With NASA's Artemis moon program now targeting September 2025 for its Artemis 2 mission and September 2026 for Artemis 3, some members of Congress are concerned about the potential repercussions, particularly with China's growing ambitions in lunar exploration. "For the United States and its partners not to be on the moon when others are on the moon is unacceptable," said Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator. "We need a program that is consistent with that theme. Artemis is not that program. We need to restart it, not keep it on track." Space.com reports: The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing about the new Artemis plan today (Jan. 17), and multiple members voiced concern about the slippage. "I remind my colleagues that we are not the only country interested in sending humans to the moon," Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) said in his opening remarks. "The Chinese Communist Party is actively soliciting international partners for a lunar mission -- a lunar research station -- and has stated its ambition to have human astronauts on the surface by 2030," he added. "The country that lands first will have the ability to set a precedent for whether future lunar activities are conducted with openness and transparency, or in a more restricted manner."

The committee's ranking member, California Democrat Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), voiced similar sentiments. "Let me be clear: I support Artemis," she said in her opening remarks. "But I want it to be successful, especially with China at our heels. And we want to be helpful here in the committee in ensuring that Artemis is strong and staying on track as we look to lead the world, hand-in-hand with our partners, in the human exploration of the moon and beyond." Several other committee members stressed that the new moon race is part of a broader competition with China, and that coming in second could imperil U.S. national security.

"It's no secret that China has a goal to surpass the United States by 2045 as global leaders in space. We can't allow this to happen," Rich McCormick (R-GA) said during the hearing. "I think the leading edge that we have in space technology will protect the United States -- not just the economy, but technologies that can benefit humankind." And Bill Posey (R-FL) referred to space as the "ultimate military high ground," saying that whoever leads in the final frontier "will control the destiny of this Earth."

Version 9.0 of Wine, the free and open-source compatibility layer that lets you run Windows apps on Unix-like operating systems, has been released. "Highlights of Wine 9.0 include an experimental Wayland graphics driver with features like basic window management, support for multiple monitors, high-DPI scaling, relative motion events, as well as Vulkan support," reports 9to5Linux. From the report: The Vulkan driver has been updated to support Vulkan 1.3.272 and later, the PostScript driver has been reimplemented to work from Windows-format spool files and avoid any direct calls from the Unix side, and there's now a dark theme option on WinRT theming that can be enabled in WineCfg. Wine 9.0 also adds support for many more instructions to Direct3D 10 effects, implements the Windows Media Video (WMV) decoder DirectX Media Object (DMO), implements the DirectShow Audio Capture and DirectShow MPEG-1 Video Decoder filters, and adds support for video and system streams, as well as audio streams to the DirectShow MPEG-1 Stream Splitter filter.

Desktop integration has been improved in this release to allow users to close the desktop window in full-screen desktop mode by using the "Exit desktop" entry in the Start menu, as well as support for export URL/URI protocol associations as URL handlers to the Linux desktop. Audio support has been enhanced in Wine 9.0 with the implementation of several DirectMusic modules, DLS1 and DLS2 sound font loading, support for the SF2 format for compatibility with Linux standard MIDI sound fonts, Doppler shift support in DirectSound, Indeo IV50 Video for Windows decoder, and MIDI playback in dmsynth.

Among other noteworthy changes, Wine 9.0 brings loader support for ARM64X and ARM64EC modules, along with the ability to run existing Windows binaries on ARM64 systems and initial support for building Wine for the ARM64EC architecture. There's also a new 32-bit x86 emulation interface, a new WoW64 mode that supports running of 32-bit apps on recent macOS versions that don't support 32-bit Unix processes, support for DirectInput action maps to improve compatibility with many old video games that map controller inputs to in-game actions, as well as Windows 10 as the default Windows version for new prefixes. Last but not least, the kernel has been updated to support address space layout randomization (ASLR) for modern PE binaries, better memory allocation performance through the Low Fragmentation Heap (LFH) implementation, and support memory placeholders in the virtual memory allocator to allow apps to reserve virtual space. Wine 9.0 also adds support for smart cards, adds support for Diffie-Hellman keys in BCrypt, implements the Negotiate security package, adds support for network interface change notifications, and fixes many bugs. For a full list of changes, check out the release notes. You can download Wine 9.0 from WineHQ.

Ken Fritz turned his home into an audiophile's dream -- the world's greatest hi-fi. What would it mean in the end? From a report: Ken Fritz was years into his quest to build the world's greatest stereo when he realized it would take more than just gear. It would take more than the Krell amplifiers and the Ampex reel-to-reel. More than the trio of 10-foot speakers he envisioned crafting by hand. And it would take more than what would come to be the crown jewel of his entire system: the $50,000 custom record player, his "Frankentable," nestled in a 1,500-pound base designed to thwart any needle-jarring vibrations and equipped with three different tone arms, each calibrated to coax a different sound from the same slab of vinyl. "If I play jazz, maybe that cartridge might bloom a little more than the other two," Fritz explained to me. "On classical, maybe this one."

No, building the world's greatest stereo would mean transforming the very space that surrounded it -- and the lives of the people who dwelt there. The faded photos tell the story of how the Fritz family helped him turn the living room of their modest split-level ranch on Hybla Road in Richmond's North Chesterfield neighborhood into something of a concert hall -- an environment precisely engineered for the one-of-a-kind acoustic majesty he craved. In one snapshot, his three daughters hold up new siding for their expanding home. In another, his two boys pose next to the massive speaker shells. There's the man of the house himself, a compact guy with slicked-back hair and a thin goatee, on the floor making adjustments to the system. He later estimated he spent $1 million on his mission, a number that did not begin to reflect the wear and tear on the household, the hidden costs of his children's unpaid labor.

Japanese startup EX-Fusion plans to eliminate small pieces of space junk with laser beams fired from the ground. Nikkei Asia reports: EX-Fusion stands apart in that it is taking the ground-based approach, with the startup tapping its arsenal of laser technology originally developed in pursuit of fusion power. In October, EX-Fusion signed a memorandum of understanding with EOS Space Systems, an Australian contractor that possesses technology used to detect space debris. EX-Fusion plans to place a high-powered laser inside an observatory operated by EOS Space outside of Canberra. The first phase will be to set up laser technology to track debris measuring less than 10 cm. Pieces of this size have typically been difficult to target from the ground using lasers.

For the second phase, EX-Fusion and EOS Space will attempt to remove the space debris by boosting the power of the laser beams fired from the surface. The idea is to fire the laser intermittently against the debris from the opposing direction of its travel in order to slow it down. With a decreased orbiting speed, the debris will enter the Earth's atmosphere to burn up. High-powered lasers are often associated with weapons that blast objects into smithereens. Indeed, the EOS Space group supplies laser weapon systems used to destroy drones. But lasers designed to remove space debris are completely different from weapon-grade lasers, EOS Space's executive vice president James Bennett said during a visit to Japan in November.

Current laser weaponry often uses fiber lasers, which are capable of cutting and welding metal and can destroy targets like drones through heat created from continuous firing. Capturing and removing space junk instead involves diode-pumped solid-state (DPSS) lasers, which are pulsed to apply force to fast moving debris, stopping it like a brake. EX-Fusion's signature laser fusion process also involves DPSS lasers, which strike the surface of a hydrogen fuel pellet just millimeters in diameter, compressing it to trigger a fusion reaction. This makes space debris removal a useful test along the path to commercializing the fusion technology.

The fuel-leaking Peregrine lunar lander is now "on a parth towards Earth," according to Update #16 from Astrobotic, which predicts their spacecraft "will likely burn up in the Earth's atmosphere." "Our analysis efforts have been challenging due to the propellant leak... The team is currently assessing options and we will update as soon as we are able. The propellant leak has slowed considerably to a point where it is no longer the teams' top priority...

We have now been operating in space for 5 days and 8 hours and are about 242,000 miles from Earth.
"A soft landing on the Moon is not possible," the announcement emphasizes. NDTV explains: Shortly after it separated from the rocket, the spaceship experienced an onboard explosion and it soon became clear it would not make a soft lunar touchdown because of the amount of the propellant it was losing — though Astrobotic's team were able to power up science experiments they were carrying for NASA and other space agencies, and gather spaceflight data...

Astrobotic itself will get another chance in November with its Griffin lander transporting NASA's VIPER rover to the lunar south pole.

porkchop_d_clown (Slashdot reader #39,923) writes: MOND — MOdified Newtonian Dynamics is a hypothesis that Newton's law of gravity is incorrect under some conditions. Now a paper claims that a study does indeed show that pairs of widely separated binary stars do show a deviation from Newton's Second Law, arguing that, at very low levels, gravity is stronger than the law predicts.
Phys.org writes that the study "reinforces the evidence for modified gravity that was previously reported in 2023 from an analysis of the orbital motions of gravitationally bound, widely separated (or long-period) binary stars, known as wide binaries."

But RockDoctor (Slashdot reader #15,477) calls the hypothesis "very much disputed." YouTubing-astrophysicist Dr Becky considered this report a couple of months ago (2023-Nov-09), under the title "HUGE blow for alternate theory of gravity MOND". At the very least, astrophysicists and cosmologists are deeply undecided whether this data supports or discourages MOND. (Shortened comment because verification problem.)

Last week, I updated my annual count of MOND and other "alternative gravity" publications. While research on MOND (and others) continues, and any "suppression" the tin-foil-hat brigade want to scream about is ineffective, it remains an unpopular (not-equal-to "suppressed") field. Generally, astronomical publication counts are increasing, and MOND sticks with that trend. If anything is becoming more popular, it's the "MOG" type of "MOdified Gravity".

Friday America's Environmental Protection Agency "proposed steep new fees on methane emissions from oil and gas facilities," reports the Washington Post, "escalating a crackdown on the fossil fuel industry's planet-warming pollution."

Methane does not linger in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, but it is far more effective at trapping heat — roughly 80 times more potent in its first decade. It is responsible for roughly a third of global warming today, and the oil and gas industry accounts for about 14 percent of the world's annual methane emissions, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency. Other large methane sources include livestock, landfills and coal mines.
So America's new Methane Emissions Reduction Program "levies a fee on wasteful methane emissions from large oil and gas facilities," according to the article: The fee starts at $900 per metric ton of emissions in 2024, increasing to $1,200 in 2025 and $1,500 in 2026 and thereafter. The EPA proposal lays out how the fee will be implemented, including how the charge will be calculated...

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai in December, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced final standards to limit methane emissions from U.S. oil and gas operations. Fossil fuel companies that comply with these standards will be exempt from the new fee... Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the fee will encourage fossil fuel firms to deploy innovative technologies that detect methane leaks. Such cutting-edge technologies range from ground-based sensors to satellites in space. "Proven solutions to cut oil and gas methane and to avoid the fee are being used by leading companies in states across the country," Krupp said in a statement...

In addition to methane, the EPA proposal could slash emissions of hazardous air pollutants, including smog-forming volatile organic compounds and cancer-causing benzene [according to an EPA official].
The federal government also gave America's fossil fuel companies nearly $1 billion to help them comply with the methane regulation, according to the article.

The article also includes this statement from an executive at the American Petroleum Institute, the top lobbying arm of the U.S. oil and gas industry, complaining that the fines create a "regime" that would "stifle innovation," and urging Congress to repeal it.

"For months, bits of an asteroid collected by a U.S. probe during a billion-mile trek were out of reach to scientists," reports Space.com, "locked inside a return capsule in a NASA facility with two stuck fasteners preventing access to the rocky space treasure.

"This week, NASA won its battle against those fasteners."

More details from CNN: The space agency already harvested about 2.5 ounces (70 grams) of rocks and dust from its OSIRIS-REx mission, which traveled nearly 4 billion miles to collect the unprecedented sample from the near-Earth asteroid called Bennu. But NASA revealed in October that some material remained out of reach in a capsule hidden inside an instrument called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism — a robotic arm with a storage container at one end that collected the sample from Bennu. The sampler head is held shut by 35 fasteners, according to NASA, but two of them proved too difficult to open.

Prying the mechanism loose is no simple task. The space agency must use preapproved materials and tools around the capsule to minimize the risk of damaging or contaminating the samples. These "new tools also needed to function within the tightly-confined space of the glovebox, limiting their height, weight, and potential arc movement," said Dr. Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curation lead at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a statement. "The curation team showed impressive resilience and did incredible work to get these stubborn fasteners off the TAGSAM head so we can continue disassembly. We are overjoyed with the success."
To address the issue, NASA said they designed and fabricated two new, multi-part tools out of surgical steel. NASA says that a "few additional disassembly steps" still remain, but there's a video on their web site showing the operation (along with some pictures).

NASA adds that "Later this spring, the curation team will release a catalog of the OSIRIS-REx samples, which will be available to the global scientific community." But CNN notes that an analysis of material from last fall "already revealed the samples from the asteroid contained abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals as well as carbon," CNN reports. And they add that scientists believe this bolsters the theory that water arrived on Earth billions of years ago on an asteroid...

After years of development, NASA has unveiled the X-59 supersonic jet capable of breaking the sound barrier without producing a thunderous sonic boom. "Instead, the Quesst will make a much quieter 'thump,' similar to the sound of a car door slamming as heard from indoors," reports Space.com. "If successful, the jet has the potential to revolutionize supersonic flight and aviation in general." From the report: NASA and Lockheed Martin showed off the finished X-59 Quesst ("Quiet SuperSonic Technology") today (Jan. 12) in front of a crowd of nearly 150 at the legendary Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, a research and development site typically known for its secrecy. The elongated beak-like nose section of the aircraft stood out prominently, showing off the fact that it does not have a forward-facing window. [...] Instead, it features what NASA calls the eXternal Vision System, or XVS, which consists of a camera and a cockpit-mounted screen that offers pilots an augmented-reality view of what's in front of the jet.

Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator, continued this sentiment, noting that the X-59 is merely the latest in a long line of NASA X-planes that have revolutionized aviation throughout the agency's history. "Even among other X-planes, the X-59 is special. Every aircraft that receives that X-plane designation has a specific purpose to test new technologies or aerodynamic concepts," Free said, "These special planes push the envelope of what's possible in flight. And once they prove those concepts, they often go into museums. And that's really what makes the X-59 different."

Free was referring to the fact that once the X-59 is ready for flight, the jet will make multiple flights over select residential areas in the United States in order to collect data on how people on the ground below experience and react to the quieter sonic booms it creates. NASA will then use that data to seek approval for commercial supersonic flights from regulatory agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration, with the ultimate goal of making aviation more sustainable and enabling faster flight over populated areas. Some of the applications of supersonic flight mentioned at today's unveiling include rapid medical response, shorter shipping times and, of course, faster travel. "The first 'A' in NASA stands for aeronautics," said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy during the unveiling ceremony. "And we're all about groundbreaking aerospace innovation. The X-59 proudly continues this legacy, representing the forefront of technology driving aviation forward." The 'X' in NASA's latest X-plane stands for 'experimental.'

"This isn't just an airplane, this is an X-plane," Melroy added. "It's the manifestation of a collaborative genius."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: In an unmarked laboratory stationed between the campuses of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a splinter group of scientists is hunting for the next billion-dollar drug. The group, bankrolled with $500 million from some of the wealthiest families in American business, has created a stir in the world of academia by dangling seven-figure paydays to lure highly credentialed university professors to a for-profit bounty hunt. Its self-described goal: to avoid the blockages and paperwork that slow down the traditional paths of scientific research at universities and pharmaceutical companies, and discover scores of new drugs (at first, for cancer and brain disease) that can be produced and sold quickly.

Braggadocio from start-ups is de rigueur, and plenty of ex-academics have started biotechnology companies, hoping to strike it rich on their one big discovery. This group, rather boastfully named Arena BioWorks, borrowing from a Teddy Roosevelt quote, doesn't have one singular idea, but it does have a big checkbook. "I'm not apologetic about being a capitalist, and that motivation from a team is not a bad thing," said the technology magnate Michael Dell, one of the group's big-money backers. Others include an heiress to the Subway sandwich fortune and an owner of the Boston Celtics. The wrinkle is that for decades, many drug discoveries have not just originated at colleges and universities, but also produced profits that helped fill their endowment coffers. The University of Pennsylvania, for one, has said it earned hundreds of millions of dollars for research into mRNA vaccines used against Covid-19. Under this model, any such windfall would remain private. [...]

The five billionaires backing Arena include Michael Chambers, a manufacturing titan and the wealthiest man in North Dakota, and Elisabeth DeLuca, the widow of a founder of the Subway chain. They have each put in $100 million and expect to double or triple their investment in later rounds. In confidential materials provided to investors and others, Arena describes itself as "a privately funded, fully independent, public good." Arena's backers said in interviews that they did not intend to entirely cut off their giving to universities. Duke turned down an offer from Mr. Pagliuca, an alumnus and board member, to set up part of the lab there. Mr. Dell, a major donor to the University of Texas hospital system in his hometown, Austin, leased space for a second Arena laboratory there. [Stuart Schreiber, a longtime Harvard-affiliated researcher who quit to be Arenaâ(TM)s lead scientist] said it would require years -- and billions of dollars in additional funding -- before the team would learn whether its model led to the production of any worthy drugs. "Is it going to be better or worse?" Dr. Schreiber said. "I don't know, but it's worth a shot."

After removing the feature with Android 5.0 in 2015, Google appears to be bringing back lock screen widgets in the next version of Android. "There haven't been any indications since then that Google would ever bring this feature back," notes Android Authority. "But after Apple introduced widgets to the iPhone lock screen in iOS 16, many speculated that it was only a matter of time." From the report: As for how they might do that, there seem to be two different approaches that are being developed. The first one involves the creation of a new "communal" space -- an area on the lock screen that might be accessed by swiping inward from the right. Although the communal space is still unfinished, I was able to activate it in the new Android 14 QPR2 Beta 3 update. Once I activated the communal space, a large gray bar appeared on the right side of the lock screen on my Pixel device. After swiping inward, a pencil icon appeared on the top left of the screen. Tapping this icon opened a widget selector that allowed me to add widgets from Google Calendar, Google Clock, and the Google App, but I wasn't able to add widgets from most of my other apps. This is because the widget category needs to be set to KEYGUARD in order for it to appear in this selector. KEYGUARD is a category Google introduced in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean that very few apps utilize today since the lock screen hasn't supported showing widgets in nearly a decade. After adding the widgets for Google Clock and Google Finance, I returned to the communal space by swiping inward from the right on the lock screen. The widgets were indeed shown in this space without me needing to unlock the device. However, the lock screen UI was shown on top of the widgets, making things difficult to see. Clearly, this feature is still a work in progress in the current beta. [...]

While it's possible this communal space won't be coming to all devices, there's another way that Google could bring widgets back to the lock screen for Android phones: leveraging At a Glance. If you aren't familiar, Pixel phones have a widget on the home screen and lock screen called At a Glance. The interesting thing about At a Glance is that it isn't actually a widget but rather a "custom element behaving like a widget," according to developer Kieron Quinn. Under the hood, At a Glance is built on top of Smartspace, the API that is responsible for creating the various cards you can swipe through. Although Smartspace supports creating a variety of card types, it currently can't handle RemoteViews, the API on which Android app widgets are built. That could change soon, though, as Google is working on including RemoteViews into the Smartspace API.

It's unclear whether this will allow raw widgets from all apps to be included in At a Glance, since it's also possible that Google is only implementing this so it has more freedom in building new cards. Either way, this new addition to the Smartspace API would supercharge the At a Glance widget in Android 15, and we're excited to see what Google has in store for us.

Mark Gurman reports via Bloomberg: In one of Apple's biggest board shake-ups in years (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), longtime directors Al Gore and James Bell will be retiring from the company, with former Aerospace Corp. Chief Executive Officer Wanda Austin coming aboard. The company made the announcement Thursday, citing a policy of directors not standing for reelection after the age of 75. Bell, a former Boeing Co. executive, joined the Apple board in 2015, while former US Vice President Gore has been a director for more than two decades. Both men are 75.

The upheaval is unusual for Apple's board, which rarely has more than one retirement at a time. Gore was the longest-serving member -- having joined in 2003, when co-founder Steve Jobs was CEO and the iPhone didn't yet exist. "Al has contributed an incredible amount to our work -- from his unconditional support for protecting our users' privacy, to his incomparable knowledge of environment and climate issues," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "James's dedication has been extraordinary, and we're thankful for the important perspectives and deep expertise he's offered on audit, finance, and so much more over the years."

Austin, the new nominee, has a significant track record of "advancing innovation and shaping corporate strategy," Apple said. She has long been a major proponent of US space exploration efforts, though that's not an area that Apple is directly involved in. She will be up for election at the company's annual shareholder meeting on Feb. 28. In spite of the age policy, another director, Ronald Sugar, is turning 76 this year and not slated to leave the board. Apple said that Sugar is remaining "in consideration of the significant recent transitions in board composition and the value of retaining directors who have developed deep insights into the company during their tenure." Given Apple's rationale for retaining Sugar, it's unclear if the policy will apply to Chairman Arthur Levinson, who turns 75 next year.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: OpenAI this week quietly deleted language expressly prohibiting the use of its technology for military purposes from its usage policy, which seeks to dictate how powerful and immensely popular tools like ChatGPT can be used. Up until January 10, OpenAI's "usage policies" page included a ban on "activity that has high risk of physical harm, including," specifically, "weapons development" and "military and warfare." That plainly worded prohibition against military applications would seemingly rule out any official, and extremely lucrative, use by the Department of Defense or any other state military. The new policy retains an injunction not to "use our service to harm yourself or others" and gives "develop or use weapons" as an example, but the blanket ban on "military and warfare" use has vanished.

The unannounced redaction is part of a major rewrite of the policy page, which the company said was intended to make the document "clearer" and "more readable," and which includes many other substantial language and formatting changes. "We aimed to create a set of universal principles that are both easy to remember and apply, especially as our tools are now globally used by everyday users who can now also build GPTs," OpenAI spokesperson Niko Felix said in an email to The Intercept. "A principle like 'Don't harm others' is broad yet easily grasped and relevant in numerous contexts. Additionally, we specifically cited weapons and injury to others as clear examples." Felix declined to say whether the vaguer "harm" ban encompassed all military use, writing, "Any use of our technology, including by the military, to '[develop] or [use] weapons, [injure] others or [destroy] property, or [engage] in unauthorized activities that violate the security of any service or system,' is disallowed." "OpenAI is well aware of the risk and harms that may arise due to the use of their technology and services in military applications," said Heidy Khlaaf, engineering director at the cybersecurity firm Trail of Bits and an expert on machine learning and autonomous systems safety, citing a 2022 paper (PDF) she co-authored with OpenAI researchers that specifically flagged the risk of military use. "There is a distinct difference between the two policies, as the former clearly outlines that weapons development, and military and warfare is disallowed, while the latter emphasizes flexibility and compliance with the law," she said. "Developing weapons, and carrying out activities related to military and warfare is lawful to various extents. The potential implications for AI safety are significant. Given the well-known instances of bias and hallucination present within Large Language Models (LLMs), and their overall lack of accuracy, their use within military warfare can only lead to imprecise and biased operations that are likely to exacerbate harm and civilian casualties."

"I could imagine that the shift away from 'military and warfare' to 'weapons' leaves open a space for OpenAI to support operational infrastructures as long as the application doesn't directly involve weapons development narrowly defined," said Lucy Suchman, professor emerita of anthropology of science and technology at Lancaster University. "Of course, I think the idea that you can contribute to warfighting platforms while claiming not to be involved in the development or use of weapons would be disingenuous, removing the weapon from the sociotechnical system -- including command and control infrastructures -- of which it's part." Suchman, a scholar of artificial intelligence since the 1970s and member of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, added, "It seems plausible that the new policy document evades the question of military contracting and warfighting operations by focusing specifically on weapons."

Just six days after being launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket, one of SpaceX's six Starlink satellites was used to send text messages for the first time. Space.com reports: That update didn't reveal what the first Starlink direct-to-cell text said. In a post on X on Wednesday, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said the message was "LFGMF2024," but the chances are fairly high that he was joking. [...] Beaming connectivity service from satellites directly to smartphones -- which SpaceX is doing via a partnership with T-Mobile -- is a difficult proposition, as SpaceX noted in Wednesday's update.

"For example, in terrestrial networks cell towers are stationary, but in a satellite network they move at tens of thousands of miles per hour relative to users on Earth," SpaceX wrote. "This requires seamless handoffs between satellites and accommodations for factors like Doppler shift and timing delays that challenge phone-to-space communications. Cell phones are also incredibly difficult to connect to satellites hundreds of kilometers away, given a mobile phone's low antenna gain and transmit power."

The direct-to-cell Starlink satellites overcome these challenges thanks to "innovative new custom silicon, phased-array antennas and advanced software algorithms," SpaceX added. Overcoming tough challenges can lead to great rewards, and that's the case here, according to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell. "Satellite connectivity direct to cell phones will have a tremendous impact around the world, helping people communicate wherever and whenever they want or need to," Shotwell said via X on Wednesday.

In order to reach places like Alpha Centauri this century, we'll need to utilize gram-scale spacecraft that rely on directed-energy propulsion. To that end, NASA has selected the Swarming Proxima Centauri project for Phase I development as part of this year's NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. According to Universe Today, Swarming Proxima Centauri is "a collaborative effort between Space Initiatives Inc. and the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) led by Space Initiative's chief scientist Marshall Eubanks." From the report: According to Eubanks, traveling through interstellar space is a question of distance, energy, and speed. At a distance of 4.25 light-years (40 trillion km; 25 trillion mi) from the Solar System, even Proxima Centauri is unfathomably far away. To put it in perspective, the record for the farthest distance ever traveled by a spacecraft goes to the Voyager 1 space probe, which is currently more than 24 billion km (15 billion mi) from Earth. Using conventional methods, the probe accomplished a maximum speed of 61,500 km/h (38,215 mph) and has been traveling for more than 46 years straight.

In short, traveling at anything less than relativistic speed (a fraction of the speed of light) will make interstellar transits incredibly long and entirely impractical. Given the energy requirements this calls for, anything other than small spacecraft with a maximum mass of a few grams is feasible. [...] In contrast, concepts like Breakthrough Starshot and the Proxima Swarm consist of "inverting the rocket" -- i.e., instead of throwing stuff out, stuff is thrown at the spacecraft. Instead of heavy propellant, which constitutes the majority of conventional rockets, the energy source for a lightsail is photons (which have no mass and move at the speed of light). But as Eubanks indicated, this does not overcome the issue of energy, making it even more important that the spacecraft be as small as possible. "Bouncing photons off of a laser sail thus solves the speed-of-stuff problem," he said. "But the trouble is, there is not much momentum in a photon, so we need a lot of them. And given the power we are likely to have available, even a couple of decades from now, the thrust will be weak, so the mass of the probes needs to be very small -- grams, not tons."

Their proposal calls for a 100-gigawatt (GW) laser beamer boosting thousands of gram-scale space probes with laser sails to relativistic speed (~10-20% of light). They also proposed a series of terrestrial light buckets measuring a square kilometer (0.386 mi2) in diameter to catch the light signals from the probes once they are well on their way to reaching Proxima Centauri (and communications become more difficult). By their estimates, this mission concept could be ready for development around midcentury and could reach Proxima Centauri and its Earth-like exoplanet (Proxima b) by the third quarter of this century (2075 or after). [...] Eubanks and his colleagues hope that the development of a coherent swarm of robotic probes will have applications closer to home. Swarm robotics is a hot field of research today and is being investigated as a possible means of exploring Europa's interior ocean, digging underground cities on Mars, assembling large structures in space, and providing extreme weather tracking from Earth's orbit. Beyond space exploration and Earth observation, swarm robotics also has applications in medicine, additive manufacturing, environmental studies, global positioning and navigation, search and rescue, and more.

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a rare event in an oddball place. NASA reports: It's called a fast radio burst (FRB), a fleeting blast of energy that can -- for a few milliseconds -- outshine an entire galaxy. Hundreds of FRBs have been detected over the past few years. They pop off all over the sky like camera flashes at a stadium event, but the sources behind these intense bursts of radiation remain uncertain. This new FRB is particularly weird because it erupted halfway across the universe, making it the farthest and most powerful example detected to date.

And if that's not strange enough, it just got weirder based on the follow-up Hubble observations made after its discovery. The FRB flashed in what seems like an unlikely place: a collection of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old. The large majority of previous FRBs have been found in isolated galaxies. FRB 20220610A was first detected on June 10, 2022, by the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia. The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile confirmed that the FRB came from a distant place. The FRB was four times more energetic than closer FRBs.

"It required Hubble's keen sharpness and sensitivity to pinpoint exactly where the FRB came from," said lead author Alexa Gordon of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. "Without Hubble's imaging, it would still remain a mystery as to whether this was originating from one monolithic galaxy or from some type of interacting system. It's these types of environments -- these weird ones -- that are driving us toward better understanding the mystery of FRBs." Hubble's crisp images suggest this FRB originated in an environment where there may be as many as seven galaxies on a possible path to merging, which would also be very significant, researchers say.

NASA has postponed its plans to send humans to the moon after delays hit its hugely ambitious Artemis programme, which aims to get spaceboots bouncing again on the lunar surface for the first time in half a century. From a report: The US space agency has announced the Artemis III mission to land four astronauts near the lunar south pole will be delayed a year until September 2026. Artemis II, a 10-day expedition to send a crew around the moon and back to test life support systems, will also be pushed back to September 2025.

NASA said the delays would allow its teams to work through development challenges associated with the programme, which partners with private companies including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Lockheed Martin and uses some largely untested spacecraft and technology. "We are returning to the moon in a way we never have before, and the safety of our astronauts is Nasa's top priority as we prepare for future Artemis missions," said the Nasa administrator Bill Nelson. Washington wants to establish a long-term human presence outside Earth's orbit, including construction of a lunar base camp as well as a space station that circles the moon. Its ultimate plans are to send people to Mars, but it has decided to return to the moon first to learn more about deep space before embarking on what would be a months-long voyage to the red planet.

necro81 writes: ULA's Vulcan rocket, many years in development, had a successful first launch this morning from Cape Canaveral. The expendable rocket, which uses two methane-fueled BE-4 engines from Blue Origin in its first stage, is the successor to the Delta and Atlas-V launch vehicles.

Years overdue, and with a packed manifest for future launches, Vulcan is critical to the ULA's continued existence. The payload on this first mission is called Peregrine -- a lunar lander from Astrobotic. Unfortunately, Peregrine has suffered an anomaly some hours into flight; it is unclear whether the mission can recover. UPDATE: According to Reuters, Peregrine's propulsion system experienced issues hours after separating from Vulcan, "preventing the spacecraft from angling itself toward the sun for power."

"While mission engineers regained control, the faulty propulsion system is losing valuable propellant, forcing Astrobotic to consider 'alternative mission profiles,' suggesting a moon landing is no longer achievable," reports Reuters.

In the most recent update (#5) on X, Astrobotic said in a statement: "We've received the first image from Peregrine in space! The camera utilized is mounted atop a payload deck and shows Multi-Layer Insulation (MLI) in the foreground. The disturbance of the MLI is the first visual clue that aligns with out telemetry data that points to a propulsion system anomaly. Nonetheless, the spacecraft's battery is now fully charged, and we are using Peregrine's existing power to perform as many payload and spacecraft operations as possible. At this time, the majority of our Peregrine mission team has been awake and working diligently for more than 24 hours. We ask for your patience as we reassess incoming data so we can provide ongoing updates later this evening."

The BBC checks in on "the pioneers of space exploration — the 24 Nasa astronauts who travelled to the Moon in the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s." Ken Mattingly and Frank Borman died within a few days of each other late last year. Now only eight people who have voyaged beyond the Earth's orbit remain. Who are they, and what are their stories...? There are only four people still alive who have walked on the Moon — Charlie Duke is one of them. He did it aged 36, making him the youngest person to set foot on the lunar surface... Charlie Duke now lives outside San Antonio, Texas, with Dorothy, to whom he has been married for 60 years....

Jim Lovell is one of only three men to have travelled to the Moon twice, and following Frank Borman's death in November 2023, he became the oldest living astronaut....

After leaving Nasa in 1975, [Harrison Schmitt] was elected to the U.S. Senate from his home state of New Mexico, but only served one term. Since then he has worked as a consultant in various industries as well as continuing in academia.
And when confronted by a man claiming Apollo 11 was an elaborate lie, 72-year-old Buzz Aldrin "punched him on the jaw." Despite struggles in later life, he never lost his thirst for adventure and joined expeditions to both the North and South Poles, the latter at the age of 86. While embracing his celebrity, he has remained an advocate for the space programme, especially the need to explore Mars.

"I don't think we should just go there and come back — we did that with Apollo," he says.
Last 93-year-old Buzz Aldrin got married — and thanked his fans for remembering his birthday. "It means a lot and I hope to continue serving a greater cause for many more revolutions around the sun."

Long-time Slashdot readers necro81 writes: The popular vision of Neptune is azure blue. This comes mostly from the publicly released images from Voyager 2's flyby in 1989 — humanity's only visit to this icy giant at the edge of the solar system. But it turns out that view is a bit distorted — the result of color-enhancing choices made by NASA at the time. A new report from Oxford depicts Neptune's blue color as more muted, with a touch of green, not much different than Uranus. The truer-to-life view comes from re-analyzing the Voyager data, combined with ground-based observations going back decades. (Add'l links here, here, and here.)

This is nothing new: most publicity images released by space agencies — of planets, nebulae, or the surface of Mars — have undergone some color-enhancement for visual effect. (They'll also release "true-color" images, which try to best mimic what the human eye would see.) Many images — such as those from the infrared-seeing JWST — need wholesale coloration of their otherwise invisible wavelengths. The new report is a good reminder, though, to remember that scientific cameras are pretty much always black and white; color images come from combining filters in various ways.
Also thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis for sharing the story.