecraft docked to the International Space Station on Tuesday morning, less than a day after lifting off from Florida. As space missions go, this one is fairly routine, ferrying about 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of cargo and science experiments to the space station. One thing that’s different about this mission is that it delivered to the station a tiny 2 lb (900 g) satellite named LignoSat, the first spacecraft made of wood, for later release outside the research complex. There is one more characteristic of this flight that may prove significant for NASA and the future of the space station, Ars reports. As early as Friday, NASA and SpaceX have scheduled a “reboost and attitude control demonstration,” during which the Dragon spacecraft will use some of the thrusters at the base of the capsule. This is the first time the Dragon spacecraft will be used to move the space station.
Dragon’s breath … Dragon will fire a subset of its 16 Draco thrusters, each with about 90 pounds of thrust, for approximately 12.5 minutes to make a slight adjustment to the orbital trajectory of the roughly 450-ton space station. SpaceX and NASA engineers will analyze the results from the demonstration to determine if Dragon could be used for future space station reboost opportunities. The data will also inform the design of the US Deorbit Vehicle, which SpaceX is developing to perform the maneuvers required to bring the space station back to Earth for a controlled, destructive reentry in the early 2030s. For NASA, demonstrating Dragon’s ability to move the space station will be another step toward breaking free of reliance on Russia, which is currently responsible for providing propulsion to maneuver the orbiting outpost. Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship also previously demonstrated a reboost capability. (submitted by Ken the Bin and N35t0r)
Russia launches Soyuz in service of Iran. Russia launched a Soyuz rocket Monday carrying two satellites designed to monitor the space weather around Earth and 53 small satellites, including two Iranian ones, Reuters reports. The primary payloads aboard the Soyuz-2.1b rocket were two Ionosfera-M satellites to probe the ionosphere, an outer layer of the atmosphere near the edge of space. Solar activity can alter conditions in the ionosphere, impacting communications and navigation. The two Iranian satellites on this mission were named Kowsar and Hodhod. They will collect high-resolution reconnaissance imagery and support communications for Iran.
A distant third … This was only the 13th orbital launch by Russia this year, trailing far behind the United States and China. We know of two more Soyuz flights planned for later this month, but no more, barring a surprise military launch (which is possible). The projected launch rate puts Russia on pace for its quietest year of launch activity since 1961, the year Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space. A major reason for this decline in launches is the decisions of Western governments and companies to move their payloads off of Russian rockets after the invasion of Ukraine. For example, OneWeb stopped launching on Soyuz in 2022, and the European Space Agency suspended its partnership with Russia to launch Soyuz rockets from French Guiana. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
H3 deploys Japanese national security satellite. Japan launched a defense satellite Monday aimed at speedier military operations and communication on an H3 rocket and successfully placed it into orbit, the Associated Press reports. The Kirameki 3 satellite will use high-speed X-band communication to support Japan’s defense ministry with information and data sharing, and command and control services. The satellite will serve Japanese land, air, and naval forces from its perch in geostationary orbit alongside two other Kirameki communications satellites.
Gaining trust … The H3 is Japan’s new flagship rocket, developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The launch of Kirameki 3 marked the third consecutive successful launch of the H3 rocket, following a debut flight in March 2023 that failed to reach orbit. This was the first time Japan’s defense ministry put one of its satellites on the H3 rocket. The first two Kirameki satellites launched on a European Ariane 5 and a Japanese H-IIA rocket, which the H3 will replace. (submitted by Ken the Bin, tsunam, and EllPeaTea)
Rocket Lab enters the race for military contracts. Rocket Lab is aiming to chip away at SpaceX’s dominance in military space launch, confirming its bid to compete for Pentagon contracts with its new medium-lift rocket, Neutron, Space News reports. Last month, the Space Force released a request for proposals from launch companies seeking to join the military’s roster of launch providers in the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. The Space Force will accept bids for launch providers to “on-ramp” to the NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 contract, which doles out task orders to launch companies for individual missions. In order to win a task order, a launch provider must be on the Phase 3 Lane 1 contract. Currently, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin are the only rocket companies eligible. SpaceX won all of the first round of Lane 1 task orders last month.
Joining the club … The Space Force is accepting additional risk for Lane 1 missions, which largely comprise repeat launches deploying a constellation of missile-tracking and data-relay satellites for the Space Development Agency. A separate class of heavy-lift missions, known as Lane 2, will require rockets to undergo a thorough certification by the Space Force to ensure their reliability. In order for a launch company to join the Lane 1 roster, the Space Force requires bidders to be ready for a first launch by December 2025. Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, said he thinks the Neutron rocket will be ready for its first launch by then. Other new medium-lift rockets, such as Firefly Aerospace’s MLV and Relativity’s Terran-R, almost certainly won’t be ready to launch by the end of next year, leaving Rocket Lab as the only company that will potentially join incumbents SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
Next Starship flight is just around the corner. Less than a month has passed since the historic fifth flight of SpaceX’s Starship, during which the company caught the booster with mechanical arms back at the launch pad in Texas. Now, another test flight could come as soon as November 18, Ars reports. The improbable but successful recovery of the Starship first stage with “chopsticks” last month, and the on-target splashdown of the Starship upper stage halfway around the world, allowed SpaceX to avoid an anomaly investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thus, the company was able to press ahead on a sixth test flight if it flew a similar profile. And that’s what SpaceX plans to do, albeit with some notable additions to the flight plan.
Around the edges … Perhaps the most significant change to the profile for Flight 6 will be an attempt to reignite a Raptor engine on Starship while it is in space. SpaceX tried to do this on a test flight in March but aborted the burn because the ship’s rolling motion exceeded limits. A successful demonstration of a Raptor engine relight could pave the way for SpaceX to launch Starship into a higher stable orbit around Earth on future test flights. This is required for SpaceX to begin using Starship to launch Starlink Internet satellites and perform in-orbit refueling experiments with two ships docked together. (submitted by EllPeaTea)
China’s version of Starship. China has updated the design of its next-generation heavy-lift rocket, the Long March 9, and it looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, Ars reports. The Long March 9 started out as a conventional-looking expendable rocket, then morphed into a launcher with a reusable first stage. Now, the rocket will have a reusable booster and upper stage. The booster will have 30 methane-fueled engines, similar to the number of engines on SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster. The upper stage looks remarkably like Starship, with flaps in similar locations. China intends to fly this vehicle for the first time in 2033, nearly a decade from now.
A vehicle for the Moon … The reusable Long March 9 is intended to unlock robust lunar operations for China, similar to the way Starship, and to some extent Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander, promises to support sustained astronaut stays on the Moon’s surface. China says it plans to land its astronauts on the Moon by 2030, initially using a more conventional architecture with an expendable rocket named the Long March 10, and a lander reminiscent of NASA’s Apollo lunar lander. These will allow Chinese astronauts to remain on the Moon for a matter of days. With Long March 9, China could deliver massive loads of cargo and life support resources to sustain astronauts for much longer stays.
Ta-ta to the tripod. The large three-legged vertical test stand at SpaceX’s engine test site in McGregor, Texas, is being decommissioned, NASA Spaceflight reports. Cranes have started removing propellant tanks from the test stand, nicknamed the tripod, towering above the Central Texas prairie. McGregor is home to SpaceX’s propulsion test team and has 16 test cells to support firings of Merlin, Raptor, and Draco engines multiple times per day for the Falcon 9 rocket, Starship, and Dragon spacecraft.
Some history … The tripod might have been one of SpaceX’s most important assets in the company’s early years. It was built by Beal Aerospace for liquid-fueled rocket engine tests in the late 1990s. Beal Aerospace folded, and SpaceX took over the site in 2003. After some modifications, SpaceX installed the first qualification version of its Falcon 9 rocket on the tripod for a series of nine-engine test-firings leading up to the rocket’s inaugural flight in 2010. SpaceX test-fired numerous new Falcon 9 boosters on the tripod before shipping them to launch sites in Florida or California. Most recently, the tripod was used for testing of Raptor engines destined to fly on Starship and the Super Heavy booster.
Next three launches
Nov. 9: Long March 2C | Unknown Payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 03: 40 UTC
Nov. 9: Falcon 9 | Starlink 9-10 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 06: 14 UTC
Nov. 10: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-69 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 21: 28 UTC
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.
Both Russia and China have tested satellites with capabilities that include grappling hooks to pull other satellites out of orbit and “kinetic kill vehicles” that can target satellites and long-range ballistic missiles in space.
In May, a senior US defense department official told a House Armed Services Committee hearing that Russia was developing an “indiscriminate” nuclear weapon designed to be sent into space, while in September, China made a third secretive test of an unmanned space plane that could be used to disrupt satellites.
The US is far ahead of its European allies in developing military space capabilities, but it wanted to “lay the foundations” for the continent’s space forces, Saltzman said. Last year UK Air Marshal Paul Godfrey was appointed to oversee allied partnerships with NATO with the US Space Force—one of the first times that a high-ranking allied pilot had joined the US military.
But Saltzman warned against a rush to build up space forces across the continent.
“It is resource-intensive to separate out and stand up a new service. Even … in America where we think we have more resources, we underestimated what it was going to take,” he said.
The US Space Force, which monitors more than 46,000 objects in orbit, has about 10,000 personnel but is the smallest department of the US military. Its officers are known as “guardians.”
The costs of building up space defense capabilities mean the US is heavily reliant on private companies, raising concerns about the power of billionaires in a sector where regulation remains minimal.
SpaceX, led by prominent Trump backer Elon Musk, is increasingly working with US military and intelligence through its Starshield arm, which is developing low Earth orbit satellites that track missiles and support intelligence gathering.
This month, SpaceX was awarded a $734 million contract to provide space launch services for US defense and intelligence agencies.
Despite concerns about Musk’s erratic behavior and reports that the billionaire has had regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saltzman said he had no concerns about US government collaboration with SpaceX.
“I’m very comfortable that they’ll execute those [contracts] exactly the way they’re designed. All of the dealings I’ve had with SpaceX have been very professional,” he said.
“The vehicle’s max design gimbal condition is during ascent when it has to fight high-altitude winds.”
Blue Origin’s first New Glenn rocket, with seven BE-4 engines installed inside the company’s production facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Blue Origin
Welcome to Edition 7.17 of the Rocket Report! Next week marks 10 years since one of the more spectacular launch failures of this century. On October 28, 2014, an Antares rocket, then operated by Orbital Sciences, suffered an engine failure six seconds after liftoff from Virginia and crashed back onto the pad in a fiery twilight explosion. I was there and won’t forget seeing the rocket falter just above the pad, being shaken by the deafening blast, and then running for cover. The Antares rocket is often an afterthought in the space industry, but it has an interesting backstory touching on international geopolitics, space history, and novel engineering. Now, Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace are developing a new version of Antares.
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.
Astra gets a lifeline from DOD. Astra, the launch startup that was taken private again earlier this year for a sliver of its former value, has landed a new contract with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to support the development of a next-gen launch system for time-sensitive space missions, TechCrunch reports. The contract, which the DIU awarded under its Novel Responsive Space Delivery (NRSD) program, has a maximum value of $44 million. The money will go toward the continued development of Astra’s Launch System 2, designed to perform rapid, ultra-low-cost launches.
Guarantees? … It wasn’t clear from the initial reporting how much money DIU is actually committing to Astra, which said the contract will fund continued development of Launch System 2. Launch System 2 includes a small-class launch vehicle with a similarly basic name, Rocket 4, and mobile ground infrastructure designed to be rapidly set up at austere spaceports. Adam London, founder and chief technology officer at Astra, said the contract award is a “major vote of confidence” in the company. If Astra can capitalize on the opportunity, this would be quite a remarkable turnaround. After going public at an initial valuation of $2.1 billion, or $12.90 per share, Astra endured multiple launch failures with its previous rocket and risked bankruptcy before the company’s co-founders, Chris Kemp and Adam London, took the company private again this year at a price of just $0.50 per share. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
Blue Origin debuts a new New Shepard. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture successfully sent a brand-new New Shepard rocket ship on an uncrewed shakedown cruise Wednesday, with the aim of increasing the company’s capacity to take people on suborbital space trips, GeekWire reports. The capsule, dubbed RSS Karman Line, carried payloads instead of people when it lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. But if all the data collected during the 10-minute certification flight checks out, it won’t be long before crews climb aboard for similar flights.
Now there are two … With this week’s flight, Blue Origin now has two human-rated suborbital capsules in its fleet, along with two boosters. This should allow the company to ramp up the pace of its human missions, which have historically flown at a cadence of about one flight every two to three months. The new capsule, named for the internationally recognized boundary of space 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth, features upgrades to improve performance and ease reusability. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)
The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s and Stephen Clark’s reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.
China has a new space tourism company. Chinese launch startup Deep Blue Aerospace targets providing suborbital tourism flights starting in 2027, Space News reports. The company was already developing a partially reusable orbital rocket named Nebula-1 for satellite launches and recently lost a reusable booster test vehicle during a low-altitude test flight. While Deep Blue moves forward with more Nebula-1 testing before its first orbital launch, the firm is now selling tickets for rides to suborbital space on a six-person capsule. The first two tickets were expected to be sold Thursday in a promotional livestream event.
Architectural considerations … Deep Blue has a shot at becoming China’s first space tourism company and one of only a handful in the world, joining US-based Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic in the market for suborbital flights. Deep Blue’s design will be a single-stage reusable rocket and crew capsule, similar to Blue Origin’s New Shepard, capable of flying above the Kármán line and providing up to 10 minutes of microgravity experience for its passengers before returning to the ground. A ticket, presumably for a round trip, will cost about $210,000. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
France’s space agency aims to launch a FROG. French space agency CNES will begin flight testing a small reusable rocket demonstrator called FROG-H in 2025, European Spaceflight reports. FROG is a French acronym that translates to Rocket for GNC demonstration, and its purpose is to test landing algorithms for reusable launch vehicles. CNES manages the program in partnership with French nonprofits and universities. At 11.8 feet (3.6 meters) tall, FROG is the smallest launch vehicle prototype at CNES, which says it will test concepts and technologies at small scale before incorporating them into Europe’s larger vertical takeoff/vertical landing test rockets like Callisto and Themis. Eventually, the idea is for all this work to lead to a reusable European orbital-class rocket.
Building on experience … CNES flew a jet-powered demonstrator named FROG-T on five test flights beginning in May 2019, reaching a maximum altitude of about 100 feet (30 meters). FROG-H will be powered by a hydrogen peroxide rocket engine developed by the Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation in Poland under a European Space Agency contract. The first flights of FROG-H are scheduled for early 2025. The structure of the FROG project seeks to “break free from traditional development methods” by turning to “teams of enthusiasts” to rapidly develop and test solutions through an experimental approach, CNES says on its website. (submitted by EllPeaTea and Ken the Bin)
Falcon 9 sweeps NSSL awards. The US Space Force’s Space Systems Command announced on October 18 it has ordered nine launches from SpaceX in the first batch of dozens of missions the military will buy in a new phase of competition for lucrative national security launch contracts, Ars reports. The parameters of the competition limited the bidders to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA). SpaceX won both task orders for a combined value of $733.5 million, or roughly $81.5 million per mission. Six of the nine missions will launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, beginning as soon as late 2025. The other three will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
Head-to-head … This was the first set of contract awards by the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 procurement round and represents one of the first head-to-head competitions between SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and ULA’s Vulcan rocket. The nine launches were divided into two separate orders, and SpaceX won both. The missions will deploy payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office and the Space Development Agency. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
SpaceX continues deploying NRO megaconstellation. SpaceX launched more surveillance satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office Thursday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, Spaceflight Now reports. While the secretive spy satellite agency did not identify the number or exact purpose of the satellites, the Falcon 9 likely deployed around 20 spacecraft believed to be based on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite bus, a derivative of the Starlink spacecraft platform, with participation from Northrop Grumman. These satellites host classified sensors for the NRO. This is the fourth SpaceX launch for the NRO’s new satellite fleet, which seeks to augment the agency’s bespoke multibillion-dollar spy satellites with a network of smaller, cheaper, more agile platforms in low-Earth orbit.
The century mark … This mission, officially designated NROL-167, was the 100th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket this year and the 105th SpaceX launch overall in 2024. The NRO has not said how many satellites will make up its fleet when completed, but the intelligence agency says it will be the US government’s largest satellite constellation in history. By the end of the year, the NRO expects to have 100 or more of these satellites in orbit, allowing the agency to transition from a demonstration mode to an operational mode to deliver intelligence data to military and government users. Many more launches are expected through 2028. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
ULA is stacking its third Vulcan rocket. United Launch Alliance has started assembling its next Vulcan rocket—the first destined to launch a US military payload—as the Space Force prepares to certify it to loft the Pentagon’s most precious national security satellites, Ars reports. Space Force officials expect to approve ULA’s Vulcan rocket for military missions without requiring another test flight, despite an unusual problem on the rocket’s second demonstration flight earlier this month, when one of Vulcan’s two strap-on solid-fueled boosters lost its nozzle shortly after liftoff.
Pending certification … Despite the nozzle failure, the Vulcan rocket continued climbing into space and eventually reached its planned injection orbit, and the Space Force and ULA declared the test flight a success. Still, engineers want to understand what caused the nozzle to break apart and decide on corrective actions before the Space Force clears the Vulcan rocket to launch a critical national security payload. This could take a little longer than expected due to the booster problem, but Space Force officials still hope to certify the Vulcan rocket in time to support a national security launch by the end of the year.
Blue Origin’s first New Glenn has all its engines. Blue Origin published a photo Thursday on X showing all seven first-stage BE-4 engines installed on the base of the company’s first New Glenn rocket. This is a notable milestone as Blue Origin proceeds toward the first launch of the heavy-lifter, possibly before the end of the year. But there’s a lot of work for Blue Origin to accomplish before then. These steps include rolling the rocket to the launch pad, running through propellant loading tests and practice countdowns, and then test-firing all seven BE-4 engines on the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
Seven for seven … The BE-4 engines will consume methane fuel mixed with liquid oxygen for the first few minutes of the New Glenn flight, generating more than 3.8 million pounds of combined thrust. The seven BE-4s on New Glenn are similar to the BE-4 engines that fly two at a time on ULA’s Vulcan rocket. Dave Limp, Blue Origin’s CEO, said three of the seven engines on the New Glenn first stage have thrust vector control capability to provide steering during launch, reentry, and landing on the company’s offshore recovery vessel. “That gimbal capability, along with the landing gear and Reaction Control System thrusters, are key to making our booster fully reusable,” Limp wrote on X. “Fun fact: The vehicle’s max design gimbal condition is during ascent when it has to fight high-altitude winds.”
Next Super Heavy booster test-fired in Texas. SpaceX fired up the Raptor engines on its next Super Heavy booster, numbered Booster 13, Thursday evening at the company’s launch site in South Texas. This happened just 11 days after SpaceX launched and caught the Super Heavy booster on the previous Starship test flight and signals SpaceX could be ready for the next Starship test flight sometime in November. SpaceX has already test-fired the Starship upper stage for the next flight.
Great expectations … We expect the next Starship flight, which will be program’s sixth full-scale demo mission, will include another booster catch back at the launch tower at Starbase, Texas. SpaceX may also attempt to reignite a Raptor engine on the Starship upper stage while it is in space, demonstrating the capability to steer itself back into the atmosphere on future flights. So far, SpaceX has only launched Starships on long, arcing suborbital trajectories that carry the vehicle halfway around the world before reentry. In order to actually launch a Starship into a stable orbit around Earth, SpaceX will want to show it can bring the vehicle back so it doesn’t reenter the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner. An uncontrolled reentry of a large spacecraft like Starship could pose a public safety risk.
Next three launches
Oct. 26: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-8 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 21: 47 UTC
Oct. 29: Falcon 9 | Starlink 9-9 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 11: 30 UTC
Oct. 30: H3 | Kirameki 3 | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 06: 46 UTC
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.
After rumors swirled that TikTok owner ByteDance had lost tens of millions after an intern sabotaged its AI models, ByteDance issued a statement this weekend hoping to silence all the social media chatter in China.
In a social media post translated and reviewed by Ars, ByteDance clarified “facts” about “interns destroying large model training” and confirmed that one intern was fired in August.
According to ByteDance, the intern had held a position in the company’s commercial technology team but was fired for committing “serious disciplinary violations.” Most notably, the intern allegedly “maliciously interfered with the model training tasks” for a ByteDance research project, ByteDance said.
None of the intern’s sabotage impacted ByteDance’s commercial projects or online businesses, ByteDance said, and none of ByteDance’s large models were affected.
Online rumors suggested that more than 8,000 graphical processing units were involved in the sabotage and that ByteDance lost “tens of millions of dollars” due to the intern’s interference, but these claims were “seriously exaggerated,” ByteDance said.
The tech company also accused the intern of adding misleading information to his social media profile, seemingly posturing that his work was connected to ByteDance’s AI Lab rather than its commercial technology team. In the statement, ByteDance confirmed that the intern’s university was notified of what happened, as were industry associations, presumably to prevent the intern from misleading others.
ByteDance’s statement this weekend didn’t seem to silence all the rumors online, though.
One commenter on ByteDance’s social media post disputed the distinction between the AI Lab and the commercial technology team, claiming that “the commercialization team he is in was previously under the AI Lab. In the past two years, the team’s recruitment was written as AI Lab. He joined the team as an intern in 2021, and it might be the most advanced AI Lab.”
“Robotic humanoid animals with vaudeville costumes roam the streets collecting protection money in tokens”
“A basketball player in a haunted passenger train car with a basketball court, and he is playing against a team of ghosts”
“A herd of one million cats running on a hillside, aerial view”
“Video game footage of a dynamic 1990s third-person 3D platform game starring an anthropomorphic shark boy”
“A muscular barbarian breaking a CRT television set with a weapon, cinematic, 8K, studio lighting”
Limitations of video synthesis models
Overall, the Minimax video-01 results seen above feel fairly similar to Gen-3’s outputs, with some differences, like the lack of a celebrity filter on Will Smith (who sadly did not actually eat the spaghetti in our tests), and the more realistic cat hands and licking motion. Some results were far worse, like the one million cats and the Ars Technica reader.
OpenAI hopes to convince the White House to approve a sprawling plan that would place 5-gigawatt AI data centers in different US cities, Bloomberg reports.
The AI company’s CEO, Sam Altman, supposedly pitched the plan after a recent meeting with the Biden administration where stakeholders discussed AI infrastructure needs. Bloomberg reviewed an OpenAI document outlining the plan, reporting that 5 gigawatts “is roughly the equivalent of five nuclear reactors” and warning that each data center will likely require “more energy than is used to power an entire city or about 3 million homes.”
According to OpenAI, the US needs these massive data centers to expand AI capabilities domestically, protect national security, and effectively compete with China. If approved, the data centers would generate “thousands of new jobs,” OpenAI’s document promised, and help cement the US as an AI leader globally.
But the energy demand is so enormous that OpenAI told officials that the “US needs policies that support greater data center capacity,” or else the US could fall behind other countries in AI development, the document said.
Energy executives told Bloomberg that “powering even a single 5-gigawatt data center would be a challenge,” as power projects nationwide are already “facing delays due to long wait times to connect to grids, permitting delays, supply chain issues, and labor shortages.” Most likely, OpenAI’s data centers wouldn’t rely entirely on the grid, though, instead requiring a “mix of new wind and solar farms, battery storage and a connection to the grid,” John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy Inc, told Bloomberg.
That’s a big problem for OpenAI, since one energy executive, Constellation Energy Corp. CEO Joe Dominguez, told Bloomberg that he’s heard that OpenAI wants to build five to seven data centers. “As an engineer,” Dominguez said he doesn’t think that OpenAI’s plan is “feasible” and would seemingly take more time than needed to address current national security risks as US-China tensions worsen.
OpenAI may be hoping to avoid delays and cut the lines—if the White House approves the company’s ambitious data center plan. For now, a person familiar with OpenAI’s plan told Bloomberg that OpenAI is focused on launching a single data center before expanding the project to “various US cities.”
Bloomberg’s report comes after OpenAI’s chief investor, Microsoft, announced a 20-year deal with Constellation to re-open Pennsylvania’s shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant to provide a new energy source for data centers powering AI development and other technologies. But even if that deal is approved by regulators, the resulting energy supply that Microsoft could access—roughly 835 megawatts (0.835 gigawatts) of energy generation, which is enough to power approximately 800,000 homes—is still more than five times less than OpenAI’s 5-gigawatt demand for its data centers.
Ketchum told Bloomberg that it’s easier to find a US site for a 1-gigawatt data center, but locating a site for a 5-gigawatt facility would likely be a bigger challenge. Notably, Amazon recently bought a $650 million nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania with a 2.5-gigawatt capacity. At the meeting with the Biden administration, OpenAI suggested opening large-scale data centers in Wisconsin, California, Texas, and Pennsylvania, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC.
During that meeting, the Biden administration confirmed that developing large-scale AI data centers is a priority, announcing “a new Task Force on AI Datacenter Infrastructure to coordinate policy across government.” OpenAI seems to be trying to get the task force’s attention early on, outlining in the document that Bloomberg reviewed the national security and economic benefits its data centers could provide for the US.
In a statement to Bloomberg, OpenAI’s spokesperson said that “OpenAI is actively working to strengthen AI infrastructure in the US, which we believe is critical to keeping America at the forefront of global innovation, boosting reindustrialization across the country, and making AI’s benefits accessible to everyone.”
Big Tech companies and AI startups will likely continue pressuring officials to approve data center expansions, as well as new kinds of nuclear reactors as the AI explosion globally continues. Goldman Sachs estimated that “data center power demand will grow 160 percent by 2030.” To ensure power supplies for its AI, according to the tech news site Freethink, Microsoft has even been training AI to draft all the documents needed for proposals to secure government approvals for nuclear plants to power AI data centers.
Enlarge / Andrew J. Pincus, attorney for TikTok and ByteDance, leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman US Court House with members of his legal team as the U.S. Court of Appeals hears oral arguments in the case TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland on September 16 in Washington, DC.
The fight to keep TikTok operating unchanged in the US reached an appeals court Monday, where TikTok and US-based creators teamed up to defend one of the world’s most popular apps from a potential US ban.
TikTok lawyer Andrew Pincus kicked things off by warning a three-judge panel that a law targeting foreign adversaries that requires TikTok to divest from its allegedly China-controlled owner, ByteDance, is “unprecedented” and could have “staggering” effects on “the speech of 170 million Americans.”
Pincus argued that the US government was “for the first time in history” attempting to ban speech by a specific US speaker—namely, TikTok US, the US-based entity that allegedly curates the content that Americans see on the app.
The government justified the law by claiming that TikTok may in the future pose a national security risk because updates to the app’s source code occur in China. Essentially, the US is concerned that TikTok collecting data in the US makes it possible for the Chinese government to both spy on Americans and influence Americans by manipulating TikTok content.
But Pincus argued that there’s no evidence of that, only the FBI warning “about the potential that the Chinese Communist Party could use TikTok to threaten US homeland security, censor dissidents, and spread its malign influence on US soil.” And because the law carves out China-owned and controlled e-commerce apps like Temu and Shein—which a US commission deemed a possible danger and allegedly process even more sensitive data than TikTok—the national security justification for targeting TikTok is seemingly so under-inclusive as to be fatal to the government’s argument, Pincus argued.
Jeffrey Fisher, a lawyer for TikTok creators, agreed, warning the panel that “what the Supreme Court tells us when it comes to under-inclusive arguments is” that they “often” are “a signal that something else is at play.”
Daniel Tenny, a lawyer representing the US government, defended Congress’ motivations for passing the law, explaining that the data TikTok collects is “extremely valuable to a foreign adversary trying to compromise the security” of the US. He further argued that a foreign adversary controlling “what content is shown to Americans” is just as problematic.
Rather than targeting Americans’ expression on the app, Tenny argued that because ByteDance controls TikTok’s source code, the speech on TikTok is not American speech but “expression by Chinese engineers in China.” This is the “core point” that the US hopes the appeals court will embrace, that as long as ByteDance oversees TikTok’s source code, the US will have justified concerns about TikTok data security and content manipulation. The only solution, the US government argues, is divestment.
TikTok has long argued that divestment isn’t an option and that the law will force a ban. Pincus told the court that the “critical issue” with the US government’s case is that the US does not have any evidence that TikTok US is under Chinese control. Because the US is only concerned about some “future Chinese control,” the burden that the law places on speech must meet the highest standard of constitutional scrutiny. Any finding otherwise, Pincus warned the court, risked turning the First Amendment “on its head,” potentially allowing the government to point to foreign ownership to justify regulating US speech on any platform.
But as the panel explained, the US government had tried for two years to negotiate with ByteDance and find through Project Texas a way to maintain TikTok in the US while avoiding national security concerns. Because every attempt to find a suitable national security arrangement has seemingly failed, Congress was potentially justified in passing the law, the panel suggested, especially if the court rules that the law is really just trying to address foreign ownership—not regulate content. And even though the law currently only targets TikTok directly, the government could argue that’s seemingly because TikTok is so far the only foreign adversary-controlled company flagged as a potential national security risk, the panel suggested.
TikTok insisted that divestment is not the answer and that Congress has made no effort to find a better solution. Pincus argued that the US did not consider less restrictive means for achieving the law’s objectives without burdening speech on TikTok, such as a disclosure mechanism that could prevent covert influence on the app by a foreign adversary.
But US circuit judge Neomi Rao pushed back on this, suggesting that disclosure maybe isn’t “always” the only appropriate mechanism to block propaganda in the US—especially when the US government has no way to quickly assess constantly updated TikTok source code developed in China. Pincus had confirmed that any covert content manipulation uncovered on the app would only be discovered after users were exposed.
“They say it would take three years to just review the existing code,” Rao said. “How are you supposed to have disclosure in that circumstance?”
“I think disclosure has been the historic answer for covert content manipulation,” Pincus told the court, branding the current law as “unusual” for targeting TikTok and asking the court to overturn the alleged ban.
The government has given ByteDance until mid-January to sell TikTok, or else the app risks being banned in the US. The appeals court is expected to rule by early December.
Enlarge/ Landspace’s reusable rocket test vehicle lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday, September 11, 2024.
Welcome to Edition 7.11 of the Rocket Report! Outside of companies owned by American billionaires, the most imminent advancements in reusable rockets are coming from China’s quasi-commercial launch industry. This industry is no longer nascent. After initially relying on solid-fueled rocket motors apparently derived from Chinese military missiles, China’s privately funded launch firms are testing larger launchers, with varying degrees of success, and now performing hop tests reminiscent of SpaceX’s Grasshopper and F9R Dev1 programs more than a decade ago.
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.
Landspace hops closer to a reusable rocket. Chinese private space startup Landspace has completed a 10-kilometer (33,000-foot) vertical takeoff and vertical landing test on its Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) reusable rocket testbed, including a mid-flight engine reignition at near supersonic conditions, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The 18.3-meter (60-foot) vehicle took off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China, ascended to 10,002 meters, and then made a vertical descent and achieved an on-target propulsive landing 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from the launch pad. Notably, the rocket’s methane-fueled variable-thrust engine intentionally shutdown in flight, then reignited for descent, as engines would operate on future full-scale booster flybacks. The test booster used grid fins and cold gas thrusters to control itself when its main engine was dormant, according to Landspace.
“All indicators met the expected design” … Landspace hailed the test as a major milestone in the company’s road to flying its next rocket, the Zhuque-3, as soon as next year. With nine methane-fueled main engines, the Zhuque-3 will initially be able to deliver 21 metric tons (46,300 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit with its booster flying in expendable mode. In 2026, Landspace aims to begin recovering Zhuque-3 first-stage boosters for reuse. Landspace is one of several Chinese companies working seriously on reusable rocket designs. Another Chinese firm, Deep Blue Aerospace, says it plans a 100-kilometer (62-mile) suborbital test of a reusable booster soon, ahead of the first flight of its medium-class Nebula-1 rocket next year. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
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Isar Aerospace sets low bar for success on first launch. Daniel Metzler, CEO of German launch startup Isar Aerospace, stated that the first flight of the Spectrum rocket would be a success if it didn’t destroy the launch site, European Spaceflight reports. During an interview at the Handelsblatt innovation conference, Metzler was asked what he would consider a successful inaugural flight of Spectrum. “For me, the first flight will be a success if we don’t blow up the launch site,” explained Metzler. “That would probably be the thing that would set us back the most in terms of technology and time.” This tempering of expectations sounds remarkably similar to statements made by Elon Musk about SpaceX’s first flight of the Starship rocket last year.
In the catbird seat? … Isar Aerospace could be in a position to become the first in a new crop of European commercial launch companies to attempt its first orbital flight. Another German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, recently gave up on a possible launch this year after the booster for its first launch caught fire and collapsed during a test at a launch site in Scotland. Isar plans to launch its two-stage Spectrum rocket, designed to carry up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of payload into low-Earth orbit, from Andøya Spaceport in Norway. Isar hasn’t publicized any schedule for the first flight of Spectrum, but there are indications the publicity-shy company is testing hardware at the Norwegian spaceport. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
FAA to introduce new orbital debris rules. The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with efforts to develop rules for the disposal of upper stages as another Centaur upper stage breaks apart in orbit, Space News reports. The FAA released draft regulations on the matter for public comment one year ago, and the head of the agency’s commercial spaceflight division recently said the rules are a “high priority for our organization.” The rules would direct launch operators to dispose of upper stages in one of five ways, from controlled reentries to placement in graveyard or “disposal” orbits not commonly used by operational satellites. One change the FAA might make to the draft rules is to reduce the required timeline for an uncontrolled reentry of a disposed upper stage from no more than 25 years to a shorter timeline. “We got a lot of comments that said it should be a lot less,” said Kelvin Coleman, head of the FAA’s commercial spaceflight office. “We’re taking that into consideration.”
Upper stages are a problem … Several recent breakups involving spent upper stages in orbit have highlighted the concern that dead rocket bodies could create unnecessary space junk. Last month, the upper stage from a Chinese Long March 6A disintegrated in low-Earth orbit, creating at least 300 pieces of space debris. More recently, a Centaur upper stage from a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket broke apart in a much higher orbit, resulting in more than 40 pieces of debris. This was the fourth time one of ULA’s Centaur upper stages has broken up since 2018. (submitted by Ken the Bin)
The Biden administration has proposed rules that could make it more costly for Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu to ship goods into the US.
In his announcement proposing to crack down on “unsafe, unfairly traded products,” President Joe Biden accused China-founded e-commerce platforms selling cheap goods of abusing the “de minimis exemption” that makes shipments valued under $800 duty-free.
Platforms taking advantage of the exemption can share less information on packages and dodge taxes. Biden warned that “over the last 10 years, the number of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption has increased significantly, from approximately 140 million a year to over 1 billion a year.” And the “majority of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption originate from several China-founded e-commerce platforms,” Biden said.
As a result, America has been flooded with “huge volumes of low-value products such as textiles and apparel” that compete in the market “duty-free,” Biden said. And this “makes it increasingly difficult to target and block illegal or unsafe shipments” presumably lost in the flood.
Allowing this alleged abuse to continue would not just hurt US businesses like H&M and Zara that increasingly struggle to compete with platforms like Shein and Temu, Biden alleged. It would also allegedly make it “more challenging to enforce US trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, consumer protection rules, and to block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and synthetic drug raw materials and machinery from entering the country.”
Raising duties could make cheap goods shipped from China more expensive, potentially raising prices for consumers who clearly flocked to Shein and Temu to fulfill their shopping needs as the pandemic strained families’ wallets and the economy.
Specifically, Biden has proposed to exclude from the de minimis exemption all shipments “containing products covered by tariffs imposed under Sections 201 or 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, or Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.” That would include, Biden specified, “some e-commerce platforms and other foreign sellers” that currently “circumvent these tariffs by shipping items from China to the United States” and “claiming the de minimis exemption.”
New rules would also require e-commerce platforms to share more information on shipments, “including the 10-digit tariff classification number and the person claiming the de minimis exemption.” That would help weed out unlawful de minimis shipments, Biden suggested.
Shein and Temu defend business models
Neither Shein nor Temu seem ready to let the proposed guidance slow down their rapid growth.
“Since Temu’s launch in September 2022, our mission has been to offer consumers a wider selection of quality products at affordable prices,” Temu’s spokesperson told Ars. “We achieve this through an efficient business model that cuts out unnecessary middlemen, allowing us to pass savings directly to our customers.”
Temu’s spokesperson told Ars that the company is currently reviewing the new rule proposals and remains “committed to delivering value to consumers.”
“Temu’s growth does not depend on the de minimis policy,” Temu’s spokesperson told Ars.
Shein similarly does not seem fazed by the announcement. Starting this year, Shein began voluntarily sharing additional information on its low-value shipments into the US as part of a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pilot program. That change came after CBP expanded the pilot last year in its mission to test out ways to “identify and target high-risk shipments for inspection while expediting clearance of legitimate trade flows.”
Shein’s spokesperson told Ars that “Shein makes import compliance a top priority, including the reporting requirements under US law with respect to de minimis entries.”
Last year, Shein executive vice chairman Donald Tang proposed what he thought would be good de minimis reforms “to create a level, transparent playing field.” In a letter to an American trade association representing more than 1,000 famous brands, the American Apparel and Footwear Association, Tang called for applying the same rules evenly, no matter where a company is based or ships from.
This would enhance consumer trust, Tang suggested, while creating “an environment that allows companies to compete on the quality and authenticity of their product, the caliber of their business models, and the performance of their customer service, which has always been at the heart of American enterprise.”
Federal authorities have seized more than 350 websites after an undercover investigation revealed that the sites were used to illegally import gun parts into the US from China. To get the illegal items through customs, the sites described the items as toys, necklaces, car parts, tools, and even a fidget spinner.
The sites violated import bans and the National Firearms Act by selling switches—which are “parts designed to convert semiautomatic pistols into fully automatic machineguns”—and silencers—which “suppress the sound of a firearm when discharged,” a Department of Justice press release said.
Some sites also marketed counterfeit Glock parts, infringing trademark laws, including a phony Glock switch that Glock confirmed to investigators was “never manufactured.”
To mask the illegal sales, some sites used domain names referencing “auto parts,” “fuel filters,” or “solvent traps,” a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) assigned to the Boston Field Office, Adam Rayho, wrote in an affidavit supporting the domain seizures. Further, some sites actually sold legitimate merchandise, including car products and home supplies, seemingly to obscure the illegal sales.
Others further infringed on Glock trademarks by including Glock or Glock products in the domain names, Rayho wrote.
“The seizure of these domains is a critical step in disrupting the flow of dangerous contraband that threatens public safety,” Acting US Attorney Joshua S. Levy said in the DOJ’s press release. “Those who attempt to exploit online platforms to traffic in highly lethal firearm parts will be held accountable. We will continue to pursue and dismantle these illicit networks wherever they operate to uphold the integrity of our laws and safeguard our communities.”
Feds increasingly seize sites to stop gun part sales
Rayho’s focus is on investigating “crimes that have a nexus to the clearnet or dark web” as part of HSI’s cybercrimes group. His team’s investigation began in August 2023, when the DOJ said that “federal authorities began targeting multiple websites, businesses, and individuals selling, offering for sale, importing, and exporting machinegun conversion devices in violation of federal law.”
This followed through on a HSI promise in 2020 to continue seizing websites to “suppress illicit commerce.” That’s when HSI first used the “novel approach” to shut down a website “wholly dedicated to illegal arms components.” Like many uncovered by Rayho’s team’s sting, that first site seized was disguised as an auto parts site. Previously, HSI had only been “aggressive in the seizure of Internet sites used to facilitate the sale of counterfeit goods.”
To shut down more sites masking illegal gun part sales, Rayho alleged that “an HSI agent acting in an undercover capacity” began visiting the targeted sites in August 2023. The agent found that some sites clearly marketed illegal gun parts while others used false descriptions with pictures and videos of the illegal merchandise. Many sites prompted users to inquire about illegal items on Telegram or WhatsApp and enabled payments by credit card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Some sites asked for payment in bitcoins.
Soon after learning how the websites worked, the agent began ordering gun parts, paying between $30 and $200 for shipments. By September 11, 2023, the agent received the first shipment, which contained a phony Glock switch and a silencer. US Customs and Border Protection confirmed that the cargo description for the package claimed that it contained a fidget spinner. Some sites promoted even faster delivery, promising to ship within 24 hours. Every package used a false description to fool customs, successfully pushing gun parts into the US by simply labeling them as objects unlikely to arouse suspicions, such as a tool, a motor, or a necklace. The most common false label was seemingly “toy.”
Also by September, Rayho wrote that HSI had confirmed that several of the seized domains that had been registered on GoDaddy.com appeared to be linked together, “as they had all been purchased by the same Shopper ID.” The agents “also identified additional domains purchased by the Shopper ID.” Rayho suspected that these additional domains were registered to quickly move sites to prevent forfeitures if the original domains were “seized by law enforcement or otherwise shut down.”
“Neither a restraining order nor an injunction is sufficient to guarantee” that sites would be available for forfeiture, Rayho wrote. The site owners “have the ability to move them to another computer/server or a third-party hosting service outside of the United States beyond this Court’s jurisdiction to anywhere in the world,” Rayho wrote, supporting HSI’s bid to seize the websites to prevent illegal gun part sales.
Federal authorities are unlikely to stop seizing domains, as the tactic has proven successful in improving gun safety in the US. Levy confirmed Wednesday that his office “remains committed to protecting our communities from the dangers posed by illegal firearms and firearm accessories, wherever the evidence takes us.”
Ketty Larco-Ward, the inspector in charge of the Boston division of the US Postal Inspection Service (PIS), promised that the PIS is also “committed” to helping federal authorities to “identify those who use the Postal Service to traffic these weapons, remove these illicit items from the mail, and increase the safety of our communities and the Postal Service employees who serve them.”
