"The latest version of the Linux kernel adds an array of improvements," writes the blog OMG Ubuntu, " including a new memory sealing system call, a speed boost for AES-XTS encryption on Intel and AMD CPUs, and expanding Rust language support within the kernel to RISC-V." Plus, like in all kernel releases, there's a glut of groundwork to offer "initial support" for upcoming CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, Wi-Fi, and other hardware (that most of us don't use yet, but require Linux support to be in place for when devices that use them filter out)...

Linux 6.10 adds (after much gnashing) the mseal() system call to prevent changes being made to portions of the virtual address space. For now, this will mainly benefit Google Chrome, which plans to use it to harden its sandboxing. Work is underway by kernel contributors to allow other apps to benefit, though. A similarly initially-controversial change merged is a new memory-allocation profiling subsystem. This helps developers fine-tune memory usage and more readily identify memory leaks. An explainer from LWN summarizes it well.

Elsewhere, Linux 6.10 offers encrypted interactions with trusted platform modules (TPM) in order to "make the kernel's use of the TPM reasonably robust in the face of external snooping and packet alteration attacks". The documentation for this feature explains: "for every in-kernel operation we use null primary salted HMAC to protect the integrity [and] we use parameter encryption to protect key sealing and parameter decryption to protect key unsealing and random number generation." Sticking with security, the Linux kernel's Landlock security module can now apply policies to ioctl() calls (Input/Output Control), restricting potential misuse and improving overall system security.

On the networking side there's significant performance improvements to zero-copy send operations using io_uring, and the newly-added ability to "bundle" multiple buffers for send and receive operations also offers an uptick in performance...

A couple of months ago Canonical announced Ubuntu support for the RISC-V Milk-V Mars single-board computer. Linux 6.10 mainlines support for the Milk-V Mars, which will make that effort a lot more viable (especially with the Ubuntu 24.10 kernel likely to be v6.10 or newer). Others RISC-V improvements abound in Linux 6.10, including support for the Rust language, boot image compression in BZ2, LZ4, LZMA, LZO, and Zstandard (instead of only Gzip); and newer AMD GPUs thanks to kernel-mode FPU support in RISC-V.
Phoronix has their own rundown of Linux 6.10, plus a list of some of the highlights, which includes:

• The initial DRM Panic infrastructure
• The new Panthor DRM driver for newer Arm Mali graphics
• Better AMD ROCm/AMDKFD support for "small" Ryzen APUs and new additions for AMD Zen 5.
• AMD GPU display support on RISC-V hardware thanks to RISC-V kernel mode FPU
• More Intel Xe2 graphics preparations
• Better IO_uring zero-copy performance
• Faster AES-XTS disk/file encryption with modern Intel and AMD CPUs
• Continued online repair work for XFS
• Steam Deck IMU support
• TPM bus encryption and integrity protection

An anonymous reader shared this report from ScienceAlert: NASA's Parker Solar Probe, tasked with taking a close-up look at the Sun's outer corona, has just equalled the record for the fastest-moving human-made object ever. The previous record holder? The Parker Solar Probe, again. The probe was recorded traveling at 635,266 kilometers (394,736 miles) per hour on June 29, the second time it's reached that speed since it launched in 2018. We're talking around 500 times faster than the speed of sound here. It's on course to get even faster too, with a top speed of around 692,000 kph (430,000 mph) expected when it makes its closest approach to the Sun in 2025.
It's the probe's 20th approach to the sun, according to the article, with the probe using Venus "to create a sort of gravity-powered slingshot," according to the article. (NASA has created a nice interactive 3D model of the probe...)

Besides collecting particle samples in 2021, "The probe is eventually going to get nice and close to the swirling mass of ultra-hot plasma surrounding the Sun, and take a wealth of different measurements to help improve our scientific understanding of it."

clovis (Slashdot reader #4,684) writes: Joe Engle received his astronaut wings in a ceremony on July 15, 1965, for his flight in the hypersonic aircraft, reaching an altitude of 50 miles above the Earth. At 32, he was the youngest man to become an astronaut.

Later, he entered the Apollo program and eventually commanded the STS-2 flight of the Space Shuttle.

Here is an interview from 2004. I thought it was interesting that they used the F-104 as the chase plane and for training because the flight characteristics were so similar, which says a lot about the F-104.

Anyway, the X-15 project was a big deal for us science/geek types back when I was a kid. I wonder if it's something today's generation is even aware of.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from DefenseScoop: A group of NATO countries are set to begin implementing a new project aimed at improving the alliance's ability to quickly share intelligence gathered by space-based assets operated by both member nations and the commercial sector. Seventeen NATO members signed a memorandum of understanding for the Alliance Persistence Surveillance from Space (APSS) program as part of the annual NATO summit being held in Washington this week, the alliance announced Tuesday. Members will now move into a five-year implementation phase of the project, during which allies will contribute more than $1 billion "to leverage commercial and national space assets, and to expand advanced exploitation capacities," according to a press release.

The United States is one of the nations signed onto the initiative, as well as Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Turkey, according to a NATO source. The transatlantic organization created APSS last year with the intent to establish a "virtual constellation" -- dubbed Aquila -- comprising both national and commercial space systems, sensors and data that can be used by NATO's command structure and other allies. The project is considered "the largest multinational investment in space-based capabilities" in the alliance's history, and is set to increase NATO's ability "to monitor activities on the ground and at sea with unprecedented accuracy and timeliness," a press release stated.

Participating nations will be able to use their own space systems, provide tools for intelligence collection and analysis, or purchase space-based data gathered by commercial constellations. "Integrating and exploiting data from space effectively has been a growing challenge over time," a NATO press release stated. "By leveraging latest technologies from industry, APSS will help advance NATO's innovation agenda and offer a new platform to engage with the growing space industry." The APSS project is part of the larger implementation of NATO's overarching space policy adopted in 2019, which officially recognized space as a new operational domain. Since then, the alliance has worked to bolster its presence in space -- including the establishment of a NATO Space Centre in 2020 and approval of an official Space Branch within the Allied Command Transformation in June.

Researchers from Cornell University have developed a novel urine collection and filtration system for spacesuits, designed to improve hygiene and comfort for astronauts during long spacewalks. This new system, inspired by the 'stillsuits' from the Dune franchise, recycles urine into potable water using a vacuum-based external catheter and a forward-reverse osmosis unit. It's expected to be tested for use in upcoming NASA moon and Mars missions. Phys.Org reports: [Researchers] have now designed a urine collection device, including an undergarment made of multiple layers of flexible fabric. This connects to a collection cup (with a different shape and size for women and men) of molded silicone, to fit around the genitalia. The inner face of the collection cup is lined with polyester microfiber or a nylon-spandex blend, to draw urine away from the body and towards the inner cup's inner face, from where it is sucked by a vacuum pump. A RFID tag, linked to an absorbent hydrogel, reacts to moisture by activating the pump.

Once collected, the urine is diverted to the urine filtration system, where it gets recycled with an efficiency of 87% through a two-step, integrated forward and reverse osmosis filtration system. This uses a concentration gradient to remove water from urine, plus a pump to separate water from salt. The purified water is then enriched in electrolytes and pumped into the in-suit drink bag, again available for consumption. Collecting and purifying 500ml of urine takes only five minutes.

The system, which integrates control pumps, sensors, and a liquid-crystal display screen, is powered by a 20.5V battery with a capacity of 40 amp-hours. Its total size is 38 by 23 by 23 cm, with a weight of approximately eight kilograms: sufficiently compact and light to be carried on the back of a spacesuit. Now that the prototype is available, the new design can be tested under simulated conditions, and subsequently during real spacewalks. The design has been published in the journal Frontiers in Space Technology.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket was grounded by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday after one broke apart in space and doomed its payload of Starlink satellites, the first failure in more than seven years of a rocket relied upon by the global space industry. Roughly an hour after Falcon 9 lifted off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday night, the rocket's second stage failed to reignite and deployed its 20 Starlink satellites on a shallow orbital path where they will soon reenter and burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

The attempt to reignite the engine "resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote early on Friday on his social media platform X, using an industry acronym for Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly that usually means explosion. The Falcon 9 will be grounded until SpaceX investigates the cause of the failure, fixes the rocket and receives the agency's approval, the FAA said in a statement. That process could take several weeks or months, depending on the complexity of the failure and SpaceX's plan to fix it. Musk said SpaceX was updating the software of the Starlink satellites to force their on-board thrusters to fire harder than usual to avoid a fiery atmospheric re-entry. "Unlike a Star Trek episode, this will probably not work, but it's worth a shot," Musk said.

The satellites' altitude is so shallow that Earth's gravity is pulling them 3 miles (5 km) closer toward the atmosphere with each orbit, SpaceX later said, confirming they would inevitably "re-enter Earth's atmosphere and fully demise." SpaceX said the second stage's failure occurred after engineers detected a leak of liquid oxygen, a propellant. The mishap occurred on Falcon 9's 354th mission. It was the first Falcon 9 failure since 2016, when a rocket exploded on a launch pad in Florida and destroyed its customer payload, an Israeli communications satellite. The failure "breaks a success streak of more than 300 straight missions," notes Reuters.

"We knew this incredible run had to come to an end at some point," Tom Mueller, SpaceX's former vice president of propulsion who designed Falcon 9's engines. "... The team will fix the problem and start the cycle again."

A group of astronomers want to change the definition of a planet. Their new proposed definition wouldn't bring Pluto back into the planetary fold, but it could reclassify thousands of celestial bodies across the universe. From a report: The International Astronomical Union's (IAU) current definition of a planet, established in 2006, includes only celestial bodies that are nearly round, are gravitationally dominant and orbit our Sun. This Sun-centric definition excludes all of the bodies we've discovered outside our solar system, even if they may fit all other parameters. They are instead considered exoplanets. Those behind the new proposal critiqued the IAU's definition in an upcoming paper in the Planetary Science Journal, arguing it's vague, not quantitative and unnecessarily exclusionary.

Their new proposal would instead classify planets based on their mass, considering a planet to be any celestial body that:
1. orbits one or more stars, brown dwarfs or stellar remnants and,
is more massive than 10ÂÂ kilograms (kg) and,
is less massive than 13 Jupiter masses (2.5 X 10^28Âkg).

Aryan Kapoor, a high schooler from JRD Propulsion, successfully developed a model rocket with SpaceX-style vertical landing capabilities. The three-year effort was made possible by a thrust-vector control and clever landing gear design. Hackaday reports: He started in 2021 with none of the basic skills needed to pull off something like this, but it seems like he quickly learned the ropes. His development program was comprehensive, with static test vehicles, a low-altitude hopper, and extensive testing of the key technology: thrust-vector control. His rocket uses two solid-propellant motors stacked on top of each other, one for ascent and one for descent and landing. They both live in a 3D printed gimbal mount with two servos that give the stack plus and minus seven degrees of thrust vectoring in two dimensions, which is controlled by a custom flight computer with a barometric altimeter and an inertial measurement unit. The landing gear is also clever, using rubber bands to absorb landing forces and syringes as dampers. You can watch the first successful test flight and landing on YouTube.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Federal regulators have for the first time banned a digital platform from serving users under 18 (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), accusing the app -- known as NGL -- of exaggerating its ability to use artificial intelligence to curb cyberbullying in a groundbreaking settlement. Anapp popular among children and teens, NGL aggressively marketed to young users despite risks of bullying on the anonymous messaging site, the Federal Trade Commission and the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office alleged in a complaint unveiled Tuesday.

The complaint alleged that NGL tricked users into paying for subscriptions by sending them computer-generated messages appearing to be from real people and offering a service for as much as $9.99 a week to find out their real identity. People who signed up received only "hints" of those identities, whether they were real or not, enforcers said. After users complained about the "bait-and switch tactic," executives at the company "laughed off" their concerns, referring to them as "suckers," the FTC said in an announcement. NGL, internet shorthand for "not gonna lie," agreed to pay $5 million and stop marketing to kids and teens to settle the lawsuit, which also alleged that the company violated children's privacy laws by collecting data from youths under 13 without parental consent.

The settlement marks a major milestone in the federal government's efforts to tackle concerns that tech platforms are exposing children to noxious material and profiting from it. And it's one of the most significant actions by the FTC under Chair Lina Khan, who has dialed up scrutiny of the tech sector at the agency since taking over in 2021. "We will keep cracking down on businesses that unlawfully exploit kids for profit," Khan (D) said in a statement. NGL co-founder Joao Figueiredo said in a statement Tuesday that the company cooperated with the FTC's investigation for nearly two years and viewed the "resolution as an opportunity to make NGL better than ever."

"While we believe many of the allegations around the youth of our user base are factually incorrect, we anticipate that the agreed upon age-gating and other procedures will now provide direction for others in our space, and hopefully improve policies generally."

NATO is helping finance a project aimed at finding ways to keep the internet running should subsea cables shuttling civilian and military communications across European waters come under attack. From a report: Researchers, who include academics from the US, Iceland, Sweden and Switzerland, say they want to develop a way to seamlessly reroute internet traffic from subsea cables to satellite systems in the event of sabotage, or a natural disaster. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Science for Peace and Security Programme has approved a grant of as much as $433,600 for the $2.5 million project, and research institutions are providing in-kind contributions, documents seen by Bloomberg show.

Eyup Kuntay Turmus, adviser and program manager at the NATO program, confirmed the project was recently approved and said by email that implementation will start "very soon." The initiative, which hasn't yet been publicly announced, comes amid intensifying fears that Russia or China could mine, sever or otherwise tamper with undersea cables in an attempt to disrupt communications during a military crisis. Data carried through cables under the sea account for roughly $10 trillion worth of financial transactions every day, and nearly all of the NATO's internet traffic travels through them, according to the treaty organization. As a result, NATO has been ramping up efforts to protect cables over the course of the past several months.

The world has baked for 12 consecutive months in temperatures 1.5C (2.7F) greater than their average before the fossil fuel era, new data shows. Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record, scientists found, creating a year-long stretch in which the Earth was 1.64C hotter than in preindustrial times. From a report: The findings do not mean world leaders have already failed to honour their promises to stop the planet heating 1.5C by the end of the century -- a target that is measured in decadal averages rather than single years -- but that scorching heat will have exposed more people to violent weather. A sustained rise in temperatures above this level also increases the risk of uncertain but catastrophic tipping points.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which analysed the data, said the results were not a statistical oddity but a "large and continuing shift" in the climate. "Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm," he said. "This is inevitable unless we stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the oceans." Copernicus, a scientific organisation that belongs to the EU's space programme, uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to track key climate metrics. It found June 2024 was hotter than any other June on record and was the 12th month in a row with temperatures 1.5C greater than their average between 1850 and 1900. Because temperatures in some months had "relatively small margins" above 1.5C, the scientists said, datasets from other climate agencies may not confirm the 12-month temperature streak.

Remember those researchers who spent years training AI tools to analyze the reviews drivers left on the smartphone apps where they pay for EV charging?

There was one more unexpected finding. "Rideshare drivers who work for companies such as Uber are increasingly turning to electric vehicles to reduce fuel costs." That trend is boosting demand for conveniently located, publicly accessible EV chargers... "They are mostly relying on public chargers for their daily Uber needs, usually every day or every couple of days, which dramatically increases electric vehicle miles traveled," [climate fellow Omar Asensio told the Institute's blog], explaining that many drivers live in apartments that lack garages or space for a residential EV charger. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi considers the issue so pressing he urged U.S. policymakers to accelerate plans to improve the nation's EV charging infrastructure in a Fast Co. op-ed in January — during the World Economic Forum in Davos, when media messaging can influence policymakers.

Independent Uber drivers, Khosrowshahi said, are converting to electric vehicles seven times faster than the general public and they tend to be disproportionately from low- and middle-income households that need access to public charging stations. "Charging infrastructure must be more equitable," Khosrowshahi wrote. "Many drivers don't have driveways or garages, so access to nearby overnight charging is essential. Yet our data shows us that Uber drivers often live in neighborhoods lacking this infrastructure. These 'charging deserts' hold countless people back from making the switch."

"Russia has finally admitted that American astronauts did, in fact, land on the moon," reports Newsweek: Head of Russian Space Corporation Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, accepted the truth of the U.S. putting a man on the moon in an address to the State Duma, Intellinews has reported.

"As for whether the Americans were on the Moon or not, I have one fact to share," he was reported to have said. "I was personally interested in this matter. At one time, they provided us with a portion of the lunar soil that the astronauts brought back during their expedition." Previous polling revealed that just under half of Russians believe America's 1969 moon landing was a government hoax. However, Borisov said that tests performed on the samples by the Russian Academy of Scientists confirmed their authenticity.

Linux's vDSO (or virtual dynamic shared object) is "a small shared library that the kernel automatically maps into the address space of all user-space applications," according to its man page. "There are some system calls the kernel provides that user-space code ends up using frequently, to the point that such calls can dominate overall performance... due both to the frequency of the call as well as the context-switch overhead that results from exiting user space and entering the kernel."

But Linus Torvalds had a lot to say about a proposed getrandom() upgrade, reports Phoronix: This getrandom() work in the vDSO has been through 20+ rounds of review over the past 2+ years, but... Torvalds took some time out of his U.S. Independence Day to argue the merits of the patches on the Linux kernel mailing list. Torvalds kicked things off by writing:


Nobody has explained to me what has changed since your last vdso getrandom, and I'm not planning on pulling it unless that fundamental flaw is fixed. Why is this _so_ critical that it needs a vdso? Why isn't user space just doing it itself? What's so magical about this all?

This all seems entirely pointless to me still, because it's optimizing something that nobody seems to care about, adding new VM infrastructure, new magic system calls, yadda yadda. I was very sceptical last time, and absolutely _nothing_ has changed. Not a peep on why it's now suddenly so hugely important again. We don't add stuff "just because we can". We need to have a damn good reason for it. And I still don't see the reason, and I haven't seen anybody even trying to explain the reason.


And then he responded to himself, adding:


In other words, I want to see actual *users* piping up and saying "this is a problem, here's my real load that spends 10% of time on getrandom(), and this fixes it". I'm not AT ALL interested in microbenchmarks or theoretical "if users need high-performance random numbers". I need a real actual live user that says "I can't just use rdrand and my own chacha mixing on top" and explains why having a SSE2 chachacha in kernel code exposed as a vdso is so critical, and a magical buffer maintained by the kernel."


Torvalds also added in a third message:


One final note: the reason I'm so negative about this all is that the random number subsystem has such an absolutely _horrendous_ history of two main conflicting issues: people wanting reasonable usable random numbers on one side, and then the people that discuss what the word "entropy" means on the other side. And honestly, I don't want the kernel stuck even *more* in the middle of that morass....
Torvalds made additional comments. ("This smells. It's BS...") Advocating for the change was WiredGuard developer Jason Donenfeld, and more communication happened (and continues to happen... 40 messages and counting).

At one point the discussion evolved to Torvalds saying "Bah. I guess I'll have to walk through the patch series once again. I'm still not thrilled about it. But I'll give it another go..."

They lived 378 days in a "mock Mars habitat" in Houston, reports Engadget. But today the four volunteers for NASA's yearlong simulation will finally emerge from their 1,700-square-foot habitat at the Johnson Space Center that was 3D-printed from materials that could be created with Martian soil.

And you can watch the "welcome home" ceremony's livestream starting at 5 p.m. EST on NASA TV (also embedded in Engadget's story). More det ails from NASA: For more than a year, the crew simulated Mars mission operations, including "Marswalks," grew and harvested several vegetables to supplement their shelf-stable food, maintained their equipment and habitat, and operated under additional stressors a Mars crew will experience, including communication delays with Earth, resource limitations, and isolation.
One of the mission's crew members told the Houston Chronicle they were "very excited to go back to 'Earth,' but of course there is a bittersweet aspect to it just like any time you reach the completion of something that has dominated one's life for several years."

Various crew members left behind their children or long-term partner for this once-in-a-lifetime experience, according to an earlier article, which also notes that NASA is paying the participants $10 per hour "for all waking hours, up to 16 hours per day. That's as much as $60,480 for the 378-day mission."

Engadget points out there are already plans for two more one-year "missions" — with the second one expected to begin next spring...

I'm curious. Would any Slashdot readers be willing to spend a year in a mock Mars habitat?

"Images captured from space show the growth of Cuba's electronic eavesdropping stations," reported the Wall Street Journal this week, citing a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

But they added that the stations "are believed to be linked to China," including previously-unreported construction about 70 miles from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. (The Journal had previously reported China and Cuba were "negotiating closer defense and intelligence ties, including establishing a new joint military training facility on the island and an eavesdropping facility.") At the time, the Journal reported that Cuba and China were already jointly operating eavesdropping stations on the island, according to U.S. officials, who didn't disclose their locations. It couldn't be determined which, if any, of those are included in the sites covered by the CSIS report.

The concern about the stations, former officials and analysts say, is that China is using Cuba's geographical proximity to the southeastern U.S. to scoop up sensitive electronic communications from American military bases, space-launch facilities, and military and commercial shipping. Chinese facilities on the island "could also bolster China's use of telecommunications networks to spy on U.S. citizens," said Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University... Authors of the CSIS report, after analyzing years' worth of satellite imagery, found that Cuba has significantly upgraded and expanded its electronic spying facilities in recent years and pinpointed four sites — at Bejucal, El Salao, Wajay and Calabazar... "These are active locations with an evolving mission set," said Matthew Funaiole, a senior follow at CSIS and the report's chief author.
The CSIS web site shows some of the satellite images. "Pinpointing the specific targets of these assets is nearly impossible," they add — but since Cuba has no space program, "the types of space-tracking capabilities observed are likely intended to monitor the activities of other nations (like the United States) with a presence in orbit." While China's own satellites could also benefit from a North America-based groundstation for communications, the Cuban facilities "would also provide the ability to monitor radio traffic and potentially intercept data delivered by U.S. satellites as they pass over highly sensitive military sites across the southern United States."

The think tank points out that one possibly-installed system would be within range to monitor rocket launches from Cape Canaveral and NASA's Kennedy Space Center. "Studying these launches — particularly those of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy reusable first-stage booster rocket systems — is likely of keen interest to China as it attempts to catch up to U.S. leadership in space launch technology."

Astro is leaving its job to spend more time with family. From a report: Amazon informed customers and employees Wednesday morning that it plans to discontinue its Astro for Business program, less than a year after launching the robot security guard for small- and medium-sized businesses. The decision will help the company focus on its home version of Astro, according to an internal email. Astro for Business robots will stop working Sept. 25, the company said in a separate email to customers, encouraging them to recycle the devices.

Businesses will receive full refunds for the original cost of the device, plus a $300 credit "to help support a replacement solution for your workplace," the email said. They will also receive refunds for unused, pre-paid Astro Secure subscription fees. Announced in November 2023, the business version of Amazon's rolling robot used an HD periscope and night vision technology to autonomously patrol and map up to 5,000 square feet of space. It followed preprogrammed routes and routines, and could be controlled manually and remotely via the Amazon Astro app.

Ars Technica's Eric Berger writes: On the day before Christmas last year, a Falcon 9 rocket launched from California and put two spy satellites into low-Earth orbit for the armed forces of Germany, which are collectively called the Bundeswehr. Initially, the mission appeared successful. The German satellite manufacturer, OHB, declared that the two satellites were "safely in orbit." The addition of the two SARah satellites completed a next-generation constellation of three reconnaissance satellites, the company said. However, six months later, the two satellites have yet to become operational. According to the German publication Der Spiegel, the antennas on the satellites cannot be unfolded. Engineers with OHB have tried to resolve the issue by resetting the flight software, performing maneuvers to vibrate or shake the antennas loose, and more to no avail. As a result, last week, German lawmakers were informed that the two new satellites will probably not go into operation as planned.

The three-satellite constellation known as SARah -- the SAR is a reference to the synthetic aperture radar capability of the satellites -- was ordered in 2013 at a cost of $800 million. The first of the three satellites, SARah 1, launched in June 2022 on a Falcon 9 rocket. This satellite was built by Airbus in southern Germany, and it has since gone into operation without any problems. The two smaller satellites built by OHB, flying with passive synthetic aperture radar reflectors, were intended to complement the SARah 1 satellite, which carries an active phased-array radar antenna. [...] According to the Der Spiegel report, the Bundeswehr says the two SARah satellites built by OHB remain the property of the German company and would only be turned over to the military once they were operational. As a result, the military says OHB will be responsible for building two replacement satellites. Shockingly, the German publication says that its sources indicated OBH did not fully test the functionality and deployment of the satellite antennas on the ground. This could not be confirmed.

Scientists in China have found a species of moss that is able to withstand Mars-like conditions. The species is called Syntrichia caninervis and it's found in regions including Antarctica and the Mojave desert. The Guardian reports: "The unique insights obtained in our study lay the foundation for outer space colonization using naturally selected plants adapted to extreme stress conditions," the team write. [...] Writing in the journal The Innovation, researchers in China describe how the desert moss not only survived but rapidly recovered from almost complete dehydration. It was also able to regenerate under normal growth conditions after spending up to five years at -80C and up to 30 days at -196C, and after exposure to gamma rays, with doses of around 500Gy even promoting new growth.

The team then created a set-up that had similar pressures, temperatures, gases and UV radiation to Mars. It found the moss survived in this Mars-like environment, and was able to regenerate under normal growth conditions, even after seven days of exposure. The team also noted plants that were dried before such exposure faired better. "Looking to the future, we expect that this promising moss could be brought to Mars or the moon to further test the possibility of plant colonization and growth in outer space," the researchers write.

game of Asteroids An anonymous reader shared this report from The Hill: An asteroid the size of a football stadium threaded the needle between Earth and the moon Saturday morning — the second of two astronomical near misses in three days. Near miss, in this case, is a relative term: Saturday's asteroid, 2024 MK, came within 180,000 miles of Earth. On Thursday, meanwhile, asteroid 2011 UL21 flew within 4 million miles.

But the Saturday passage of 2024 MK — which scientists discovered only two weeks ago — coincides with a sobering reminder of threats from space. Sunday is Asteroid Day, the anniversary of the 1908 explosion of a rock from space above a Russian town — the sort of danger that, astronomers warn, is always lurking as the Earth hurtles through space... In 2013, for instance, an asteroid about 62 feet across that broke apart nearly 20 miles above Siberia released 30 times as much energy as the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima. While most of the impact energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, the detonation triggered a shock wave that blew out windows and injured more than a thousand people.
The article points out that if Saturday's asteroid had hit earth, the impact would have "the equivalent impact energy in the hundreds of megaton approaching a gigaton," Peter Brown of Canada's Western University told the Canadian Broadcasting Service. (For comparison, most hydrogen bombs are in the 50-megaton range.) Brown said "It's the sort of thing that if it hit the east coast of the U.S., you would have catastrophic effects over most of the eastern seaboard. But it's not big enough to affect the whole world."

Meanwhile, the article adds that last Thursday's asteroid — "while it was comfortably far out in space" — was the size of Mt. Everest. "At 1.5 miles in diameter, that asteroid was about a quarter the size of the asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago, wiping out all dinosaurs that walked, as well as the majority of life on earth." But the risk of a collision like that "is very, very low." NASA has estimated that a civilization-ending event (like the collision of an asteroid the size of Thursday's with the Earth) should only happen every few million years. And such an impact from an asteroid half a mile in diameter or bigger will be almost impossible for a very long time, according to findings published last year in The Astronomical Journal.
NASA's catalog of large and dangerous objects like 2011 UL21 is now 95 percent complete, MIT Technology Review reported.