NASA made the announcement that Boeing's Starliner would return uncrewed on August 24. Starliner is now scheduled to undock this Friday, with another window four days later if conditions are unfavorable. The decision took many weeks to make. While Boeing believed Starliner was capable of bringing back its crew, NASA was not comfortable with the idea due to uncertainty in the modeling. The astronauts will return home on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle in late February 2025 at the earliest.

Boeing will return its Starliner capsule without the NASA astronauts that it delivered to orbit. The two astronauts will return via SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft on a mission launching on September 24. They will stay at the International Space Station for about six more months before flying home in February. The test was originally intended to last about nine days. This decision was made due to NASA's commitment to safety - Starliner's crew flight test faced problems, most notably with its propulsion system. NASA officials still support Boeing and Starliner will likely be able to launch with a crew again someday.

Boeing is set to launch two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on its Starliner spacecraft. The inaugural crewed flight is a crucial final test before NASA can authorize Boeing to conduct routine flights to and from the space station for the agency. This will be Boeing's first launch with humans aboard its spaceship. The astronauts will spend about a week at the space station before returning to Earth. While SpaceX has been ferrying astronauts to the ISS since 2020, NASA does not want to rely on a single company.

Boeing's Starliner crew capsule successfully blasted off on June 5 with two humans on board. The NASA-backed spacecraft is expected to rendezvous with the International Space Station at 16:15 UTC today. Previous launch attempts fared badly and there were many issues during Starliner's development. A video of the launch is available in the article.

NASA has downplayed the problems experienced by Boeing's Starliner since it took two astronauts to the International Space Station in June. Officials finally admitted on Wednesday that the issues may be more serious than first thought and that the astronauts might not return on Starliner. The agency is exploring a backup option for the astronauts. The astronauts were meant to stay for around eight days, but that could be extended into next year.

NASA has adjusted the date of the Starliner spacecraft's return to Earth to an unspecified time in July. The spacecraft was originally due to undock and return to Earth on June 14, but return opportunities have been waved off as more time is needed to review the data from the vehicle's problematic flight to the International Space Station. There were five separate leaks in the helium system that pressurizes Starliner's propulsion system and five of the vehicle's 28 reaction-control system thrusters failed as Starliner approached the station. NASA has not specified why it is not yet comfortable with releasing Starliner to fly back to Earth.

SpaceX aims to send its Starship megarocket on Mars missions two years from now. The company will start with uncrewed tests, with the first crewed flights starting in four years. It aims to build a self-sustaining city in about 20 years. Starship's fifth test flight could take place soon - the company has already performed test-fires with the Super Heavy and the Starship that will fly the mission. The next test will involve the first attempt to land Super Heavy back on the launch mount.

SpaceX plans to launch five uncrewed missions to Mars in two years, which is when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. The success of the flights will determine the timeline for human-boarded flights to Mars, which could be as early as 2028. SpaceX is still waiting for FAA approval for Starship's fifth test flight. It is expected to be issued in late November.

On September 28, 2024, SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) while leaving two seats vacant for the return of American astronauts who had been stranded there for several months. This mission, known as Crew-9, was particularly significant as it marked the first use of a new launch pad for a crewed mission. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov were on board the rocket, which took off at 1:17 PM local time. Their mission was to bring back Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who had been stuck on the ISS due to issues with their Boeing-designed Starliner spacecraft. Originally, Wilmore and Williams were expected to stay on the ISS for just eight days after arriving in June, but complications with the Starliner's propulsion system extended their stay significantly. NASA had to make a critical decision after extensive testing of the Starliner’s reliability, ultimately opting to return the spacecraft to Earth without its crew. This decision led to the unique arrangement of using the SpaceX mission to bring the stranded astronauts home. NASA associate administrator Jim Free acknowledged the unusual nature of this launch, expressing gratitude to SpaceX for their flexibility in accommodating the change. The Crew-9 mission had been delayed from mid-August to late September to allow for thorough evaluations of the Starliner, and further delays occurred due to Hurricane Helene impacting the Florida coast. The SpaceX Dragon vessel is scheduled to dock with the ISS shortly after the launch, facilitating a handover of duties before the return of the Crew-8 members on another SpaceX craft. In total, Hague and Gorbunov are expected to spend around five months on the ISS, while Wilmore and Williams will have spent eight months in space by the time they return. Throughout their time aboard the ISS, Crew-9 is set to conduct approximately 200 scientific experiments, contributing to ongoing research in space exploration.

NASA is currently in the process of developing a plan to replace the International Space Station (ISS), as the agency faces a critical timeline with the ISS expected to reach the end of its operational life around 2030. This transition is essential for maintaining a human presence in low-Earth orbit, which is increasingly important as NASA shifts its focus toward lunar exploration through the Artemis Program. The agency is set to finalize its strategy for low-Earth orbit operations in the coming months and will soon award contracts to private companies to create commercial space stations. Pam Melroy, NASA's deputy administrator, emphasized the importance of continuing research in microgravity, which is vital for future missions to Mars and beyond. The agency has made significant strides in maximizing the scientific potential of the ISS, particularly in understanding the long-term health impacts of space travel and improving life support systems. NASA's draft "Microgravity Strategy" aims to outline its research and technology development goals for the 2030s and beyond, which will be crucial for the next phase of its commercial space station program. However, the path forward is fraught with challenges. NASA previously awarded contracts to several companies, including Blue Origin, Nanoracks, Northrop Grumman, and Axiom Space, to develop commercial space stations. Yet, many of these companies have encountered financial difficulties and delays, raising concerns about their ability to deliver viable solutions. The upcoming request for proposals from NASA will be pivotal in determining the future of these commercial ventures, as the agency seeks to foster competition while ensuring that its requirements are met. Funding for the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program has been inconsistent, with initial years seeing minimal allocations. However, as the reality of the ISS's impending retirement has set in, Congress has become more supportive of funding the program. Despite this, there are lingering doubts about NASA's commitment to maintaining a presence in low-Earth orbit, especially in light of geopolitical considerations and competition from other nations, particularly China. The potential for a gap in human presence in low-Earth orbit is a concern, with some experts suggesting that it may not be catastrophic if it occurs. However, the uncertainty surrounding the future of commercial space stations complicates fundraising efforts for private operators, who need assurance of demand from NASA. The viability of the CLD program hinges on whether there is sufficient market demand beyond government astronauts, as the lack of a clear commercial application for human activity in space remains a significant hurdle. Ultimately, for NASA to successfully transition to a new era of commercial space stations, it must provide robust support to private companies, recognizing the complexity and cost associated with developing safe and functional habitats in space. The urgency of this situation cannot be overstated, as the clock is ticking toward the end of the ISS's operational life, and the future of human activity in low-Earth orbit hangs in the balance.

SpaceX is targeting June 5 for its next Starship test flight. The highly anticipated flight seeks to demonstrate the Super Heavy stage's ability to make a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico. It also aims for the Starship upper stage to make a controlled reentry through the Earth's atmosphere before falling into the Indian Ocean. The Super Heavy first stage failed to make a soft landing in previous attempts due to a blockage in a filter in the Raptor engines. The Starship upper stage lost the ability to control its altitude during its coast phase in space due to clogged valves used by its reaction control thrusters.

Elon Musk gave a 45-minute speech at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas last weekend about making life multiplanetary, the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and SpaceX's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization. SpaceX has now completed 327 successful launches, with 80% of those involving used boosters. This performance has given Musk confidence that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. While SpaceX's goals seem audacious, the company has proven that rocket reusability is a very viable thing, so its other goals appear a lot more achievable.

Elon Musk gave a 45-minute speech at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas last weekend about making life multiplanetary, the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and SpaceX's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization. SpaceX has now completed 327 successful launches, with 80% of those involving used boosters. This performance has given Musk confidence that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. While SpaceX's goals seem audacious, the company has proven that rocket reusability is a very viable thing, so its other goals appear a lot more achievable.

Elon Musk gave a 45-minute speech at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas last weekend about making life multiplanetary, the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and SpaceX's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization. SpaceX has now completed 327 successful launches, with 80% of those involving used boosters. This performance has given Musk confidence that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. While SpaceX's goals seem audacious, the company has proven that rocket reusability is a very viable thing, so its other goals appear a lot more achievable.

The US provided Boeing and SpaceX with funding to build a crewed space vehicle in 2014. Boeing received far more funding than SpaceX and it had far more experience, but the company still allocated fewer resources to the project than it needed to thrive. The company kept carrying technical debt forward so that additional work was lumped onto the final milestones. Other issues, such as the way the company was structured, cost fixation, siloed development, and a lack of proper testing, all worked together to kneecap the project.

Several agencies are now preparing impact statements for SpaceX's Starship launch plans. SpaceX plans to launch its Starship mega-rocket up to 44 times per year from NASA's Kennedy Space Center and up to 76 times per year from the Space Launch Complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Elon Musk aims to eventually launch Starship multiple times per day, with each launch delivering hundreds of tons of cargo to low Earth orbit or beyond. Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance have expressed concerns that SpaceX's high flight rate will have effects on other launch providers with infrastructure at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral.

Titles help normalize pay ranges and allow for progression and evaluation. People who are not job hoppers or get stuck in the same company and title due to laziness, comfort, or other reasons are unfortunately prone to 'The Curse of the Senior Software Engineer'. This is when an engineer who has been senior for too long finds themselves between two worlds upon their next job search: they are too senior to be hired as a senior or they have too little leadership experience to be hired in a leadership position. Avoiding the curse involves either playing by corporate rules or exiting the game by switching to self-employment.

SpaceX's Starship rocket flew halfway around the world yesterday, accomplishing a key demonstration of its ability to carry heavy payloads into low-Earth orbit. The successful launch builds on two previous flights last year. Thursday's flight tested Starship's payload bay door and performed a precursor test of an in-orbit refueling system. Photos from the launch are available in the article.

ByteDance may have to sell TikTok in the US if a proposed bill passes the Senate. Some high-profile investors, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, online video platform Rumble, and former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, have expressed interest in acquiring the app. This article presents a list of known potential buyers along with a primer on companies that have previously tried to purchase TikTok.

Researchers have engineered a cow capable of producing milk that contains human insulin. This could result in an alternative for insulin production. The process involves inserting human DNA coding for insulin into cow embryos. It could dramatically simplify the process and cost of producing the drug. A single cow can produce enough milk every day to supply thousands of type 1 diabetes patients with their daily insulin for an entire month. Scaling up production, ensuring the health and welfare of the transgenic cows, and navigating regulatory approvals are still huge challenges that lie ahead before the process can replace conventional methods of insulin production.

Evo is a long-context biological foundation model capable of both prediction tasks and generative design, from molecular to whole genome scale. The model generalizes across the fundamental languages of biology, DNA, RNA, and proteins to generate DNA sequences using a context length of 131k tokens. It is based on StripedHyena, a deep signal processing architecture designed to improve efficiency and quality over prevailing Transformer architecture. A playground is available where users can generate DNA in their browsers using Evo.

Building a time zone conversion layer on top of a datetime library sounds like an easy task, but it isn't. This article lists 21 misconceptions about time zones the author had before attempting to write a time zone conversion app as well as extra misconceptions from readers. These misconceptions include thinking that there are more countries in the world than time zones, that every time zone has exactly one agreed-upon name, or that time zones are always offset from UTC by an integer number of hours.

The first HTTP draft had only one method, GET - there were no headers or status codes, and the only data format available was HTML. The protocol has evolved significantly since then. HTTP/3 is designed for unstable connections, resulting in performance tradeoffs. HTTP/2 offers better performance on reliable and stable connections than HTTP/3. Servers can accept both HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 connections so clients can make the decision of which version to use.

AI-native products and companies are growing faster and engaging users more deeply than ever before. Over the coming decade, AI will likely underpin category-defining companies. This article examines data on the most popular generative AI products to uncover patterns on how consumers are using the technology. It looks at the rate of progress in the industry, emerging categories, hot niches, the mobile vs web split, and AI as a global pursuit.

Workers have been making last-minute upgrades to SpaceX's Starship launch pad in South Texas pretty much every day for the last couple of weeks. If all goes well on the Starship's next test flight, the launch pad's mechanical arms will close together to capture the Super Heavy booster as it descends back to Earth. SpaceX announced that Starship and Super Heavy were ready to fly, pending regulatory approval, on August 8. The FAA is still evaluating SpaceX's proposed flight profile. It is unclear how long approval will take, but the state of the launch pad suggests that the next test is still at least a couple of weeks away.

A new 'Human Spaceflight' tab on SpaceX's website offers flights to Earth's orbit, the International Space Station (ISS), the Moon, and Mars, with missions beginning as early as this year. There is no pricing information for the offerings and interested customers will have to inquire through email. The Earth orbit mission, which will last three to six days, offers a view of the planet from 300 kilometers high for two to four passengers. Ten-day commercial missions to the ISS will be available as early as 2025. The missions to lunar orbit and Mars do not have listed timelines.

The fourth SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy launch may be in the next month or so. Its goal will be to get Starship's upper stage to get through the high heating regime of reentry and make a controlled splat into the ocean. SpaceX aims to bring the Super Heavy booster back intact, having it land on a virtual tower in the Gulf of Mexico. It could attempt to land a Starship booster on the real tower as soon as the vehicle's fifth flight. The company is working to accelerate production of Starship vehicles to support higher flight rates and increase payload capacity.

NASA has awarded SpaceX an $843 million contract to build a vehicle to deorbit the International Space Station after its retirement in 2030. The vehicle will effectively destroy the ISS by pushing the station into reentry from orbit. It is unknown whether the vehicle's design will be based on one of SpaceX's existing spacecraft. NASA intends to replace the ISS with private space stations.

SpaceX's Starship's next test flight could be on June 5. The main objective of the test will be to evaluate the second stage's reusable heat shield as the vehicle tries to safely reenter the atmosphere for the first time. Composed of around 18,000 ceramic hexagonal tiles, the heat shield is vulnerable to even the loss of a single tile in most places. SpaceX still needs to receive a commercial launch license from the US FAA before the launch can move ahead.

Two NASA spacecraft built by Rocket Lab are beginning preparations for launch on Blue Origin's first New Glenn rocket. The two science probes will launch between late September and mid-October. They will take advantage of a planetary alignment between Earth and Mars that only happens once every 26 months to travel to Mars to help scientists learn more about the processes that drive Martian climate change. Assuming the launch is successful, the twin spacecraft will be expected to arrive in orbit around Mars in early September 2025. The next launch window is in late 2026.