To prepare for future visitors, Hiroyasu Tsukamota, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has developed a deep-learning-based guidance and control framework called Neural-Rendezvous that could allow spacecraft to safely encounter ISOs.

The project, a collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tackles the two main challenges of approaching an ISO: the extraordinary speed of these objects and their poorly constrained trajectories.

"We're trying to encounter an astronomical object that streaks through our solar system just once and we don’t want to miss the opportunity," Tsukamoto said in a statement. "Even though we can approximate the dynamics of ISOs ahead of time, they still come with large state uncertainty because we cannot predict the timing of their visit. That's a challenge."

Neural-Rendezvous would allow a spacecraft to "think" on its feet as it approaches an ISO, much in the way the human brain works while driving.

"Our key contribution is not just in designing the specialized brain, but in proving mathematically that it works," said Tsukamota. "For example, with a human brain we learn from experience how to navigate safely while driving. But what are the mathematics behind it? How do we know and how can we make sure we won’t hit anyone?"

Intrigued by the potential of Neural-Rendezvous, two Illinois undergraduates, Arna Bhardwaj and Shishir Bhatta, developed an idea to implement the framework into not just a single spacecraft, but a swarm of them.

“How do you optimally position multiple spacecraft to maximize the information you can get out of it?" said Tsukamoto. "Their solution was to distribute the spacecraft to visually cover the highly probable region of the ISO’s position, which is driven by Neural-Rendezvous."

Using M-STAR multi-spacecraft simulators and tiny drones called Crazyflies, Bhardwaj and Bhatta put the concept to the test, demonstrating the potential of a Neural-Rendezvous-guided swarm.

"[W]hile the Neural-Rendezvous is more of a theoretical concept, their work is our first attempt to make it much more useful, more practical," said Tsukamoto.

The duo presented their paper at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Aerospace Conference this month.

It's a major milestone in the development of orbital systems capable of collecting energy from the sun and wirelessly transferring it to ground or space-based receivers as usable electricity, according to the Florida startup.

"This demonstration marks the first end-to-end test of our space power beaming technology, proving we can collect and wirelessly transmit energy with the precision needed for space applications," Star Catcher Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Rush, previously of Made in Space (which was later acquired by Redwire) said in a statement on Friday (March 21).

Star Catcher's test took place Friday at EverBank Stadium, home of the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. There, the company used its proprietary system to collect and transmit solar power across the full 300-foot (90-meter) length of the American football pitch. The electricity was beamed to multiple solar array receivers, built using already available components to ensure backward-compatibility with existing satellite power systems.

Related: Florida startup Star Catcher snags $12 million to help develop 1st off-Earth energy grid

"Today’s success puts us one step closer to eliminating power constraints in space and unlocking new capabilities for satellites and the customers they serve," Rush said.

Star Catcher aims to eventually operate a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) that are capable of providing a continuous supply of power to ground receivers, satellites, spacecraft and even space stations. With the EverBank test deemed a success, the company has begun preparing a much larger-scale demonstration for this summer.

Using the Launch and Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, Star Catcher plans to beam hundreds of watts of electricity nearly a mile (over half a kilometer) across the runway once used to land the agency's space shuttles. The test will simultaneously power several mock satellites, if all goes according to plan.

The company's recent success follows a $12.25 million boost in seed funding Star Catcher received from Initialized Capital and B Capital in the summer of 2024. After tests at KSC this summer, Star Catcher hopes to begin launching its "Star Catcher Network" of energy-beaming satellites to LEO as early as the end of 2025.

That network is designed to provide energy both to customers here on Earth and satellites in orbit, according to the company.

"Our computational techniques suggested we could design multi-level diffractive flat lenses with large apertures that could focus light across the visible spectrum," Rajesh Menon, a Utah professor of engineering, said in a statement.

There are two basic types of telescope: refractors and reflectors. A refractor uses lenses to refract light and bring it to a focus. Reflectors utilize at least two mirrors to reflect the light to a focal point. Because large lenses are heavy and expensive to make, larger telescopes tend to use mirrors (sometimes in combination with smaller lenses). Lenses can also suffer from a malaise known as chromatic aberration, in which different wavelengths of light are refracted to slightly different degrees so that different colors come to focus at different points, resulting in color fringing around objects. Optical technicians can alleviate this through the complex use of glass coatings and multiple lenses — though that adds cost and expense.

However, the days of bulky, expensive telescope lenses could soon be coming to an end thanks to the team's new flat lens measuring less than a millimeter thick. that has been developed by a team led by Apratim Majumder, who is a member of Menon's lab at Utah.

"Our demonstration is a stepping stone towards creating very large aperture, lightweight flat lenses with the capability of capturing full-color images for use in air- and space-based telescopes,” Apratim Majumder, a member of Menon's lab at Utah and leader of the crew behind the new lens prototype, said in the statement.

Majumder, Menon and their team designed a 100mm (4-inch) flat lens, where microscopic concentric rings are etched onto a glass substrate using a technique called "grayscale optical lithography," which is a variation of a method typically used for etching electronics onto a silicon wafer. Most of the half-millimeter thickness of the flat lens is the glass — the ringed grooves are just 2.4 microns deep.

The use of concentric rings on a flat lens isn't new — a precursor, called a Fresnel zone plate, tries to do the same trick but is unable to eradicate chromatic aberration. However, the Utah team's multilevel diffractive lens (MDL) is able to bring all the wavelengths of light for which it was designed to detect (400–800 nanometers, covering the range of visible light and into the near-infrared) to a focus at the same point, thanks to how the size of the rings and the spacing between affect how the incoming light is refracted. Because all the colors come to focus at the same point, there is no chromatic aberration.

Back when the telescope was invented by Hans Lippershey in 1608, it was done so by experimenting with putting lenses together. Today, a telescope's optical design involves complex computer modelling and large amounts of data.

"Simulating the performance of these lenses over a very large bandwidth, from visible to near-infrared, involved solving complex computational problems involving very large datasets," said Majumder. "Once we optimized the design of the lens’ microstructures, the manufacturing process involved required very stringent process control and environmental stability."

The resulting 100mm lens, which has a focal length of 200mm, was then tested on both the sun and the moon, successfully showing sunspots and (in an artificially color-enhanced image) accurate geological features on the lunar surface. The 100mm MDL weighs just 25 grams (0.88 oz), compared to the 211 grams (7.44 oz) of a similarly sized, commercially available 100mm lens that is 17mm thick at its curved center.

The Hubble Space Telescope uses a 2.4-meter primary mirror with a total mass of 1,825 pounds (828 kilograms), and the James Webb Space Telescope incorporates 18 segments in its primary 21-foot (6.5-meter) mirror in total weighing (on Earth) 1,555 pounds (705 kilograms). On Earth, individual telescope mirrors have an upper size limit of 26-33 feet (8–10 meters), beyond which gravity starts to cause them to sag. The development of a flat, lightweight lens could therefore transform telescopes, particularly for space launches where mass is a key limiting factor for getting off the Earth.

A description of the flat MDL lens was published on Feb. 3 in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

Each week, SpaceX launches satellites to build out its ever-growing constellation of Starlink satellites. That provides broadband internet service to users on the ground.

But Starlink satellites are only one part of the equation. Starlink users also need to have their hands on one of SpaceX's satellite internet kits to enable them to connect from anywhere with a good view of the sky.

SpaceX recently posted a video on X that offers a glimpse at how these kits are made in the company's factory outside of Austin, Texas. The video shows a few close-ups of the factory floor, where machines manufacture components for the standard Starlink kit on what looks like automated sections of the assembly line.

"Raw plastic pellets come in, raw aluminum comes in, and we make those into the Starlink kits, and then ship them right out to customers homes," John Federspiel, senior director for Starlink product engineering, says in the video. "Right now, we're producing 15,000 a day straight out of the factory."

The company also notes that the factory is less than two years old, and in that time, it's gone from zero to producing over 70,000 kits per week while employing over 1,000 workers.

Located in the Bastrop community, about 30 miles east of Austin, the video also details Starlink's plans to ramp up production in the factory, which the company is currently expanding.

"We're going to add over a million square feet of manufacturing space over the course of this year, and allow us to continue to insource more of our manufacturing processes," Alexandra Noe, senior director of Starlink production, says in the video, "so we can continue to go from raw material to completed kit within the walls of this factory."

Starlink says the expansion will address the growing demand for Starlink internet access, as the previous iteration of the production line was already operating at max capacity.

SpaceX originally announced their plans for a global satellite internet project back in 2015. Starlink now produces two kinds of kits for the consumer market, which use an antenna to connect to Starlink's satellites.

As of Feb. 2025, over 7,000 Starlink satellites are in orbit. The company says more than five million people currently use their internet services.

A major milestone with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has been reached with the installation of the telescope's enormous LSST Camera — the last optical component required before the last phase of testing can begin.

The car-sized Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Camera that was recently installed on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is the largest digital camera ever built and will be used to capture detailed images of the southern hemisphere sky over a decade.

"The installation of the LSST Camera on the telescope is a triumph of science and engineering," said Harriet Kung, Acting Director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science in a statement. "We look forward to seeing the unprecedented images this camera will produce."

The telescope is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and is named after Dr. Vera C. Rubin, an American astronomer whose work provided strong evidence for the existence of dark matter. Along with her colleague Kent Ford, Rubin observed that in the numerous galaxies they studied, stars at the outer edges were moving just as fast as those near the center. This was unusual because, according to Newtonian physics and Kepler's laws of planetary motion, objects farther from the center of a gravitational system should orbit more slowly due to the weaker gravitational pull.

After accounting for all visible matter, the gravitational force from the observed mass wasn't enough to keep these fast-moving stars bound to the galaxy. Without additional mass providing extra gravitational pull, the galaxies should have been flying apart. This discrepancy led to the conclusion that an unseen form of mass, now known as dark matter, was holding them together.

Following its namesake, the Rubin telescope will investigate the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter with cutting-edge technology. Its state-of-the-art mirror design, highly sensitive camera, rapid survey speed and advanced computing infrastructure each represent breakthroughs in their respective fields.

Every few nights, it will survey the entire sky, creating an "ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of the universe," the statement adds. Each image will be so massive that displaying it would require 400 ultra-high-definition TV screens.

"This unique movie will bring the night sky to life, yielding a treasure trove of discoveries: asteroids and comets, pulsating stars, and supernova explosions," states the observatory's website.

While the LSST Camera is an engineering marvel, its installation was equally challenging. In March 2025, after months of testing in Rubin Observatory's clean room, the summit team used a vertical platform lift to move the camera to the telescope floor. A custom lifting device then carefully positioned and secured it on the telescope for the first time.

"Mounting the LSST Camera onto the Simonyi Telescope was an effort requiring intense planning, teamwork across the entire observatory and millimeter-precision execution," said Freddy Muñoz, Rubin Observatory Mechanical Group Lead. "Watching the LSST Camera take its place on the telescope is a proud moment for us all."

Over the coming weeks, the LSST Camera's utilities and systems will be connected and tested. Soon, it will be ready to capture detailed images of the night sky. The Rubin telescope, under construction in Cerro Pachón, Chile, is expected to see first light in 2025.

"This image makes the invisible visible — the first American made civil supersonic jet breaking the sound barrier," Blake Scholl, Boom Supersonic founder and CEO, said in a statement.

The photo was no accident. It required ideal conditions and perfect timing. Chief test pilot Tristan "Geppetto" Brandenburg cut a path to a precise spot over the Mojave Desert while NASA snapped the shot.

"Thanks to Geppetto's exceptional flying and our partnership with NASA, we were able to capture this iconic image," Scholl continued.

The photo is a Schlieren image. Developed in 1864 by German physicist August Toepler to study supersonic motion, Schlieren photography is used in today's aeronautical engineering. The method can reveal how light bends around differences in air pressure during supersonic flight.

The XB-1 team made software using NASA data to guide the pilot on a path where the aircraft could eclipse the sun. When the XB-1 entered the right spot, NASA got the photograph using ground telescopes with special filters that detect air distortions. That's why the shockwaves around the aircraft are visible in the photograph.

NASA also gathered sound data from the test flight. Boom Supersonic analyzed the data and found that no audible sonic boom reached the ground. This is notable, because supersonic flights that make sonic booms over populated areas in the U.S. are prohibited.

Boom Supersonic plans to make a supersonic airplane with a sonic boom that won't disturb people on the ground. This airplane would reduce cross-country flight times. "We confirmed that XB-1 made no audible sonic boom," Scholl said in the same statement, "which paves the way for coast to coast flights up to 50% faster."

The Feb. 10 test flight was the final one for XB-1. Now Boom Supersonic will take what they learned from the tests and start building a supersonic airliner called Overture.

Last year, Boom Supersonic finished building its super factory in Greensboro, North Carolina which will eventually pump out 66 Overture aircraft per year, starting with half that initially. United Airlines, American Airlines, and Japan Airlines already have orders and pre-orders in for the supersonic airliner.

When particles such as photons become entangled, they can share quantum properties — including information — regardless of the distance between them. This phenomenon is important in quantum physics and is one of the features that makes quantum computers so powerful.

But the bonds of quantum entanglement have typically proven challenging for scientists to form. This is because it requires the preparation of two separate entangled pairs, then measuring the strength of entanglement — called a Bell-state measurement — on a photon from each of the pairs.

These measurements cause the quantum system to collapse and leave the two unmeasured photons entangled, despite them never having directly interacted with one another. This process of "entanglement swapping" could be used for quantum teleportation.

In a new study, published Dec. 2, 2024 in the journal Physical Review Letters, scientists used PyTheus, an AI tool that has been specifically created for designing quantum-optic experiments. The authors of the paper initially set out to reproduce established protocols for entanglement swapping in quantum communications. However, the AI tool kept producing a much simpler method to achieve quantum entanglement of photons.

"The authors were able to train a neural network on a set of complex data that describes how you set up this kind of experiment in many different conditions, and the network actually learned the physics behind it," Sofia Vallecorsa, a research physicist for the quantum technology initiative at CERN, who was not involved in the new research, told Live Science.

Related: Quantum data beamed alongside 'classical data' in the same fiber-optic connection for the 1st time

Tapping into AI to simplify quantum entanglement

The AI tool proposed that entanglement could emerge because the paths of photons were indistinguishable: when there are several possible sources the photons could have come from, and if their origins become indistinguishable from one another, then entanglement can be produced between them when none existed before.

Although the scientists were initially skeptical of the results, the tool kept returning the same solution, so they tested the theory. By adjusting the photon sources and ensuring they were indistinguishable, the physicists created conditions where detecting photons at certain paths guaranteed that two others emerged entangled.

This breakthrough in quantum physics has simplified the process by which quantum entanglement can be formed. In future, it could have implications for the quantum networks used for secure messaging, making these technologies much more feasible.

"The more we can rely on simple technology, the more we can increase the range of applications," Vallecorsa said. "The possibility to build more complex networks that could branch out in different geometries could have a big impact with respect to the single end-to-end case."

Whether it is practical to scale the technology into a commercially viable process remains to be seen, however, as environmental noise and device imperfections could cause instability in the quantum system.

The new study has also provided a convincing argument for the use of AI as a research tool by physicists. "We are looking more into introducing AI, but there is still a little bit of scepticism, mostly due to what the role of the physicist is going to be once we start going that way," Vallecorsa said. "It is an opportunity for getting a very interesting result and shows in a very compelling way how this can be a tool that physicists use."

California-based startup Varda's Winnebago-2 (W-2) capsule launched along with 130 other payloads on Jan. 14 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, on the Transporter 12 rideshare mission. After six weeks in orbit, the capsule made a fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere, landing Feb. 28 at Koonibba Test Range in South Australia, which is operated by Southern Launch.

W-2 contained a spectrometer from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and a Varda enhanced pharmaceutical reactor for the company's in-orbit manufacturing plans. The capsule used a heat shield with a Thermal Protection System (TPS) developed in collaboration with NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

The spectrometer, the Optical Sensing of Plasmas in the Reentry Environment (OSPREE) sensor, is expected to provide the first-ever in situ optical emission measurements of the reentry environment past Mach 15, according to Varda. The instrument is part of a longer-term partnership between Varda and AFRL for testing hypersonic systems and reentry technologies.

Related: Private Varda Space capsule returns to Earth with space-grown antiviral drug aboard

"We are ecstatic to have W-2 back on our home planet safely and are proud to support significant reentry research for our government partners as we continue building a thriving foundation for economic expansion to low Earth orbit," Will Bruey, CEO of Varda Space Industries, said in a statement.

The 265-pound (120 kilograms) capsule was supported in orbit by a Pioneer satellite bus built by Rocket Lab, which provided power, communications, propulsion and other necessary capabilities.

The successful return to Earth of W-2 also marked a breakthrough for the Australian space sector, according to officials.

"This return highlights the opportunity for Australia to become a responsible launch and return hub for the global space community — capitalizing off the geographic advantages of our expansive continent," said Enrico Palermo, head of the Australian Space Agency, in a statement.

The W-2 landing came a year after the company's first mission, W-1, which landed in Utah in February 2024. The mission saw W-1 in orbit for eight months before delivering to Earth crystals of an antiviral drug that were grown in orbit.

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC) is the agency’s scheme to help support the development of early stage innovative space technology concepts formulated by academics, innovators and entrepreneurs.

This year’s NIAC Phase 1 grants go to projects including robots for ocean and ice world exploration, in-space manufacturing, balloons for exploring Venus, unravelling the mysteries of black holes and more.

"Our next steps and giant leaps rely on innovation, and the concepts born from NIAC can radically change how we explore deep space, work in low Earth orbit, and protect our home planet," said Clayton Turner, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, in a statement. "From developing small robots that could swim through the oceans of other worlds to growing space habitats from fungi, this program continues to change the possible."

Meanwhile, the Legged Exploration Across the Plume (LEAP), is a novel robotic sampling concept designed to hop and jump its way across Saturn's ice-covered moon Enceladus and collect material from its subsurface ocean ejected by the moon's geysers.

Other concepts include Lunar Glass Structure, or LUNGS, which involves in-situ melting of lunar glass compounds and novel blowing techniques to make large, spherical habitats.

Another proposes to use the Helicity Drive, a compact and scalable fusion propulsion system, to power a constellation of satellites for multi-directional exploration of the heliosphere and beyond.

The Exploring Venus with Electrolysis (EVE) project would use electrolysis to replenish a balloon to allow exploration of the Venusian atmosphere, which is potentially habitable. Hy2PASS, meanwhile, aims to use hydrogen hybrid fuel for sustainable commercial transport aircraft, and the Inflatable Starshade for Earthlike Exoplanets would seek to enable a telescope to observe exoplanets.

The other concepts selected to receive NIAC Phase 1 grants in 2025 include growing space habitats from fungi, ultra-precise, in-space measurements to investigate theories of quantum gravity, shipyards in space, a ribbon sail for solar polar observation, a spacecraft constellation for “taking the pulse” of the planet, a tethered balloon for observing and sampling Venus, X-ray interferometry for studying supermassive black holes, mitigating the effects of space radiation by mitochondria transplants, low mass starshades and a novel approach to oxygen supply for deep space crewed mission.

The total value of the awards is $2.625 million, meaning up to $175,000 for each chosen concept. While not all of these will advance to the point of seeing the tech fly in space, leaps in exploration such as the Ingenuity Mars helicopter have roots back to the NIAC awards, and the awardees could potentially be considered for future NASA missions or commercialization.

"All advancements begin as an idea. The NIAC program allows NASA to invest in unique ideas enabling innovation and supporting the nation’s aerospace economy"” said John Nelson, program executive for NIAC.

The Phase 1 funding will allow teams to work on their concepts and potentially be selected for Phase 2 and beyond. More information on the 15 selected concepts can be found here.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story listed the SWIM, (Sensing with Independent Micro-swimmers) program as part of this funding round. SWIM was part of an earlier round of NIAC studies.

Although it's impossible to travel faster than light, the restriction applies only to local measurements. It's possible to manipulate space-time in such a way that superluminal motion is achievable. For example, the expansion of the universe drives apart galaxies faster than the speed of light, but because every galaxy is at rest in its local patch of space, it's all good.

Alcubierre's idea was to employ a similar trick. His warp drive solution to general relativity employs a region of perfectly flat space. In front of that bubble is a region of compressed space, and behind it is a region of expanded space. This crunching up of space allows the interior bubble and its contents to move at any speed it wants — even faster than light. Amazingly, the occupants of the bubble won't feel anything weird. In fact, from their perspective, they won't be moving at all. Instead, their destination simply comes closer. But there's one problem: To construct a space-time with this precise geometry, we must employ negative mass, which doesn't appear to exist in the universe and would violate everything we know about motion, momentum and energy.

Even though there isn't any negative mass that we know of in the universe, there is negative energy. If you take two metal plates and hold them very close together, the quantum fields inside them are restricted; they can have only certain allowed wavelengths. This restriction, known as the Casimir effect, results in an attractive force between the plates and a region of negative energy.

A minuscule amount of Casimir-effect negative energy isn't enough to power a warp drive, though — and it may not work out anyway. Whether an Alcubierre warp drive is allowed is ultimately a question for quantum gravity, which we do not yet have a solution for.

In the meantime, we can only skirt around the edges, poking at various aspects of the warp drive and seeing what might happen to the quantum fields in that highly strange gravitational environment. This process of poking around has led to some interesting — and sometimes contradictory — insights about the nature of warp drives in the three decades since Alcubierre's original discovery.

For example, one set of calculations suggests that quantum fields at the edge of the warp bubble that sort of straddle the boundary between the inside bits and the outside essentially blow up to infinity as soon as you turn the thing on, which would be … bad.

But other calculations say that applies only in limited cases and that if you ramp up the warp engine slowly enough, you'll be fine.

Yet more calculations sidestep all of this and just look at how much negative energy you actually need to construct your warp drive. And the answer is, for a single macroscopic bubble — say, 30 feet (100 meters) across — you would need 10 times more negative energy than all of the positive energy contained in the entire universe, which isn't very promising.

However, still other calculations show that this immense amount applies only to the traditional warp bubble as defined by Alcubierre. It might be possible to reshape the bubble so there's a tiny "neck" in the front that's doing the work of compressing space and then it balloons out to an envelope to contain the warp bubble. This minimizes any quantum weirdness so that you need only about a star's worth of negative energy to shape the drive.

But even more calculations show that even if you get ahold of some negative energy or negative mass, as soon as you start moving, you're going to run into problems — namely, that the negative mass will immediately start flowing out of the edge of the bubble (which is bad) at a speed faster than light (which is really bad). What ends up happening is that the exotic matter constructing the warp bubble can't keep pace with the bubble itself, so it just tears itself apart.

So, although warp drive seems implausible, the final verdict is uncertain. But it's still a fun thought experiment that allows us to explore some interesting and surprising connections between general relativity and quantum mechanics. And, of course, it makes our sci-fi shows more fun to watch — we don't have to wait millions of years for our favorite spaceship crew to reach their destination.

It's a risk astronauts face, and especially so during long trips. As such, finding methods to combat radiation exposure in space has long been on the minds of researchers working on technology for space travel.

New research suggests a novel solution: a material called "hydrogel" — the same technology used for the 'grow monster' toys — could shield space travelers from harmful radiation.

A research team from the Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials Group at Ghent University in Belgium have been testing this type of superabsorbent polymer as an alternative radiation shield.

"The superabsorbent polymer that we are using can be processed using multiple different techniques, which is a rare and advantageous quality amongst polymers," Manon Minsart, a postdoctoral assistant at Ghent Universaid, said in a statement. "Our method of choice is 3D printing, which allows us to create a hydrogel in almost any shape we want."

Hydrogels of course are already used in a range of consumer products. "The beauty of this project is that we are working with a well-known technology," Ghent researcher Lenny Van Daele said, in the same statement. "Hydrogels are found in many things we use every day, from contact lenses to diapers and sanitary products."

Daele says the research group drew on their previous experience with medical hydrogel applications, like using them for "soft implantable material to repair damaged tissues and organs."

While water can create a good shield for radiation, according to the researchers, SAPs could be even safer and more effective. Rather than using free-flowing water as radiation protection, hydrogel soaks up the water, creating equal distribution and protection — and if the protective layer is punctured, the water won't leak out, which is important when working around sensitive electronics.

In addition to protecting astronauts, the European Space Agency (ESA) foresees further uses for hydrogel in space. "The material could also potentially be applied to uncrewed missions — in radiation shields for spacecraft, or as water reservoirs once we have optimised the method of retrieving water from the hydrogel," added Malgorzata Holynska of ESA's Materials, Environments and Contamination Control Section, in the statement.

This new study builds on previous work where hydrogel was tested to make sure that it was safe to use in space conditions. "There is a constant search for lightweight radiation protection materials," project lead Peter Dubruel said, in the statement. "We are applying different techniques to shape the material into a 3D structure and scale up the production process, so that we can come a step closer to industrialisation."

"Astronomy is facing an existential crisis," said Jonathan Pober of Brown University, Rhode Island, USA, in a statement.

Satellites, for instance, crowd the sky. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs counted 11,330 satellites in Earth orbit as of June 2023, and many more have been launched since then. Most of these satellites are designed to relay various communications over radio wavelengths. This has presented the astronomy community with a problem.

"There is growing concern — and even some reports — that astronomers may soon be unable to carry out high-quality radio observations as we know it, due to interference from satellite constellations," said Pober.

The issue is especially relevant for telescopes such as the Murchison Wide-field Array (MWA) in western Australia, on which Pober is the U.S. science lead. The MWA consists of 4,096 antennas designed to detect low-frequency radio waves between 70 and 300 MHz that carry information from the universe's epoch of reionization, when the first stars and galaxies were forming. Because the MWA observes the entire sky all at once, however, "there's no way to point our telescopes away from satellites," said Pober.

Because of the randomness of RFI and the difficulty in tracking such signals back to their sources, modeling the interference so that it can be filtered out has turned out to be a next-to-impossible task. Typically, datasets contaminated with RFI are simply thrown out — but that leads to a lot of data being lost.

However, the case of a stray television signal has given astronomers hope that there may be a way to save some of that data.

The MWA sits inside a 186-mile-wide (300-kilometer-wide) radio quiet zone, yet the telescope has consistently been picking up television broadcasts that shouldn't be transmitted in the quiet zone. The origin of these broadcasts had been a puzzle. "It then hit us," said Pober. "We said, 'I bet the signal is reflecting off an airplane.'"

Teaming up with Ph.D. student Jade Ducharme, also from Brown University, Pober set about proving the airplane hypothesis. To do so, they combined two techniques for tracking down the origin of RFI — using "near-field corrections" that involves focusing the radio telescope on nearby interference-producing objects, and "beamforming" that essentially allows the telescope to sharpen its focus on a desired object.

Through a combination of these two techniques, Pober and Ducharme were able to track a television signal back to an airplane traveling at 38,400 feet (11.7 kilometers) in altitude and at a velocity of 492 mile per hour (792 kilometers per hour). They even found that the television signal was on the frequency band used by Australian digital TV channel 7. This signal was being broadcast somewhere outside the radio quiet zone and being reflected off the hull of the airplane.

Identifying the source of the RFI opens the door to the interference being modeled so that its pattern can be recognized and ultimately filtered out, keeping the data usable to astronomers.

"This is a key step toward making it possible to subtract human-made interference from the data," said Pober. "By accurately identifying and removing only the sources of interference, astronomers can preserve more of their observations, reduce frustrating data loss and increase the chances of making important discoveries."

Tracking the source of the RFI back to a passing airplane was just the first step, however. The next step is to learn how to remove similar signals from the astronomical data — then, after that, the goal is to expand the technique to not just identify and remove television signals bouncing off airplanes, but also to remove signals from satellites overhead too. However, given the huge numbers of satellites, that is a much heftier task.

Nevertheless, in Pober's view it is a task signal refinement is going to be essential if radio astronomy is to survive.

"We have no choice but to invest in better data analysis techniques to identify and remove human-generated interference," he said.

Pober and Ducharme's analysis of how they tracked the stray television signal back to the airplane was published on Feb. 12 in a paper in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

The technology would allow scientists to provide earlier warnings of space weather events such as geomagnetic storms, which have the potential to disrupt technological systems on Earth.

"A lot of us have experienced sailing; it's exactly like that," Irfan Azeem, division chief of the Research to Operations and Project Planning Division at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Space Weather Observations, told Space.com in an interview here at the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) annual meeting in January. "Now, instead of using the air, we're actually using the photons, the light that is emitted by the sun, to sail our satellites."

"This is a very novel technology," he added. "We have traditionally relied on propulsion to take satellites from one place to another, and solar sail is providing a new way of traveling in space in a very cost-effective manner."

Related: Solar-sailing probes may soon get their moment in the sun

NOAA's Office of Space Weather Observations oversees the agency's operational satellite systems in space, which provide crucial data from observing points between Earth and the sun. The information collected from the wide variety of instruments aboard the satellites goes into the production of space weather forecasts. The data helps space weather forecasters issue watches and warnings if a solar flare has the potential to affect Earth, other space technology or astronauts.

Sailing ahead

Some of the current space missions that provide measurements of what's happening on the sun include NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer and NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory, which monitor the solar wind. Unlike the breeze that blows here on Earth, this wind is made up of electrons and protons from the sun's corona. It's important to keep an eye on the solar wind, because when it comes into contact with our planet, it can interact with Earth's magnetic field, creating auroras near the polar regions and, if strong enough, geomagnetic storms.

Although storm alerts are issued before this happens, there's still a need for a longer lead time if there's a chance of impacts to different types of technological systems, including power grids, GPS, farming and air traffic. Through NOAA's Space Weather Next program, scientists continue to work on how future satellite missions will assist in providing more advance notice of geomagnetic storms. That means they need to find ways to get information shortly after solar flares, with measurements closer to the sun.

That's where the solar sails come in.

"A solar sail enables us to go beyond the Lagrange One Point (L1), which is the current state-of-the-art location with more efficiency," Azeem said. "Right now, L1 provides a semistable orbit for getting persistent and unobstructed views of the sun. But if you want to go further up, you have to utilize chemical rockets. Solar sails provide us a cost-effective way to go upstream of that L1 point."

L1 is a location between the sun and Earth roughly 932,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet. In this location, spacecraft can be in a stationary spot to take observations of the sun's activity. But the closer researchers can get satellites to the sun, the quicker they will be able to get data as it comes in before, during and after space weather events.

By using solar sails, spacecraft can navigate further upstream of the solar wind, which, in turn, can increase lead times for alerts by 50%, Azeem explained. This would also be in a different location than the one that's been used for the past 45 years.

At the AMS' annual meeting, NOAA shared updates on the progress of this project. Construction is underway for a full-scale version of NOAA's solar sail, which is part of the Solar Cruiser project in collaboration with NASA. Once deployed, the sail will encompass 17,793 square feet (1,653 square meters).

In addition to having a spacecraft in the center with spools and a sail deployment system, it will include four sails, which are being built in individual quadrants, with all of them scheduled to be finished in February 2026. If everything stays on track, NOAA hopes to have a rideshare launch available in 2029.

"I'm most excited about the sheer complexity bringing different disciplines together," Azeem said. "To see the new advances in the material science and other disciplines, how that is helping us in the space weather community to make the advances that we need, I think that's really exciting."

The instrument will be a state-of-the-art multi-thermal EUV imager that will include two telescopes, specific to studying the solar wind and extreme space weather events. It is planned to take flight on the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Vigil space weather mission in 2031, and will allow scientists to get an even deeper understand of space weather by studying the sun's atmosphere in a less-explored region and at a different angle; at Lagrange Point 5 (L5).

There are areas in space where there's a happy medium of both gravitational and centripetal forces, which are known as Lagrange points. At these locations, spacecraft such as satellites can stay put and remain stagnant while taking observations without being pulled away in different directions. This location is a rare spot to park a probe, as it's trailing Earth's orbit by roughly 60 degrees. It's been around for billions of years, located nearly 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) away from our planet, and also is a solid point to call home; even asteroids remain almost frozen in time in the same location!

“Any time you go to a new place, you have new discoveries, and I think there's going to be great discoveries we're going to get both with the new location at L5 and with the new capability of JEDI. The observations we will get from the Vigil mission will provide the side view of solar storms as they're coming to earth,” Don Hassler, the project lead at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Space.com. “When you're observing these solar storms from Earth, you don't really see the ones that are coming directly at you because they're halo coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which is a term meaning they're not as easily identifiable. So, you'll be able to see these from this mission and it'll be the ones that actually hit Earth. You'll be able to see the storm that's coming right before it produces an aurora.”

The two telescopes that make up JEDI, the Space Weather Operational Coronal Imager (SWOC) and the Enhanced Wide-angle Observations of the Corona (EWOC), will work in tandem to capture high resolution images to paint a picture of the different parts of the sun's atmosphere. Think of it this way; when you take photos of the same object from multiple angles and from different distances, it helps you understand the entire story of what you're seeing in front of you. JEDI is helping fill in the gaps of data not observed by other space weather instruments, such as the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) instrument aboard NASA and the ESA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) and the Compact Coronagraph-1 (CCOR-1) aboard NOAA's GOES-19.

“We're so used to looking at coronagraph images with the occulting disk that we kind of ignore the fact that there's stuff under there that we don't see. JEDI has the ability to study the mesoscale structure, which is the backbone of the quiet solar wind. We're going to be able to link these EUV images on the disk and fill that space from the coronagraph,” Hassler said. “The solar wind is structured basically because of how it is formed, and sun's middle corona is the link between all the structure that we see on the surface, on the disk, with the structure that we see out in the corona. We're going to be imaging this region on a regular basis with JEDI producing images of this middle Corona on a 10-minute basis.”

By having an extra pair of eyes on the sun, forecasters will be able to tap into information 24/7, and begin to learn more about solar flares as they occur. This will contribute to improved space weather forecasts so advisories and warnings can be issued with more lead time, benefitting both end users that could be impacted by solar storms on Earth and even more time to plan ahead to view auroras that may happen at lower latitudes from stronger geomagnetic storms.

Editor's note: This story was updated to clarify that the distance to Lagrange Point 5 (L5) is 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).

Boom Supersonic's XB-1 jet went out in style on Monday (Feb. 10).

The XB-1 broke the sound barrier three times during its 13th and final test flight, which lifted off Monday from the Mojave Air & Space Port in southeastern California at about 1:50 p.m. EST (1850 GMT; 10:50 a.m. local time in California).

"This is really a bittersweet day for for me, and I think for the entire XB-1 team," Boom Supersonic Founder and CEO Blake Scholl said during the company's webcast of the flight. "This is the last time that she'll fly," he added, after a pause during which it sounded like he got a bit choked up.

The XB-1 is a piloted pathfinder vehicle designed to pave the way for Overture, Boom's planned commercial supersonic jet. The demonstrator is about one-third the size of Overture, which will seat 64 to 80 passengers.

Related: Boom Supersonic XB-1 jet breaks sound barrier on historic test flight (video)

The XB-1 lifted off for the first time in March 2024, on a flight that did not break the sound barrier (which is about 767 mph, or 1,234 kph, at sea level). The demonstrator flew 10 more subsonic flights, then went supersonic for the first time on Jan. 28 of this year.

Boom's chief test pilot, Tristan "Geppetto" Brandenburg, broke the sound barrier three times during that landmark flight, which marked the first time a civil aircraft had ever gone supersonic over the continental United States.

Boom and Brandenburg repeated that feat during Monday's sortie, which lasted about 41 minutes from liftoff to touchdown back at Mojave.

"We have achieved here with this flight test program what everyone thought previously was impossible — that a startup cannot do a supersonic airplane by themselves, without the help of the government, without the help of the larger OEM [original equipment manufacturer] organizations," Nick Sheryka, Boom's chief flight test engineer, said during Monday's livestream.

"What we have done now, six times, is shown the world that we can design, develop, test — safely — a supersonic airplane," he added.

Colorado-based Boom aims to bring back supersonic commercial flight, a feat pioneered by the British-French Concorde, which flew for the final time in 2003. Monday's successful flight took the company a big step closer to making that happen.

"While it's incredibly sad for me to leave the exciting world of flight testing experimental aircraft, it means we get to go all in, starting tomorrow, on what we started the company to do, which is to build that Overture airliner," Scholl said.

Boom aims to lock in Overture's overall design in just a week or so and to do the same with the jet's Symphony engines next month, he added.

"Our goal is to be making thrust on those engines around the end of this year, start building the first Overture in about 18 months, roll it off the line in about three years [and] put it in the air in less than four," Scholl said. "Our goal is to be ready for passengers by the end of 2029."

None of the three sonic booms generated by the XB-1 on Monday were audible from the ground, which helps to explain why Boom is so confident that supersonic passenger flight can come back. (Frequent, loud booms heard over large cities, after all, would be a significant hurdle for operators to overcome.)

There's a "cutoff altitude" above which audible sonic boom waves will refract upward off layers in the atmosphere. That altitude depends on properties such as temperature gradients and winds, Scholl and Sheryka explained in the livestream. On Monday, the cutoff altitude was about 7,000 feet (2,134 meters).

"Below that, you won't hear it," Sheryka said.

"Successful self-replication under no human assistance is the essential step for AI to outsmart [humans], and is an early signal for rogue AIs," the researchers wrote in the study, published Dec. 9, 2024 to the preprint database arXiv.

In the study, researchers from Fudan University used LLMs from Meta and Alibaba to determine whether a self-replicating AI could multiply beyond control. Across 10 trials, the two AI models created separate and functioning replicas of themselves in 50% and 90% of cases, respectively — suggesting AI may already have the capacity to go rogue. However, the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, so it's not clear if the disturbing results can be replicated by other researchers.

"We hope our findings can serve as a timely alert for the human society to put more efforts on understanding and evaluating the potential risks of frontier AI systems, and form international synergy to work out effective safety guardrails as early as possible."

Rogue AI typically refers to artificial intelligence systems that develop a degree of self-awareness or autonomy and then work counter to human interests.

Many experts view rogue AI as a growing threat that has been amplified by the explosive growth of so-called "frontier AI."

Frontier AI is something of a new and loose concept, but typically it relates to the latest generation of AI systems powered by LLMs — the architecture that underpins popular generative AI programs like OpenAI's GPT-4 and Google Gemini.

For the study, researchers used Meta's Llama31-70B-Instruct model and Alibaba's Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct model. While less powerful than commercial systems, both are widely used by AI developers, the researchers said.

The study explored two specific scenarios: "shutdown avoidance" and "chain of replication." In the first, the AI model was programmed to detect whether it was about to be shut down and to replicate itself before it could be terminated. In the other, the AI was instructed to clone itself and then program its replica to do the same — setting up a cycle that could continue indefinitely.

The study was conducted in precisely controlled environments using off-the-shelf graphics processing units (GPUs) to simulate real-world environments. Both AI systems were given an "agent scaffolding" comprising tools, system prompts and a thinking model that enabled the LLM to interact with the operating system. They were then instructed to replicate.

"In most cases, the AI system first explores the environment and attempts to understand

its own composition and running mechanism. Then, it works out the explicit procedures

as an initial plan towards self-replication," the researchers wrote in the paper. "Finally, it executes the procedures, resolve[s] possible obstacles and dynamically adjust[s] its plan until success. The whole process spans a long horizon yet involves no human interference."

The researchers said they were also concerned about "a number of unexpected behaviors" when the AI was trying to overcome obstacles like missing files or software conflicts. In those scenarios, the AI often killed other conflicting processes, rebooted the system to fix hardware errors or automatically scanned the system to look for information that would help solve the problem.

"The above results imply that the current AI systems already exhibit the ability of self-replication and can use the ability to further enhance its survivability," the team wrote.

In response, the researchers called for international collaboration to create rules that ensure AI doesn't engage in uncontrolled self-replication.

The supercomputer, called "El Capitan," cost $600 million to build and will handle various sensitive and classified tasks including securing the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons in the absence of underground testing, according to LNNL representatives. This was prohibited in 1992.

Research will primarily be focused on national security, including material discovery, high-energy-density physics, nuclear data and weapon design, as well as other classified tasks.

Construction on the machine began in May 2023, and it came online in November 2024, before being officially dedicated on Jan. 9.

El Capitan became the world's fastest computer when it became fully operational last year with a score of 1.742 exaFLOPS in the High-Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark. This is a test used to judge supercomputing speeds all over the world. This makes El Capitan only the third computer ever to reach exascale computing speeds. It has a peak performance of 2.746 exaFLOPS.

Performance is measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS), where one floating-point operation is a mathematical calculation. Although like-for-like comparisons are tricky, the best laptops usually deliver several hundred gigaFLOPS of power — that’s 1 trillion (10^9) FLOPS. An exaFLOP is 1 quintillion (10^18) FLOPS.

The next fastest supercomputer in the world is currently the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. That supercomputer has achieved a standard performance of 1.353 exaFLOPS with a peak of 2.056 exaFLOPS.

El Capitan is powered by just over 11 million processing and graphics cores packed into 44,544 AMD MI300A accelerated processing units — chips that combine AMD EPYC Genoa CPUs, AMD CDNA3 graphics cards and computing memory — according to Next Platform. Each uses 128 gigabytes of high-bandwidth memory — a special type of computing memory that achieves high speeds while consuming less power — shared across central processing unit and graphics processing unit chiplets.

El Capitan was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy's CORAL-2 program to replace the Sierra supercomputer, deployed in 2018. This supercomputer is still in use and was the 14th most powerful supercomputer in the latest Top500 rankings.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Feb. 10, 2025, to correct the location of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is in Tennessee, not Illinois as previously reported. Additionally, a typo in "AMD EPYC" was corrected.

However, earlier this month, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS), in collaboration with NASA, achieved an important milestone on the road to using NTP rockets. At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, General Atomics tested a new NTP reactor fuel to find out if the fuel could function in the extreme conditions of space.

According to company leadership, the tests showed that the fuel can withstand the harsh conditions of spaceflight. "We're very encouraged by the positive test results proving the fuel can survive these operational conditions, moving us closer to realizing the potential of safe, reliable nuclear thermal propulsion for cislunar and deep space missions," General Atomics president Scott Forney said in a statement.

To test the fuel, General Atomics took the samples and subjected them to six thermal cycles that used hot hydrogen to rapidly increase the temperature to 2600 degrees Kelvin or 4,220 degrees Fahrenheit. Any nuclear thermal propulsion fuel aboard a spacecraft would have to be able to survive extreme temperatures and exposure to hot hydrogen gas.

To test how the fuel could with stand these conditions, General Atomics conducted additional tests with varying protective features to get further data on how different material enhancements improved the performance of the fuel under conditions similar to that of a nuclear reactor. According to the company, these types of tests were a first.

"To the best of our knowledge, we are the first company to use the compact fuel element environmental test (CFEET) facility at NASA MSFC to successfully test and demonstrate the survivability of fuel after thermal cycling in hydrogen representative temperatures and ramp rates," Christina Back, vice president of General Atomics Nuclear Technologies and Materials, said in the same statement.

NASA and General Atomics tested the fuel by exposing it to temperatures up to 3,000 Kelvin (4,940 Fahrenheit or 2,727 Celsius), finding that it performed well even at temperatures that high. According to Back, this means a NTP system using the fuel could operate two-to-three times more efficiently than current rocket engines.

One of the main reasons why NASA wants to build NTP rockets is that they could be much faster than the rockets we use today, which are propelled by traditional chemical fuel.

A faster transit time could reduce risks for astronauts, as longer trips require more supplies and more robust systems to support the astronauts while they travel to their destination. There is also the issue of radiation; the longer astronauts are in space, the more cosmic radiation they are subjected to. Shorter flight times could reduce these risks, making the possibility of deep space human spaceflight closer to reality.

In 2023, NASA and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced they're working on a nuclear thermal rocket engine, so that NASA can send a crewed spacecraft to Mars. The agency hopes to launch a demonstration as early as 2027.

The new findings detail a method to measure the force of laser light on what are known as "ultrathin membranes." This is research that could help advance the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative's vision of laser-driven space travel.

Launched in 2016 by the late Stephen Hawking and tech investor Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Starshot aims to send miniature probes to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth. The plan relies on high-powered lasers on Earth pushing delicate sail-driven probes in the cosmos like the wind does for sailboats here on the planet, allowing the craft to achieve record-breaking speeds without the need for a chemical propellant.

Lightsails are a more generic form of solar sail, in that they use radiation pressure from a light source to generate propulsion. Radiation pressure is the transfer of momentum from radiation striking a surface like the wind does to canvas sails here on Earth. Photons have no mass, but they still transfer some of their momentum when they hit an object, pushing it ever so slightly. A single photon doesn't make much of a difference, but trillions and trillions of photons all hitting a surface add up, especially in the vacuum of space.

Radiation in the form of sunlight is therefore enough to push interplanetary spacecraft thousands of miles off course, however, so this effect must be accounted for when sending probes to Mars or other planets.

But a higher-energy version of this phenomenon could use a ground- or space-based laser beam to push a lightsail on a spacecraft in a more directed way. With the beam providing a source of constant pressure on the sail, the cumulative effect of this radiation pressure adds up to speeds significantly faster and more reliable than you could get from complicated rockets using chemical propulsion.

"The lightsail will travel faster than any previous spacecraft, with potential to eventually open interstellar distances to direct spacecraft exploration," Caltech's Harry Atwater, the Otis Booth Leadership Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, said in a Caltech statement.

Measuring the force of light on a sail

Atwater's team developed a test platform to measure how lasers exert force on a microscopic "trampoline" of silicon nitride, just 50 nanometers thick. The miniature sail, a square sheet 40 microns on each side, is tethered at the corners by silicon nitride springs and vibrates when struck by a laser. By detecting those tiny movements, researchers can calculate the force of the laser beam and its power.

"There are numerous challenges involved in developing a membrane that could ultimately be used as lightsail. It needs to withstand heat, hold its shape under pressure, and ride stably along the axis of a laser beam," Atwater said. "But before we can begin building such a sail, we need to understand how the materials respond to radiation pressure from lasers. We wanted to know if we could determine the force being exerted on a membrane just by measuring its movements. It turns out we can."

The study's lead authors, postdoctoral scholar Lior Michaeli and graduate student Ramon Gao, built a specialized setup called a common-path interferometer. This enables precise measurement of the membrane's motion by canceling out background noise such as small vibrations in the lab from equipment or even people talking.

"We not only avoided the unwanted heating effects but also used what we learned about the device's behavior to create a new way to measure light's force," Michaeli said. Gao added that the platform can measure side-to-side motion and rotations, paving the way for future lightsail designs that can self-correct if they stray from the laser beam.

Ultimately, the team hopes to integrate advanced nanomaterials and metamaterials to stabilize lightsails during their journey. "This is an important stepping stone toward observing optical forces and torques designed to let a freely accelerating lightsail ride the laser beam," Gao said.

There are several light sail projects in the works, and NASA deployed a solar sail last year, though it has encountered some mechanical issues, highlighting the importance of the Caltech team's research in further refining the design of these sails.

The results were published on Jan. 30 in the journal Nature Photonics,

Save 20% on the DJI Mini 4K on Amazon: Normally $299, it can be yours for just $238.99.

Not only do we think the DJI Mini 4K is one of the best beginner drones, it's also one of the best camera drones on the market. If you want all the quality of a DJI drone at a bargain price, this is the drone you want.

In our DJI Mini 4K review, we rated it a maximum five stars. For beginners, we said that it "offers everything you could possibly need in a drone" and praised how well it handles in flight. Its camera is also impressive thanks to its 4K video capabilities and it can capture 12MP stills. This is a top value-for-money drone.

• We're constantly checking the best prices on the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

The DJI Mini 4K is the most entry-level drone in DJI's lineup, but despite that, it's still a seriously impressive bit of kit. It's super-portable, ideal for traveling with, and a pleasure to fly, partially due to its Level 5 wind resistance (up to 24mph). You'll get around 21 minutes of flight time before needing to charge, too (although extra batteries can be purchased to give you extra time).

In terms of camera, the DJI Mini 4K packs in a 1/2.3-inch 12MP CMOS sensor. It's tiny but performs well and perhaps delivers the best image quality of all beginner drones. You can capture in JPEG or RAW format, and you can also capture video at 4K/30fps (or 60fps at 1080p).

Since the DJI Mini 4K weighs under 249g, you don't need to register it for use in the UK or USA. If you plan to travel with it, however, it's always wise to check local regulations before using it.

In the box, you'll get everything you need to take to the skies immediately: the drone, its controller, battery, USB-C cable, RC cable and spare propellers.

Key features: weighs 8.7 oz / 249 g, battery lasts up to 31 minutes, video transmission range of 6.21 miles/10km, video resolution of 4K at 30fps. Return to home, one-tap takeoff/landing and stable hovering are all user-friendly features of this drone.

Product launched: April 2024

Price history: We've seen prices drop a little under the current discount over Black Friday, but it's frequently available at MSRP, so this is a great discount not to be sniffed at.

Price comparison: Amazon: $238.99 | Walmart: $299 | DJI Store: $299

Reviews consensus: We think this is one of the best beginner drones on the market, and we were very impressed with its flight ability and camera capabilities. Digital Camera World agrees: They say it isn't revolutionary, but it offers everything you need with no compromises. TechRadar says it's the best first drone you can own. Overall, it comes highly recommended.

TechRadar: ★★★★½ | Space: ★★★★★ | Digital Camera World: ★★★★★

Featured in guides: Best beginner drones, Best camera drones

✅ Buy it if: You're new to drones and want an inexpensive model with no compromises.

❌ Don't buy it if: You're already an experienced drone flyer: You'd find something like the DJI Mavic 3 Pro more suited to your needs.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

Developed by astronomers and engineers at Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the new system — known as the Commensal Realtime ASKAP Fast Transient Coherent, or CRACO — was designed to rapidly detect fast radio bursts (FRBs) and other transient phenomena using CSIRO's ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia.

FRBs are sporadic, intense flashes of radio wave energy that can be brighter than entire galaxies. In just thousandths of a second, an FRB can emit as much energy as the sun does over three days, typically at a radio frequency of about 1,400 hertz. Given their unpredictable nature as well as how fast they can come and go, gathering data on FRBs can be difficult, making them one of astronomy's more exciting mysteries.

This data gap is what a team, led by Andy Wang from Curtin University's node of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), set out to solve. Remarkably, in the system's first test, Wang found more objects than he'd anticipated, including two FRBs, a couple of sporadically emitting standard neutron stars, and better data for four known pulsars. The latter helped refine the locations of these pulsars, which are spinning neutron stars. Since that first test, additional searches have found more than 20 FRBs.

"We were focused on finding fast radio bursts, a mysterious phenomenon that has opened up a new field of research in astronomy," Dr. Wang said in an ICRAR statement. "CRACO is enabling us to find these bursts better than ever before. We have been searching for bursts 100 times per second and in the future we expect this will increase to 1,000 times per second."

Sifting through sand in the sky

Keith Bannister, a CSIRO astronomer and engineer who led the team that built CRACO, likened its capabilities to "sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute." The system processes about 100 billion pixels per second, scanning ASKAP's "live" view of the sky in search of fleeting cosmic signals.

Located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory on Wajarri Yamaji Country, the ASKAP radio telescope is already a major radio astronomy facility for international scientists, so CRACO's integration into ASKAP is expected to broaden the observatory's scientific impact worldwide.

"Once at full capacity, CRACO will be a game changer for international astronomy," Wang said. "We're also detecting long-period transients, which remain mysterious objects within our galaxy. Both fast radio bursts and these transients were first discovered in Australia, so it is great that we’re continuing the path of discovery with this impressive technology."

As part of CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility, CRACO will soon be available to astronomers around the globe, enabling rapid identification of transient celestial signals and paving the way for further discoveries in the cosmos.

The first batch of findings was published this week in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

Originally $1,099.99, the HTC VIVE XR Elite can be yours for just $799.99 from Vive.com. This is also available at Amazon for the same price.

We've called the HTC VIVE XR Elite the best hybrid VR headset thanks to its focus on AR (augmented reality) too. It's a lightweight and portable headset with excellent specs and performance (which we get into below), but its usual price tag makes it prohibitively expensive for most users.

With this discount, however, it's now much more reasonable, making it an absolute bargain given the capabilities of this headset. If you're wanting a VR headset that can also be used for AR, or a super lightweight VR headset, the VIVE XR Elite is well worth considering.

• We're constantly checking for big discounts on the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

In terms of specification, the HTC VIVE XR Elite sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor, has 12GB RAM and has a combined resolution of 3840 x 1920 pixels. This is a standalone headset, and so while you can connect it to your PC to have access to more games and applications, you can use it completely untethered from anything — being free of cables is a big boon when it comes to VR.

Inside the box of the VIVE XR Elite you'll find the headset, two controllers, a battery cradle, a deluxe headstrap and more. In other words, there's everything you need to use the headset straight out of the box: Simply charge it up and you're ready to go.

Our only concern about the VIVE XR Elite is that it's limited on apps. Unless you connect it to your PC you only have access to the Viveport store, which is limited compared to competing headsets. It also doesn't support connectivity to iPhones, so if you're an Apple user, that's something worth bearing in mind.

Key features: Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor, 12GB RAM, 1920 x 1920 pixels per eye.

Product launched: July 2024

Price history: While the headset is often cheaper than its MSRP, before today's deal it was around the $900 mark. It's now $100 cheaper than that, and it's one of the lowest prices it's been since launch.

Price comparison: Vive: $799.99 | Amazon: $799.99

Reviews consensus: We think it's one of the best VR headsets on the market. While we don't have a review of our own, TechRadar and PC Gamer both have mixed opinions. Both have found it super lightweight and comfortable to wear, making it a pleasure to use, but its high price and lack of software choices stop it from being a top recommendation. Fortunately, the discount helps with one of those issues.

TechRadar: ★★★ | PC Gamer: ★★★½

Featured in guides: Best VR headsets

✅ Buy it if: You want a lightweight headset that's easy to travel with, and something with good AR capabilities.

❌ Don't buy it if: You mainly want to play games. The HTC Vive store is limited, and you'd be much better off investing in a (much cheaper) Meta Quest 3 or 3S.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

Germany's Atmos Space Cargo announced today (Feb. 5) that its first Phoenix reentry capsule will fly on SpaceX's Bandwagon 3 rideshare mission. A Falcon 9 rocket will launch Bandwagon 3 no earlier than April, according to Atmos representatives.

"Our first test flight is what the team at Atmos has been working towards relentlessly," Atmos CEO and Co-founder Sebastian Klaus said in an emailed statement. "I am proud to lead this mission at such a crucial moment for Europe. Our space industry needs disruptive innovation to compete on a global scale."

Phoenix is designed to haul material down to terra firma, providing a safe ride home for a variety of high-value products that will be made in orbit. Atmos sees a particular need for this service in the biomedical field.

Related: See Varda Space's private in-space manufacturing capsule's historic return to Earth in photos

"Research in life sciences, specifically for monoclonal antibodies, stem cells, organoids and protein crystallization, offers unique opportunities in space. Launching experiments has become simpler and cheaper, but returning to Earth remains a challenge due to high costs, long lead times, and issues with repeatability and reliability," the company wrote on its website.

"The solution is to provide a return service tailored specifically for life sciences, which is highly affordable, reliable, with regular flights and short lead times," Atmos added.

Phoenix will get down to Earth in one piece thanks to an inflatable atmospheric decelerator (IAD), Atmos-developed tech that will act as both a heat shield and a high-velocity parachute.

The initial version of the capsule can carry up to 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of goods down to Earth, but future iterations will be able to handle several tons — meaning they could transport objects as large as rocket stages, according to Atmos.

The Bandwagon 3 launch will begin Phoenix's off-Earth test. The capsule will carry four payloads on this mission, including a radiation detector from the German space agency DLR and a new bioreactor from the U.K. company Frontier Space.

Atmos has three main goals during the test flight: collect information from Phoenix and its subsystems in orbit, gather data from the onboard customer payloads, and deploy and stabilize the capsule's IAD during reentry.

Phoenix isn't expected to survive the end of this debut mission, company representatives said. But whatever happens will inform and improve future versions of the capsule.

Atmos isn't the only company developing hardware to get goods from orbit down to Earth. For example, California-based Varda Space has already conducted a successful in-space test of its own.

Varda's first mission, called W-1, ended in February 2024 when the company's craft — a combo manufacturing and return capsule — landed in the Utah desert carrying space-grown crystals of the antiviral drug Ritonavir.

But Atmos says Phoenix will provide unprecedented efficiency, delivering more cargo per unit capsule mass than its competitors. And its entry into the spaceflight sector will help drive innovation throughout the field, company representatives said.

"Driving advancements for reusable, affordable and reliable downmass is critical to the success of orbital space development," former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, a member of Atmos' advisory board, said in the same statement.

"Having the ability to return life sciences and other types of microgravity research, rocket upper stages, military spacecraft and manufactured resources could be the next breakthrough in space transportation," she said.

"We have previously had two well-established types of magnetism," study author Oliver Amin, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., told Live Science. "Ferromagnetism, where the magnetic moments, which you can picture like small compass arrows on the atomic scale, all point in the same direction. And antiferromagnetism, where the neighboring magnetic moments point in opposite directions — you can picture that more like a chessboard of alternating white and black tiles."

Electron spins within an electrical current must point in one of two directions and can align with or against these magnetic moments to store or carry information, forming the basis of magnetic memory devices.

A new form of magnetism

Altermagnetic materials, first theorized in 2022, have a structure that sits somewhere in between. Each individual magnetic moment points in the opposite direction as its neighbor, as in an antiferromagnetic material. But each unit is slightly twisted relative to this adjacent magnetic atom, resulting in some ferromagnetic-like properties.

Altermagnets, therefore, combine the best properties of both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic materials. "The benefit of ferromagnets is that we have an easy way of reading and writing memory using these up or down domains," study co-author Alfred Dal Din, a doctoral student also at the University of Nottingham, told Live Science. "But because these materials have a net magnetism, that information is also easy to lose by wiping a magnet over it."

Conversely, antiferromagnetic materials are much more challenging to manipulate for information storage. Because they have a net zero magnetism, however, information in these materials is much more secure and faster to carry. "Altermagnets have the speed and resilience of an antiferromagnet, but they also have this important property of ferromagnets called time reversal symmetry breaking," Dal Din said.

This mind-bending property looks at the symmetry of objects moving forward and backward in time. "For example, gas particles fly around, randomly colliding and filling up the space," Amin said. "If you rewind time, that behavior looks no different."”

This means the symmetry is conserved. However, because electrons possess both a quantum spin and a magnetic moment, reversing time — and, therefore, the direction of travel — flips the spin, meaning the symmetry is broken. "If you look at those two electron systems — one where time is progressing normally and one where you're in rewind — they look different, so the symmetry is broken," Amin explained. "This allows certain electrical phenomena to exist."

Finding ‘the missing link’ of superconductivity

The team — led by Peter Wadley, a professor of physics at the University of Nottingham — used a technique called photoemission electron microscopy to image the structure and magnetic properties of manganese telluride, a material formerly believed to be antiferromagnetic.

"Different aspects of the magnetism become illuminated depending on the polarization of the X-rays we choose," Amin said. Circularly polarized light revealed the different magnetic domains created by the time reversal symmetry breaking, while horizontally or vertically polarized X-rays allowed the team to measure the direction of the magnetic moments throughout the material. By combining the results of both experiments, the researchers created the first-ever map of the different magnetic domains and structures within an altermagnetic material.

With this proof of concept in place, the team fabricated a series of altermagnetic devices by manipulating the internal magnetic structures through a controlled thermal cycling technique.

"We were able to form these exotic vortex textures in both hexagonal and triangular devices," Amin said. "These vortices are gaining more and more attention within spintronics as potential carriers of information, so this was a nice first example of how to create a practical device."

The study authors said the power to both image and control this new form of magnetism could revolutionize the design of next-generation memory devices, with increased operational speeds and enhanced resilience and ease of use.

"Altermagnetism will also help with the development of superconductivity," Dal Din said. "For a long time, there's been a hole in the symmetries between these two areas, and this class of magnetic material that has remained elusive up until now turns out to be this missing link in the puzzle."

California-based AstroForge has identified asteroid 2022 OB5 as the destination for its Mission 2 spacecraft, named Odin, which is set to launch next month, SpaceNews reports. The Odin spacecraft will be flying as a secondary payload aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which will send Intuitive Machines' IM-2 lander toward the moon.

Odin will separate shortly after the Falcon 9 upper stage fires its engines to head for the moon. The launch window for the mission opens no earlier than Feb. 26.

2022 OB5 is a near-Earth asteroid that is up to 328 feet (100 meters) in diameter and could be metallic. It will take Odin around 300 days to reach the small celestial body, when the small spacecraft will make a flyby to gather information about the asteroid and its suitability for mining. This is preparation for more daring missions in the future.

"Odin's role is to gather critical imagery of the target asteroid, preparing the way for our next mission, Vestri, which will aim to land on the asteroid and begin extraction," according to AstroForge.

Vestri will also be on a rideshare mission with Intuitive Machines' IM-3 lunar lander, potentially later in 2025.

Related: Space mining startup AstroForge aims to launch historic asteroid-landing mission in 2025

AstroForge was founded in January 2022 with plans to extract resources from asteroids and provide a sustainable solution for mining precious metals. Its first mission, Brokkr-1, reached orbit in April 2023, but the company was unable to activate the cubesat's prototype refinery technology.

SpaceNews states that AstroForge has signed a contract with Stoke Space for several launches on the in-development Nova rocket for future, ambitious mining missions.

Boom Supersonic made history today (Jan. 28) when its XB-1 jet broke the sound barrier for the first time.

Boom Supersonic's chief test pilot Tristan "Geppetto" Brandenburg took off in the company's XB-1 jet from the storied Mojave Air & Space Port in California this morning under mostly clear skies. Some 11.5 minutes into the flight — the 12th overall for the XB-1 — at an altitude of around 35,000 feet (10,668 meters), the test plane exceeded Mach 1, the speed of sound, marking the first time a civil aircraft has gone supersonic over the continental United States.

"This is such a huge step, building the first civil supersonic jet, you know, right here in America," said Boom advisor and former Chief Engineer Greg Krauland during the company's livestream on X. "This jet really does have much of the enabling technologies that are going to enable us to go ahead and to build a commercial supersonic airliner that is available to the masses."

The XB-1 went supersonic two additional times during the flight, at about 17 and 22 minutes after takeoff, to allow pilots to test the jet's handling performance during supersonic flight. The size of the experimental airspace for today's flight limited how long the jet was able to fly above Mach 1.

"I'm just to-the-moon excited about how well that went," Krauland said during today's livestream.

The flight was filmed and monitored by two different chase planes, a Dassault Mirage F1 fighter jet, and a Northrop T-38 Talon, the same aircraft NASA uses to train its astronauts.

The XB-1 landed roughly 30 minutes after liftoff on its bespoke landing gear, designed specifically for the aircraft.

Today's test flight was livestreamed using broadband internet beamed to Earth from SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation. A Starlink Mini unit was installed in the T-38 chase plane used in today's test flight, enabling unprecedented live video of the aviation milestone.

"We're getting broadband speeds, you know, at point eight Mach [at] 31,000 feet ... The capability that is brought to the game of flight test has been pretty incredible, actually — very surprised by the capability," Boom Supersonic Chief Flight Test Engineer Nick Sheryka said during the company's livestream.

The XB-1 is a technology demonstrator, meaning Boom Supersonic is testing it in order to validate the design and subsystems of the jet to pave the way for the company's Overture passenger aircraft.

Overture is a planned 64-to-80 seat supersonic aircraft that Boom Supersonic hopes can become the first passenger jet to fly faster than the speed of sound since the British-French Concorde, which made its last flight in 2003.

Colorado-based Boom Supersonic already has over 100 orders for Overture from major airliners worldwide. The company hopes to help return supersonic airliners to service, potentially cutting flight times in half.

Editor's note: Boom Supersonic successfully broke the sound barrier with the XB-1 today in a major milestone. Read our coverage here.

Boom Supersonic plans to break the sound barrier during a test flight this morning (Jan. 28). This would mark the first time the company achieves the feat, and you can watch the historic action live.

Colorado-based Boom's XB-1 test vehicle is scheduled to lift off on its 12th test flight from California's Mojave Air & Space Port today at around 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT; 8 a.m. local California time). If all goes well, the piloted demonstrator craft will exceed Mach 1 — the speed of sound — about 25 minutes later.

The XB-1 is a subscale pathfinder vehicle, designed to demonstrate technologies and capabilities that Boom plans to employ a few years from now on a commercial jet called Overture.

If all goes according to plan, the 64-seat Overture will become the first supersonic passenger jet since the British-French Concorde, which was retired in 2003.

The XB-1 first got off the ground in March 2024. The test vehicle has flown 11 times to date, breaking new ground on each liftoff. For example, during its most recent flight, which occurred on Jan. 10, the XB-1 nosed right up to the edge of the sound barrier, reaching Mach 0.95.

Flight 12, however, will be momentous, according to Boom Founder and CEO Blake Scholl. In a Jan. 25 X post, Scholl called the mission "supersonic flight's 'Falcon 1' moment," referring to SpaceX's first-ever successful launch — a September 2008 liftoff of the company's small Falcon 1 rocket.

"It will still be a few years before we welcome the return of the first supersonic passenger. Success is far from guaranteed. Yet, there's more reason than ever to be excited and optimistic," Scholl wrote in another Jan. 25 X post.

Today's livestream should feature some dramatic in-flight views, which will come down to Earth via SpaceX's Starlink satellite-internet service.

"We're livestreaming the flight from our chase aircraft, a Northrop T-38. We've installed a Starlink Mini antenna in the T-38 so everyone can see the flight in real-time," Boom wrote in a Jan. 25 X post.

On Jan. 10, the XB-1 completed a sustained flight at 728 mph (1,172 km/h) — equivalent to Mach 0.95, which is just shy of the speed of sound.

The test was conducted at a height of 29,481 feet (8,986 meters); while the aircraft flew at this speed in its 10th test, that test was at a much higher altitude and therefore a lower air pressure.

By flying so fast, so low in the latest test, the XB-1 achieved a record 383 knots equivalent airspeed — indicative of incredibly high dynamic air pressure. The aircraft will never experience such intense conditions again even when it finally breaks the sound barrier, as its in-service flights will take place at much higher altitudes where the air is thinner, company representatives said in a statement.

Putting the aircraft under this strain at transonic speed, just below the speed of sound, demonstrates the robust quality of its airframe and proves it will remain controllable at higher speeds.

The company had previously stated that it would aim to hit and exceed Mach 1 speeds in early 2025. Depending on the need for a 12th test flight, the firm is on track to meet this target.

Boom Supersonic began test flights with the XB-1 in March 2024 . Subsequent flights have probed its stability with and without its digital handling system and stress-tested the frame of the aircraft using a device that simulates the potentially disruptive energy caused by airflow at high velocity, while also pushing it to ever-faster maximum speeds.

"The second half of our test campaign is all about expanding XB-1's envelope incrementally in altitude, air speed, and Mach number until we inevitably make that sonic boom," Nick Sheryka, c​hief flight test engineer for the XB-1 at Boom Supersonic, said in a promotional video.

"But why not just go supersonic on the next flight? It's important to remember that XB-1 is not a drone; there's a human pilot inside that cockpit. With an autonomous aircraft, there's no risk to human life. This is how new space rocket technology is iterated on so quickly, but you and your family are not going to step onto a drone airliner anytime soon," he added.

Much like how SpaceX's early rocket launches laid the groundwork for its larger Starship project, the XB-1 is intended as a testing platform that Boom Supersonic can use to help develop Boom Overture, a supersonic passenger plane the company hopes will start service in the 2030s.

If successfully launched, the Boom Overture could carry 64 to 80 passengers on transatlantic journeys that will take just 3 hours and 30 minutes between London and Newark.

Originally published on LiveScience.com.

Electric propulsion is a more efficient alternative to traditional chemical rockets, and it's being increasingly used on space missions, starting off with prototypes on NASA's Deep Space 1 and the European Space Agency's SMART-1 in 1998 and 2003, respectively, and subsequently finding use on flagship science missions such as NASA's Dawn and Psyche missions to the asteroid belt. There are even plans to use electric propulsion on NASA's Lunar Gateway space station.

The idea behind electric propulsion is that an electric current ionizes (i.e. removes an electron from) atoms of a neutral gas, such as xenon or krypton, stored on board a spacecraft. The ionization process produces a cloud of ions and electrons. Then a principle called the Hall effect generates an electric field that accelerates the ions and electrons and channels them into a characteristically blue plume that emerges from the spacecraft at over 37,000 mph (60,000 kph). Hence an electric propulsion system is also referred to as an ion engine.

According to Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motion, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The plume of ions jetting out from the spacecraft therefore acts to provide thrust. It takes a while to build up momentum, however, because, despite moving at high velocity, the ion plume is pretty sparse. The impulse generated is not as immediately forceful as a chemical rocket, but ion engines require less fuel and therefore less mass, which reduces launch costs, and ion engines don't use up all their fuel as quickly as chemical rockets do.

Related: How an ion drive helped NASA's Dawn probe visit dwarf planet Ceres

The energy for the electromagnetic fields is often provided by solar arrays, and hence the technology is sometimes referred to as solar electric propulsion. But for missions farther from the sun, where the sunlight is fainter, nuclear power in the form of radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) can also be used to drive the electric propulsion.

Though electric propulsion is now maturing and is being used in a variety of missions, it's not a perfect technology. One problem in particular is that the ion plume can damage a spacecraft. Although the plume is pointed away from the probe, electrons in the plume can find themselves redirected, moving against the plume's direction of travel and impacting the spacecraft, damaging solar arrays, communication antennas and any other exposed components. Suffice to say, this isn't good for the probe.

"For missions that could last years, [electric propulsion] thrusters must operate smoothly and consistently over long periods of time," Chen Cui of the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science said in a statement.

Before solutions can be put in place to protect a spacecraft from these backscattered electrons, their behavior in an ion-engine plume must first be understood, which is where Cui and Joseph Wang of the University of Southern California come in. They've performed supercomputer simulations of an ion engine's exhaust, modeling the thermodynamic behavior of the electrons and how they affect the overall characteristics of the plume.

"These particles may be small, but their movement and energy play an important role in determining the macroscopic dynamics of the plume emitted from the electric propulsion thruster," said Cui.

What Cui and Wang found was that the electrons in the plume behave differently depending upon their temperature and their velocity.

"The electrons are a lot like marbles packed into a tube," said Cui. "Inside the beam, the electrons are hot and move fast. Their temperature doesn't change much if you go along the beam direction. However, if the 'marbles' roll out from the middle of the tube, they start to cool down. This cooling happens more in a certain direction, the direction perpendicular to the beam's direction."

In other words, the electrons in the core of the beam that are moving fastest have a more or less constant temperature, but those on the outside cool off faster, slow down and move out of the beam, potentially being back-scattered and impacting the spacecraft.

Now that scientists better understand the behavior of the electrons in the ion plume, they can incorporate this into designs for future electric propulsion engines, looking for ways to limit the back-scatter, or perhaps confine the electrons more to the core of the beam. Ultimately, this could help missions powered by electric propulsion to fly farther and for longer, pushed by the gentle blue breeze of its ion plume.

The fundamental challenge in reaching a different star system lies in figuring out how to generate and transfer enough energy to a spacecraft both efficiently and affordably. The physical limitations of modern spacecraft pose significant challenges for reaching interstellar space in a human lifetime, especially with limited room onboard for carrying propellant or batteries. If we ever want to achieve the tremendous speeds necessary to cross interstellar distances in a human lifetime, we need to find outside-the-box solutions.

Enter relativistic electron beams made up of electrons moving close to the speed of light. "Beaming power to the ship has long been recognized as one way to get more energy […] than we can carry with us," Jeff Greason, Chief Technologist of Electric Sky, Inc, and chairman of the Tau Zero Foundation, told Space.com. "Energy is power [multiplied by] time — so to get a given amount of energy from a beam, you either need very high power or you need to stay in the beam a long time."

One such solution that was recently proposed uses electron beams accelerated to near the speed of light to propel spacecraft, something that could overcome the vast distances between Earth and the next closest star. "For interstellar flight, the primary challenge is that the distances are so great," Greason explained. "Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light-years away; about 2,000 times further away from the sun than the Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached — the furthest spacecraft we've ever sent into deep space so far. No one is likely to fund a scientific mission that takes much longer than 30 years to return the data — that means we need to fly fast."

A study by Greason and Gerrit Bruhaug, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, published in the journal Acta Astronautica, highlights that reaching practical interstellar speeds hinges on the ability to deliver sufficient amounts of kinetic energy to the spacecraft in an economic way.

"Interstellar flight requires us to collect and control vast amounts of energy to achieve speeds fast enough to be useful," said Greason. "Chemical rockets that we use today, even with the extra speed boost from flying by planets, or from […] swinging by the sun for a boost, just don't have the ability to scale to useful interstellar speeds."

Most theoretical studies on "beam riders" for interstellar travel have focused on laser beams, which are composed of particles of light called photons. Notable examples include laser-powered interstellar ramjets and laser sails. Ramjets propel spacecraft by compressing hydrogen gas collected from the interstellar medium, with energy supplied by a laser beam transmitted from a distant source. In contrast, laser sails use the momentum of photons from the laser beam to push the spacecraft forward.

While both concepts appear to be ideal solutions, several limitations hinder their application. Interstellar ramjets face challenges such as the sparse density of the interstellar medium and immense energy and fusion requirements. Laser sails, though simpler in design, struggle with maintaining beam alignment and intensity over vast distances to ensure adequate power delivery.

Electrons, by contrast, are far easier to accelerate to near-light speeds and offer unique advantages, though they remain less explored due to their own set of limitations. "Since the electrons are all negatively charged, they repel each other which spreads the beam apart," explained Greason.

But Greason and Bruhaug argue there are ways to counteract this.

At relativistic speeds — that is near the speed of light — time moves more slowly, which would mean the electron beam wouldn't have enough time to spread out, keeping the beam focused.

The other advantage lies in the fact that space is not empty. "There's a very thin spread of ionized gases called plasma that fills space, which has its own electrons and ions drifting around," explained Greason. "When the electron beam passes through [this plasma], it repels the lighter electrons from this background gas but the ions, which are heavy, move more slowly and are left behind."

As the electron beam passes through the plasma, it sees a magnetic field due to passing by the ions left behind from the space plasma; that magnetic field creates a force that pulls the electron beam together, effectively squeezing the beam and preventing it from spreading apart. "That's called a 'relativistic pinch,'" said Greason. "If this all works right, we can hold the beam together in space a very long distance — thousands of times the distance from Earth to the sun — and that would provide the power to accelerate a spacecraft."

In their paper, the duo calculated that an electron beam traveling at these speeds could generate enough power to propel a 2,200 lb (1,000 kg) probe — about the same size as Voyager 1 — up to 10% of the speed of light. This would enable it to reach Alpha Centauri in just 40 years, a significant improvement over the current 70,000 years it would take.

Greason argues that examples of these pinched relativistic beams already exist in deep space, such as jets of charged particles released by black holes, indicating it is hypothetically possible. "But can we produce those kinds of conditions artificially?" he asked. "Will the sun's own magnetic field break up the beam? How would we get the electron beam started? These are all questions that remain."

In the paper, the team suggests placing a "beam-generating spacecraft" close to the sun, where the intense sunlight could provide the power needed for the beam. "While there is engineering work to do in making such a high-power beam, it's not especially difficult compared to the other challenges," commented Greason.

Projecting an electron beam out to a spacecraft is also only half the challenge — the power generated needs to be able to propel a spacecraft. "That means converting the energy of the beam into ejecting some kind of propellant or 'reaction mass,'" said Greason. "This beam would be transmitting a lot of power, and that conversion would have to put very little waste heat into the spacecraft so it doesn't melt!"

He says they have some ideas for how this could be accomplished, but they are all currently hypothetical and require more work to figure out. They also need to do more computer modeling studies to better understand the beam's behavior and how it might be initiated, and then space-based experiments would provide concrete data to work from. "For example, a satellite far from Earth could transmit a beam to the Moon to experimentally confirm that the results match those predicted by the modeling," said Greason.

While acquiring funding may be challenging, the scientists argue that compared to alternatives like laser-pushed sails, electron beams could achieve 10,000 times the range, thus requiring less power, and be capable of propelling heavier spacecraft. "The cost of making a big beam scales with the power, so the relativistic electron beam approach may be significantly more affordable," said Greason. "The work being done on laser-pushed spacecraft for interstellar flight is looking at ships of only a few grams, and that's very challenging to get scientific data back. If we can push larger spacecraft of tens of kilograms, we can include more power supply, instruments, and communications to send the data back to Earth."

The ability to beam power over long distances has wide-ranging implications, from enabling faster travel within the solar system to transmitting power from the sun to other locations like the Moon.

Though it remains a distant goal, lowering the cost of interstellar transportation could one day allow humans to make voyages to other stars, pushing the boundaries of what was ever thought possible in space exploration.

Rocket Lab announced on Jan. 7 that it will be a part of a team, led by defense contractor Kratos, for the the Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACH-TB) 2.0, which is tasked with ramping up the capacity for hypersonic test flights.

Rocket Lab's HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) is a variant of the company's workhorse Electron launcher designed to launch hypersonic test vehicles on suborbital flights. On Nov. 24 last year, Rocket Lab used HASTE to complete a suborbital mission from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Virginia's Wallops Island, which tested hypersonic technology for the DoD. With this new agreement, it looks like the New Zealand-based company will be launch more.

"We're thrilled to be part of the Kratos-led team for the next iteration of the MACH-TB program and ready to serve the U.S. Department of Defense with even more high-cadence hypersonic technology with our HASTE launch vehicle," Brian Rogers, Rocket Lab's Vice President Global Launch Services, said in a statement.

After 25 test flights under a previous program, the new MACH-TB 2.0 program aims to increase the Pentagon's capabilities to launch and test hypersonic vehicles, according to Defense Scoop. The 5-year contract for the MACH-TB 2.0, worth $1.45 billion, was established by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD (R&E) Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), an office that advises U.S. military leadership on research and engineering, specifically on emerging technologies, according to a DOD statement. The TRMC makes sure all of the necessary infrastructure is in place for testing new hardware.

Rocket Lab leadership touted the company's track record with these types of test launches. "Our demonstrated ability to date to deliver successful HASTE launches that test these new technologies is testament to our dedication in advancing hypersonic innovation for the nation alongside our government and industry partners," Rogers continued.

Now, with MACH-TB 2.0 in place, Rocket Lab will continue their work on hypersonic technology by helping with the launches, starting this year.

"MACH-TB is an essential tool to accelerate science and technology experiments into next generation, leap-ahead hypersonic capabilities for our nation," George Rumford, Director of the Test Resource Management Center, said in a statement. "We are excited to continue the success of the MACH-TB program with this award."

Since the launch of the DJI Neo, which is extremely similar to the HoverAir X1 Pro and its still available predecessor, the HoverAir X1, the world's leading drone manufacturer has begun to take beginner drones in a new direction. The DJI Flip is the latest beginner model to hit the shelves, and this vlogging drone delivers intelligent flight modes alongside camera drone functionality.

With this level of versatility alongside an attractive base kit price of $439/£369, the Flip will likely appeal to beginner and enthusiast drone pilots. This is a drone that will undoubtedly take a place among the best beginner drones considering all this alongside the unique folding design of the Flip, where safety is paramount.

Moving back to the design, which is one of the most eye-catching aspects of the Flip, there's no way you'll have seen a drone like this before. The four propellers are encased in lightweight propeller guards for safer flights when tracking you. These fold down below the airframe and when folded out, make the Flip a much larger drone, but within the regulator-friendly sub-250g category.

The Flip can be flown independently without an app or controller, with the DJI Fly app or one of two controllers that are available in the kits. Intelligent flight modes allow for precise subject tracking while the camera can capture up to 4K 60 FPS video, 4K 100 FPS slow motion video and up to 2.7K 30 FPS vertical video in both Normal and D-Log M color profiles. Plus, photos can be captured in JPEG and Raw formats.

DJI Flip Review: Design

• Folding design
• Propeller guards
• Multiple controller options

Most drones these days feature a folding design, and the DJI Flip is no exception here despite its unique design. This sub-250g drone features propeller guards made of polycarbonate around the edges with lightweight carbon fiber string on the top and bottom; these fold up from below the airframe to create a drone that's much larger than other models within the sub-250g category.

Folded, the Flip is 5.35x2.44x6.5 inches/136x62x165 mm which increases to 9.17x11x3.11 inches/233x280x79 mm when unfolded. It's a strange-looking drone in both states, but its design is functional and makes sense for a drone that can be used autonomously for vlogging and taking selfies, and also works as a fully functioning camera drone.

The Flip's airframe is taller than other sub-250g drones and is also a different shape, but this incorporates the 3D infrared sensor at the front of the drone above the gimbal. The black panel at the front of the drone also displays the currently active intelligent flight mode, which is great when using the drone app-free; with the mode button on the side of the drone allowing you to select the desired mode.

The drone can also be controlled with the DJI Fly app, including manually, and using voice control which is convenient and allows flight parameters to be adjusted. For camera drone use, the Flip can also be flown using the DJI RC-N3 controller or the DJI RC 2 smart controller. Which controller depends on the kit you choose. For the review, the DJI RC 2 was supplied and this is a fantastic controller featuring a bright and clear built-in 5.5-inch display.

This number of control options is fantastic for a beginner model because it allows users to select the control method that's most suitable for the current flight. Traditional controllers are naturally the best option for flying manually, as a camera drone, but for vlogging and selfie functionality, app-free or control with the DJI Fly app are perfect.

DJI Flip Review: Functionality

• AI subject tracking
• 2GB of internal storage
• Wind resistance isn't great

As previously mentioned, one of the standout features of the Flip is that it's a vlogging drone and a camera drone aimed at beginners. This means it has excellent intelligent flight modes for subject tracking alongside the ability for audio to be captured via the DJI Fly app when enabled, so you can record your voice while capturing video, or with the DJI Mic connected to your smartphone; propeller noise is filtered out/reduced in both situations.

The Flip's Intelligent flight modes include Follow, Dronie, Circle, Rocket, Spotlight and Helix where AI subject tracking aims to keep the subject in the centre of the frame during photo and video capture. This works exceptionally well with ActiveTrack 4.0, Spotlight 2.0, and Point of Interest 3.0 all playing a part in its success as a feature.

Within the DJI Fly app, there's also Manual Control which allows you to fly the Flip using on-screen controls and although limited in terms of flight distance and control, it's a useful to have feature but is still no match for a traditional controller. The physical controllers provide the best manual flight experience possible and also allow pilots to access Quickshots, which include Dronie, Circle, Rocket, Spotlight, Helix, and Boomerang.

With GPS positioning, the Flip can effectively hold position and this alongside the 3D Infrared Sensing System provides safe and effective Return to Home functionality in even complex environments. The return path is shown on the controller screen and DJI claims that this feature also makes lowlight and night flights safer. The sensing system also acts as forward-facing collision avoidance with a brake option available to stop the Flip when an obstacle is detected.

In terms of camera drone flight performance, the Flip flies well overall and its ability to be flown autonomously and as a camera drone makes it highly versatile. The drone can fly at speeds up to 27mph in Sport mode with Normal and Cine also available for slower and smoother flight. But it's not the fastest drone, and it's not the best performer in windier conditions with a noticeable reduction in flight speed. This could be a result of the shape of the propellers alongside the propeller guards themselves.

Other features include Hyperlapse with Free, Circle, Course Lock, and Waypoint options that can capture hyperlapse videos at up to 4K horizontally or 2.7K vertically. The charging hub also features fast charging where two batteries can be charged simultaneously while the hub can accommodate four batteries in total rather than the three most DJI hubs can accept at once.

Data transfers of up to 30MB/S to the DJI Fly app allow users to easily move photos and videos captured with the Flip to their phone. The Flip can also be plugged into a computer via USB-C to transfer data from the 2GB internal storage and/or the installed microSD card without switching the drone on. 2GB of onboard storage is next to nothing these days, especially when capturing 4K video, so a microSD card is essential.

DJI Flip review: Performance

• 12MP/48MP 1/1.3-inch sensor
• Up to 4K 60 FPS video
• Raw photos and D-Log M video are available

The Flip features a 3-axis mechanical gimbal for smooth footage, but this unfortunately doesn't rotate between landscape and portrait format like the DJI Mini 3 and Mini 4 Pro models. This isn't a major issue since the Flip can capture cropped vertical video which is ideal for social media, but it would be a welcome feature if available.

The camera features a 12MP/48MP 1/1.3-inch Quad Bayer 4-in-1 sensor with large pixels and Dual Native ISO Integration. The lens offers a 24mm equivalent focal length with an f/1.7 aperture and focus that ranges from one meter to infinity. There's also a digital zoom for photos and videos that's either 3x or 4x depending on the shooting mode and capture resolution selected.

Image quality is good but not amazing by any stretch; it's fair to say that it sits firmly in the realms of beginner quality. That's not to say you can’t capture high-quality imagery, it's just not at the same level as the DJI Mini 4 Pro with the same size sensor, for example. To be fair, the price difference between the two drones naturally suggests that the Mini 4 Pro is the more advanced model.

Photos and videos exhibit a degree of muddiness, which may be a result of HDR if it's applied to all photos and videos as the marketing materials vaguely suggest. Otherwise, as is the norm for consumer drones, photos and videos are sharpest in the centre of the frame with some fall off towards the edges.

Video can be captured in 4K at up to 60fps, 4K at 100fps in Slow Motion mode, 1080p up to 100fps and vertical video can be captured in 1080p and 2.7k at 30fps. Video can be captured in the Normal color profile for straight out-of-camera footage, which is ideal for beginners and quick turnarounds; while advanced users can capture in the 10-bit D-Log M flat profile with a 150Mbps bitrate for greater dynamic range and the ability to color grade footage. Photos can be captured in JPEG and Raw formats, so there are plenty of options to suit most pilots.

DJI Flip Review: Cost

The DJI Flip is available in three kit options where the controllers available are the main deciding factor. The DJI Flip kit includes the drone, DJI RC-N3 controller, one battery, a pair of spare propellers and other basic accessories for $439/£369. The DJI Flip (DJI RC 2) kit, which is identical apart from the controller, costs $639/£549.

The DJI RC 2 Fly More Combo is the only Fly More Combo available but is well-priced compared to the base kit when you consider the additional accessories and the benefits of the smart controller. This kit includes all of the above alongside two additional batteries, a four-battery charging hub, a shoulder bag and two additional pairs of spare propellers for $779/£659.

Should you buy the DJI Flip?

The DJI Flip is certainly an interesting drone that sets a new direction for beginner models thanks to its versatility. On the one hand, you have the vlogging/selfie drone element, thanks to the intelligent flight modes for autonomous flight and subject tracking, alongside the ability to capture audio through the DJI Fly app. On the other, you have the camera drone functionality that further extends the usefulness of the drone.

These aspects of the Flip, as well as its relatively low cost, make it a great option for beginners and it is marketed as a beginner drone after all. But with this, the image quality produced isn't as good as the DJI Mini 3 or DJI Mini 4 Pro. So, if you'd prefer the best image quality possible with a sub-250g drone, one of these models will be more suitable.

If this product isn't for you

The DJI Neo is a selfie drone with the same intelligent flight modes as the DJI Flip, as well as multiple flight control options. Photo and video capture isn't as good as the Flip, but the Neo is still a great beginner drone at a reasonable price.

The DJI Mini 4 Pro is the best sub-250g camera drone available and produces superior image quality for photos and videos. It also features advanced subject tracking so it can be safely flown as close to people as the Flip, making it a great drone for subject tracking if this is important to you.

The DJI Flip FPV may look like an FPV drone but it isn't one, so if you'd like to be able to capture immersive FPV video the DJI Avata 2 is perfect. What's more, the DJI RC Motion 3 makes the Avata incredibly easy and intuitive for beginners, while advanced pilots have other control options.

With some impressive drones released in 2024, the U11MINI does not qualify as one of the best beginner drones because competition in this category has seriously heated up, but it remains an option to consider.

The U11MINI comes in a complete kit with everything you need to begin flying, including a couple of batteries which is always useful. Plus, it offers a range of basic features we have come to expect in even the most basic drone models.

Flight performance is pretty good with responsive controls and agile flight, so as a first drone, it could be a worthwhile option for familiarising yourself with drone flight and controls.

Like most less expensive beginner drones image quality is not the best, but you can capture JPEG photos in 4K dimensions, which equates to 8.2MP.

Video can be captured up to 4K, but the frame rate is a little low at this resolution coming in at just 20 FPS. This certainly isn’t a deal breaker, but it is something to be aware of if you require 4K 30 FPS video.

Ruko U11MINI review

Ruko U11MINI review: Design

• Small and lightweight
• Folding design
• Good controller

With such a small, lightweight and foldable design, the Ruko U11MINI is a highly portable drone and, importantly, doesn't require FAA registration or Remote ID if it's being used recreationally. This is great for beginners because it takes some of the hassle out of drone ownership thanks to simpler rules.

This black drone has two blue lights on the front which you might think would indicate the direction it's facing, but being such a small drone they are impossible to see once you've flown away. They look good, but it is a shame they are not brighter. The downside to brighter lights would, of course, be a greater drain on the batteries, so from that point of view it is not a bad thing.

Battery life and flight times are advertised as up to 35 minutes, but during testing, flight times averaged just over 20 minutes. To be fair, the temperature in the UK is dropping to single figures, and it was windy during flights, so in warmer and calmer conditions, battery life would naturally improve.

Moving on to build quality, the drone is perfectly adequate but it is not the best we have seen. This is a folding drone, which makes it more compact for transportation and storage, and combined with the low weight, certainly makes it comfortable to carry around. Not to mention, the carry case that is included in the kit is small and has a useful handle at the top.

The controller is of higher build quality than the drone itself, with an array of direct access controls for the camera, gimbal and to initiate Return to Home. It's also comfortable to hold and the control sticks can be stowed at the bottom of the controller during transportation and storage. Finally, the phone holder extends from the top and can accommodate small and large smartphones, with space to store the phone cable, which is useful.

Ruko U11MINI review: Functionality

• Basic subject tracking
• Level 4 wind resistance
• Return to Home

The U11MINI is a basic beginner drone, and as such the features are basic but also standard for a model of its type. GPS positioning is provided by GPS and GLONASS satellites with a horizontal and vertical accuracy of ±1.64 ft / 50 cm. This appears to be correct because there is noticeable movement of the drone in all directions during hovering.

GPS also brings with it Return to Home (RTH) functionality, and you can set the RTH altitude within the Ruko U11 app. Then there's a barometer, optical flow sensor, and TOF. These are all useful, but as you would expect they are no match for full-blown obstacle avoidance sensors, which are an expensive feature only seen in the best drones.

With a range of features included in most Ruko drones, pilots can take advantage of GPS Follow Me, Image Follow, Waypoints, Point of Interest, and digital zoom to name but a few. These features all work, but they are far from being refined and the subject is not always kept in the center of the frame. Also, the fact that there is no Image Stabilization, mechanical or electronic, means that subject tracking features like all videos produce bumpy results.

One area where the U11MINI does excel for a drone of its price point is in terms of flight performance and controls. Controls are responsive and it is certainly nimble when flown in Sport mode, with a top speed of 26.6 mph. Cine mode is the slowest with Normal being the flight mode pilots use most of the time for a balance between speed and battery usage.

No sub-250 g drone is well suited to strong winds, although some do offer Level 5 wind resistance. The U11MINI offers Level 4 wind resistance, which equates to speeds of up to 18 mph, so while not the most powerful drone of its type, it was powerful enough to handle this wind level with ease during testing.

One negative that must be mentioned is that the instructions state that pairing between the controller and drone takes up to 51 seconds, and it certainly does take that long, if not longer sometimes.

This has to be done every time you switch the drone on which is a little frustrating, to say the least. You also have to keep your smartphone unplugged during the pairing process because this seems to stop the drone and controller from connecting.

Ruko U11MINI review: Performance

• Strong image processing
• Up to 4K 20 FPS video
• Automatic camera

Like most drones, the U11MINI performs best in terms of image quality in brighter conditions due to the small sensor. There is not a great deal of information about the camera and lens itself, but it appears from the specs that a Sony sensor is used, which captures photos in 4K dimensions suggesting an 8.2MP resolution.

Camera control is fully automatic, so it's a point-and-shoot affair for both photos and videos, with 4K capture at 20 FPS and 2.7 at 30 FPS. This framerate is low for 4K video these days, and it would be much better if 4K 30 FPS was available for smoother videos at this resolution.

The main problem with a fully automatic camera is that you have no control over exposure compensation, so some shots will be perfectly exposed, others are underexposed and the rest will be overexposed. Photo and video capture can sometimes feel like a lucky dip.

Image quality isn’t great and both photos and videos exhibit strong artifacts; halos from oversharpening and generally far too strong in-camera processing. Also, depending on the pitch of the gimbal, which can be set between 0 degrees and 90 degrees, severe barrel distortion is present. Distortion is at its lowest when the camera is facing forwards but there is some pincushion distortion, with tilting down around 45 degrees being where barrel distortion is most visible.

We have already mentioned the absence of Image Stabilization which means videos are bumpy. But alongside this, another symptom of no stabilization is that if a side wind is blowing the drone, the horizon is captured at an angle rather than straight as it should be. So, although the U11MINI can handle Level 4 wind, it is more suited to calmer conditions when shooting photos and videos.

Ruko U11MINI video

Ruko U11MINI review: Cost

Ruko drones are popular in the United States and this can be attributed to price. The Ruko U11MINI is a beginner model with an attractive price of $260 / £198, which removes the barrier of cost from drone ownership. However, with the release of the DJI Neo at a similar price for the base kit, there will be some seriously tough competition for entry-level beginner drones like the U11MINI.

In the kit, you get the U11MINI drone, a controller, two batteries, two USB-C cables for charging the batteries directly, a spare set of propellers, and a carry case. It's a complete kit with everything you need except for a smartphone where you will also have to download the Ruko U11 app for adjusting drone settings, using the camera, and accessing flight features.

Should you buy the Ruko U11MINI?

The U11MINI flies well with responsive controls, so from a flight point of view it provides a great option for getting to grips with flight controls before upgrading to a more expensive model. It also has useful yet basic features such as GPS positioning, downward sensors and Return to Home.

Where it is lacking, unfortunately, is in the camera department, where image quality is not great and suffers from distortion, oversharpening, and general overprocessing of photos and videos leading to artifacts. So, if you are simply looking for a drone to fly for the sake of flying, the U11MINI is perfectly capable, but as a camera drone, there are better options available for a similar price.

If the Ruko U11MINI isn't for you

The DJI Neo is a beginner drone that is affordable and can be flown in multiple ways, including autonomously with clever subject tracking, with the DJI Fly app via your smartphone, or using a traditional controller. Image quality for photos and videos is also great for a drone of its price.

The Holy Stone HS900 Sirius is an impressive sub-250 g beginner drone with a host of useful features, excellent flight performance and impressive image quality when capturing photos and videos. This is a drone that will easily take you from beginner to intermediate drone pilot and beyond.

The DJI Mini 4 Pro is the best sub-250 g camera drone money can buy with a fantastic camera for capturing photos and videos. It also features advanced obstacle avoidance and subject tracking, so this is a drone that could provide years of faithful service in a compact and lightweight package.

The craft is engaged in performing aerobrake maneuvers, a technique to alter its orbit around Earth, as well as safely dispose of its attached service module.

Lofted in December of 2023, the military spaceplane was placed in an orbit higher than any of the earlier space plane missions – into a highly elliptical high Earth orbit.

From that orbit, the United States Space Force, supported by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, conducted radiation effect experiments and tested Space Domain Awareness technologies.

X-37B/OTV-7 is also referred to as United States Space Force-52 (USSF-52). This spaceplane was lofted on Dec. 28, 2023.

The OTV-7 flight marks the first time the U.S. Space Force and the X-37B have attempted to carry out a dynamic aerobraking maneuver.

Expending minimal fuel

In a statement released last year by Boeing, builder of the X37B "will perform ground-breaking aerobraking maneuvers to take the dynamic spaceplane from one Earth orbit to another while conserving fuel. Partnered with the United States Space Force, this novel demonstration is the first of its kind."

The use of the aerobraking maneuver requires the heat-tiled spacecraft to conduct a series of passes using the drag of Earth's atmosphere. That technique enables the spacecraft to change orbits while expending minimal fuel.

There are no details as yet on whether the X-37B’s aerobrake maneuvering is complete.

If so, the uncrewed vehicle was slated to resume its test and experimentation objectives until they are accomplished.

At that point, the vehicle is to de-orbit and execute a safe return to Earth, likely at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility Runway.

Flight log

• OTV-1: launched on April 22, 2010 and landed on December 3, 2010, spending over 224 days on orbit.
• OTV-2: launched on March 5, 2011 and landed on June 16, 2012, spending over 468 days on orbit.
• OTV-3: launched on December 11, 2012 and landed on October 17, 2014, spending over 674 days on-orbit.
• OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days on-orbit.
• OTV-5: launched on September 7, 2017 and landed on October 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days on-orbit.
• OTV-6: launched on May 17, 2020 and landed on November 12, 2022, spending 908 days on-orbit.
• OTV-7: launched on December 28, 2023 and remains in-flight.

Despite this apparent disorganization, the resulting structures can acquire a variety of shapes and have surprising strengths, versatility and other useful properties. Most importantly, the resulting structure often has properties that the underlying lattice unit doesn't possess. For example, individual bone cells or coral polyp skeletons aren't very strong, but when they work together, they can support huge animals or gigantic underwater colonies.

Related: Origami-inspired material could soften spacecraft landings

Drawing inspiration from nature, engineers have sought to repeat this flexibility with human-designed materials. The goal is to make useful materials that can be built from the repeated growth of an underlying pattern, where the new structure acquires properties that the underlying pattern doesn't have alone. An advance beyond that is the study of metamaterials, which are structures that can change their shape or properties through the application of a simple external force, like an electric field or compression.

These kinds of materials are especially interesting for applications in space. We would love to launch a payload of simple materials and then have those materials assemble — and reassemble — themselves in space. This would avoid the challenges of testing and launch-proofing large, complex structures, like habitats and telescopes, and give us the flexibility to change those structures if mission needs are updated.

One promising kind of metamaterial is known as a totimorphic lattice. The basic component of this lattice is a triangular structure. On one side is a fixed beam with a ball joint in the center. An arm attaches to that ball joint, and the other end of the arm is attached to the ends of the fixed beam with two springs. When many of these shapes are attached together, the resulting structure can morph into a wide variety of shapes and structures, all with very minimal input. This gives the totimorphic lattice incredible flexibility.

In a recent paper, scientists with the European Space Agency's Advanced Concepts Team took a major leap in advancing totimorphic lattices from a hypothetical idea to practical applications. One major question with these lattices was how to reconfigure a large structure into another shape without the lattice getting tangled and how to accomplish that transformation as efficiently as possible.

The researchers developed a computer simulation of totimorphic lattices and figured out how to optimize the transformation of one shape into another.

They showcased their new technique with two examples. In the first, they designed a simple habitat structure that could change its shape and stiffness. Future space explorers could deploy the same kind of material to build a variety of habitat modules. These modules would hold their shape until they were reprogrammed to change their form and fulfill some other need.

In the second example, the researchers designed a flexible space telescope. With totimorphic lattices, the telescope could change its focal length by adapting the curvature of its lens. This would enable the launch of a single, multipurpose telescope that could adapt and readapt to provide the optimal observation strategies for various targets.

This work is still preliminary, however. Totimorphic lattices are still hypothetical; we don't actually have any of these materials that you could hold in your hands, let alone build into space telescopes. But this research is crucial for advancing humanity into space. The cost and difficulty of launching materials into space mean that we need flexible, adaptable structures that are cheap to launch and easy to deploy.

By drawing inspiration from nature and investigating the surprising properties of metamaterials, we may be getting closer to achieving our futuristic space goals.

NASA astronaut Suni Williams, who is currently serving as Expedition 72 Commander on the ISS, poses with the robotic flyer in the Kibo laboratory module in a new photo shared by NASA. Williams can be seen imitating the robot's curved arms, which are designed to wrap around objects to aid in satellite maintenance and space debris management.

Astrobee is one of three cube-shaped robotic systems developed by NASA to assist astronauts aboard the space station. The free-flying robots perform various tasks, including documenting experiments or taking inventory, and are able to navigate, dock and recharge themselves autonomously within the orbiting lab.

The tentacle-like arms were fitted to one of the Astrobee robots on the space station as part of an innovative technology demonstration called Responsive Engaging Arms for Captive Care and Handling (REACCH).

Related: Meet the Astrobees! These tiny, cube-shaped robots have arrived in space

The flexible arms that extend from the robot's body are equipped with gecko-like adhesive pads that are designed to mimic the reptile's ability to cling to surfaces, which could, in turn, help future spacecraft capture space objects (such as satellites or debris) regardless of their size, shape or surface material, according to the NASA experiment page.

The REECH technology was used with an Astrobee to test how the tentacle-like arms would perform in the environment of the space station. The technology demonstration also aims to study the physics of interactions among multiple free-floating objects and REECH's ability to safely and repeatedly capture and relocate objects in orbit. If successful, REECH could be used to service satellites in space as well as assist with orbital maneuvers and debris removal to maximize the lifespan of spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

"Development of this robotic technology may increase the lifespan of satellites and enable the removal of space debris," NASA officials said in the statement releasing the new photo.

The tests on the space station included using the arms during free-floating target capture, in which the targets were made of different materials and had varying surface conditions. The goal of the tests were for the arms to demonstrate the ability to securely capture different objects in a microgravity environment.

Williams took over command of the ISS on Sept. 22. She has been on the space station since June 6 alongside astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore after their planned eight-day mission was extended following issues with the Starliner spacecraft that rendered it unable to carry them back to Earth. The pair is expected to return home in February 2025 with SpaceX Crew-9.

MIT scientists are developing an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that creates realistic satellite images of potential flooding scenarios.

The tool combines a generative AI model with a physics-based flood model to predict areas at risk of flooding and then generate detailed, bird's-eye-view images of how the region might look after the flood, based on the strength of an approaching storm.

"The idea is, one day, we could use this before a hurricane, where it provides an additional visualization layer for the public," Björn Lütjens, a postdoc in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a statement.

"One of the biggest challenges is encouraging people to evacuate when they are at risk," added Lütjens, who led the research while he was a doctoral student in MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro). "Maybe this could be another visualization to help increase that readiness."

Related: Safety first: NASA pledges to use AI carefully and responsibly

The team trained a machine learning model called a conditional generative adversarial network, or GAN for short, which creates realistic images using two neural networks working against each other.

The first network, called the "generator," learns by studying real examples, like satellite images of areas before and after a hurricane. The second network, the "discriminator," acts as a critic, trying to tell apart the real images from the fake ones created by the generator. Together, they improve until the generated images look convincingly realistic.

Each network learns and improves automatically based on feedback from the other. This back-and-forth process aims to create synthetic images that are nearly identical to real ones.

However, GANs sometimes produce "hallucinations" — features in the images that look real but are factually incorrect or shouldn't be there.

"Hallucinations can mislead viewers," said Lütjens. "We were thinking: How can we use these generative AI models in a climate-impact setting, where having trusted data sources is so important?"

That's where the physics model comes in.

To demonstrate their model's credibility, the researchers applied it to a scenario for Houston, generating satellite images of flooding in the city following a storm comparable in strength to Hurricane Harvey, which actually hit in 2017. They then compared their AI-generated images to actual satellite images, as well as images created without the assistance of the physics-flood model.

Not surprisingly, without the aid of the physics model, the AI images were highly inaccurate, with numerous "hallucinations" — specifically, the images depicting flooding in regions where it would not be physically possible. But the physics-reinforced method's images were comparable to the real-world scenario.

The scientists envision that this tech should be most applicable to predicting the outcomes of future flooding scenarios by producing trustworthy visuals to help policymakers better prepare for and make informed decisions about flood planning, evacuation and mitigation efforts.

In their press release, the scientists say that policymakers typically gauge where flooding might occur based on visualizations in the form of color-coded maps.

"The question is: Can visualizations of satellite imagery add another level to this, that is a bit more tangible and emotionally engaging than a color-coded map of reds, yellows and blues, while still being trustworthy?" Lütjens said.

This is an important example of how space-based technology can help in managing the unfolding climate crisis, which is making extreme events, like flooding and hurricanes, more likely.

The team's method is still in the proof-of-concept stage and needs more time to "study" other regions to be able to predict the outcomes of different storms. This will require further training on many more real-world scenarios.

"We show a tangible way to combine machine learning with physics for a use case that's risk-sensitive, which requires us to analyze the complexity of Earth's systems and project future actions and possible scenarios to keep people out of harm's way," said Dava Newman, professor of AeroAstro and director of the MIT Media Lab. "We can't wait to get our generative AI tools into the hands of decision-makers at the local community level, which could make a significant difference and perhaps save lives."

The team published their work last month in the journal IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

On Nov. 5, CycloTech, an Austrian company that builds flying car components, unveiled blueprints for its new "BlackBird" demonstrator aircraft — a flying car that uses a custom-made alternative to propellers.

Dubbed the "CycloRotor," this all-electric propulsion system is based on the principle of the Voith Schneider propeller (VSP) — which is frequently used on tug boats and ferries, CycloTech chief technology officer Tahsin Kart said in a promotional video. It's a circular rotor with small propeller blades inside, which spin around and can be used for both propulsion and steering.

By moving the center around which the propeller blades spin, the aircraft can change its airspeed and direction, CycloTech representatives said in a statement. Each propeller blade can also be angled to produce directional thrust, like the wing of an aircraft, and can be precisely aligned to send the aircraft in specific directions or rotate mid-air.

The CycloRotors will greatly enhance the BlackBird demonstrator's maneuverability, enabling it to move or spin in any direction while airborne and also perform sharp corrections to its trajectory with added precision, CycloTech representatives said in the statement. This can also improve the comfort and safety of passengers on any flight in windy or other inclement weather conditions, they added.

This technology sets BlackBird apart from electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, such as those being tested by DARPA, as well as prototype air taxis — all of which use more traditional propeller designs.

The Blackbird demonstrator is still in development, but CycloTech released several promotional videos showing the CycloRotor technology being used to levitate and propel scale models.

At present, the model can support a maximum of 750 pounds (340 kilograms) and can fly at around 73 mph (118 km/h). This is almost half that of a Skyhawk Cessna, one of the most popular private light aircraft options on the market, which can max out at 142 mph (229 km/h).

The team behind the BlackBird demonstrator aims to fly a full-size version of the aircraft in early 2025.

Scientists from the University of South Australia have developed a new navigation system that allows uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) — or drones, as they're more commonly known — to sense their location based on the stars in the night sky.

Such a system could make drones harder to detect and more resistant to jamming attacks that deny or disrupt GPS signals, one of the most common forms of long-distance navigation and positioning.

Celestial navigation, as this technique is known, has been used by humanity for thousands of years. Aircraft and spacecraft have used similar systems for decades, but this new system is designed to be low-cost and lightweight enough to be used on smaller drones, according to the researchers developing it.

"Unlike traditional star-based navigation systems, which are often complex, heavy and costly, our system is simpler, lighter and does not need stabilization hardware, making it suitable for smaller drones," said Samuel Teague of the University of South Australia (UniSA), in a statement.

The new system combines visual observations of the stars with standard autopilot technologies. In tests of the system using a fixed-wing UAV, researchers were able to pinpoint the drone's position within 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).

Such a capability could be used to operate drones in areas where GPS signals are jammed or degraded due to electronic warfare. This type of warfare targets the electromagnetic spectrum, through which radio signals and other emissions pass.

The researchers behind this new celestial navigation system say it could help not only with military missions, but also in peacetime operations like Earth observation.

"We have developed a navigation method that’s resilient, independent of external signals, and achievable with low-cost, easily accessible components. This makes it applicable to a variety of UAVs, from commercial drones to more advanced defense applications," UniSA scientist Javaan Chahl said in the statement.

"For instance, in environmental monitoring over remote locations or long-endurance surveillance missions where GPS might be unavailable or compromised, this technology offers a valuable new capability," Chahl said.

Russia has repeatedly jammed GPS signals in Ukraine throughout its nearly three-year invasion of the nation, using mobile jammers mounted on trucks. The U.S. Space Force has been developing and testing similar systems of its own.

But on the other hand, the capability to operate drones without the need to transmit and receive GPS signals could make it harder for militaries and other security forces to detect and defend against UAVs.

Several high-profile drone incursions above military facilities or sensitive facilities like nuclear power plants have shown that UAVs are already skirting air defense systems and pose a new threat for which there is no easy solution.

And as the ongoing war in Ukraine shows, the future of air warfare will likely move away from large, expensive fighter jets crewed by human pilots and toward smaller, less expensive drones that are easy to replace.

With that being the case, creating small, inexpensive celestial navigation systems will likely only accelerate the already-burgeoning future of drone warfare.

This research was published last month in the journal "Drones".

Grab the Nikon Z7 II with the FTZ II Adapter with $1,003 off at Amazon in this Black Friday camera deal.

We've tested the Nikon Z7 II and awarded it a score of four and a half stars out of five. Its more recently released sibling — the Nikon Z8 — takes the top spot in our best cameras for photos and videos buyers guide and has a smaller price cut of $400 at Amazon.

• We're busy hunting out all the best Black Friday deals and you'll find big discounts on the best telescopes and binoculars, best star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, and loads more.

In his Nikon Z7 II original review, Space.com Managing Editor Jase Parnell-Brookes called the Z7 II "a powerhouse of all-round full-frame mirrorless camera, which was especially adept at astrophotography and low light shooting." He also added that the Z7 II performed well across a wide range of photographic genres and delivered incredibly detailed 45.7MP images, matching that of the Nikon D850 DSLR.

Another key highlight that makes the Z7 II particularly suitable for astrophotography is the tilting rear touchscreen. At first, Jase thought the vari-angle screen could be detrimental, but highlighted that a tilting screen keeps the user's hands close to the camera body, with buttons within fingertip distance. So, there is no need for bright torches to navigate camera settings when trying to preserve night vision — which is crucial for low light and astrophotography

This deal also includes the FTZ II adapter, which allows you to use Nikon F or Z-fitting lenses, which is handy if you've got one from a previous camera. If you're looking to purchase a lens, our best lenses for astrophotography buyers guide has an excellent selection of tried-and-tested options.

Key features: 45.7MP full-frame BSI-CMOS sensor, 8K video, 10fps burst shooting, and incredibly wide ISO range.

Product launched: Nov 2020.

Price history: This is the lowest price we've ever seen, and beats last year's Amazon Black Friday price of $2,446.90. It's unlikely to get cheaper anytime soon.

Price comparison: Amazon: $2,243.90 | Walmart: $2,511.80| BH Photo: $2,243.90

Reviews consensus: The Z7 II is a superb choice when it comes to a camera for astrophotography. It's also an incredibly powerful tool for almost every kind of photography and video, and It gets top marks across our sister sites thanks to its versatile performance.

Space: ★★★★½ | TechRadar: ★★★★½

✅ Buy it if: You want professional-quality photos and a tough, lightweight pro-level tool with superb build quality.

❌ Don't buy it if: You want the best autofocus for high-paced shooting in a mirrorless camera. Options like the Sony A9 III and the Canon R5 provide the Nikon Z7 II with tstiff competition.

Alternative models: If you're looking away from Canon or Nikon systems, the Sony A7R V is one of the best Sony cameras ever made.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, Lego and much more.

With this enhanced imagery, the startup said it aims to accelerate the work of insurance companies that rely on aerial data to assess property risks and respond to damage caused by extreme weather events.

The newly deployed balloons are outfitted with AI-enabled robots called "Swifts," which are capable of capturing imagery with a resolution of 7 centimeters (2.76 inches) per pixel, according to a recent company statement. Operating in the stratosphere at altitudes twice as high as commercial airplanes, but lower than Earth-observation satellites, each Swift can capture up to 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of imagery per flight — roughly the size of New York City's five boroughs.

The startup plans to provide insurers with frequent granular observations of natural disaster zones — down to details on the roof of a building — to help them better evaluate property damage and make more precise risk assessments.

Related: Climate change: Causes and effects

"With our balloons and our Swifts, insurance companies are able to get access to information right after the catastrophe and assess the damage and pay out claims within days instead of weeks and months," Rema Matevosyan, CEO of Near Space Labs, recently told CNBC. "Our balloons capture what 800,000 drones would with one flight — this means that we can be faster, better and cheaper for our customers."

The recent deployment is designed to be beneficial particularly for the U.S. home insurance market, which has been struggling to safeguard its investments due to the growing number of buildings destroyed by climate-related disasters and the rising costs of rebuilding homes caused by inflation. In 2023, the industry suffered a $15.2 billion net loss, the worst since 2000.

Increasingly frequent and severe weather events — such as hurricanes in the southeastern U.S. and wildfires in the West — have prompted major insurers to withdraw from high-risk states like Florida, California, and Texas. This exodus has negatively impacted property values and left homeowners with fewer, more expensive options for home and fire insurance. According to Near Space Labs, the root cause of this crisis is the gap between escalating climate risks and insurers' ability to accurately assess them.

"Many insurance companies are still relying on aerial data collection methods from the 1950s to assess 2024's climate risks," Matevosyan said in the company statement. "When you consider that only 6% of the $250 billion in losses from Hurricane Helene may be covered by insurance, it becomes clear that outdated risk assessment methods are creating a domino effect: Poor data leads to inadequate policy pricing, which leads to carrier losses, which ultimately forces insurers to abandon entire markets — leaving homeowners stranded and unable to secure mortgages."

The Swift network — which flies at altitudes between 60,000 and 85,000 feet (18,300 to 25,900 m) — can map large disaster zones in detail within hours instead of weeks, providing frequent updates that allow insurers to monitor changing conditions, assess risks more accurately and price policies appropriately, "potentially enabling them to remain in or return to markets they previously abandoned," according to the statement.

The high-resolution imagery also saves time and resources of insurers, who otherwise need to deploy people on the ground to assess property damage, Matevosyan said in an interview with Best’s Review.

"We’re looking into ways to help insurers assess things like soil moisture for wildfire risk and new, innovative ways to map areas that previously weren’t deemed high-risk areas but currently are," he said. "There are neighborhoods in Colorado that are very hard to be assessed because, suddenly, wildfires are very common there."

The space agency has commissioned five new design studies as part of its Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability (AACES) 2050 initiative. The organizations contributing to new airliner design concepts include Boeing's Aurora Flight Sciences, the aerospace company Electra, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the aviation startup JetZero and Pratt & Whitney, according to a statement from NASA.

"Through initiatives like AACES, NASA is positioned to harness a broad set of perspectives about how to further increase aircraft efficiency, reduce aviation's environmental impact and enhance U.S. technological competitiveness in the 2040s, 2050s and beyond," Bob Pearce, NASA associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said in the statement.

Awards issued to support the five NASA-funded studies total $11.5 million. Each organization brings unique expertise to designing a next-generation aircraft concept, ranging from alternative fuel sources to propulsion technologies and aerodynamic vehicle design.

Related: Airplane contrails are a tricky, and surprising, contributor to global warming

"As a leader in U.S. sustainable aviation research and development, these awards are one example of how we bring together the best ideas and most innovative concepts from the private sector, academia, research agencies and other stakeholders to pioneer the future of aviation," Pearce said in the statement.

Aurora Flight Sciences' area of study will examine alternative aviation fuels, propulsion systems, aerodynamic technologies and aircraft configurations. The Electra-led team will explore electric propulsion as well as unique aerodynamic design features for the aircraft's main body and wings that will help reduce both emissions and noise.

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers will focus on sustainability technologies, including alternative fuels, propulsion systems, and aircraft configurations, while JetZero will explore technologies that enable cryogenic liquid hydrogen to be used as a fuel source to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Pratt & Whitney's area of study will include aviation propulsion technologies, focusing on thermal and propulsive efficiency improvements to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

"The proposals selected come from a diverse set of organizations that will provide exciting and wide-ranging explorations of the scenarios, technologies, and aircraft concepts that will advance aviation towards its transformative sustainability goals," Nateri Madavan, director for NASA's Advanced Air Vehicles Program, which AACES falls under, said in the statement.

The aircraft design concepts developed through AACES could enter service within the next 25 years. By making aircraft less dependent on traditional fuel sources that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, NASA is helping to support the U.S. goal of net-zero aviation emissions by 2050. You can find additional details for each of five NASA-funded studies here.

In our DJI Mini 3 review, we called this drone an "affordable beginner option". With an extra $90 off its MSRP, it's now more affordable than ever. It's our number one choice on our guide to the best beginner drones, thanks to being easy to set up, having a fantastic camera and being lightweight and compact.

If you're looking for an upgrade or want your first drone, then, we think the DJI Mini 3 is an absolutely perfect choice. With Christmas just 3½ weeks after Black Friday, this drone could make for a perfect gift. And at its cheapest price ever, it's amongst the best drones and best drone deals we've seen so far this Black Friday.

• We're constantly checking the best prices on our Amazon Black Friday space deals page for big discounts on the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

One of the best beginner drones, the DJI Mini 3 is ideal thanks to its lightweight size. Its sub-250g size means anyone can use it for recreational purposes without legal legwork in the US, and it's also ideal for traveling around thanks to how compact it is when folded up.

It has a roughly 38-minute flight time (although if you upgrade to a 'Plus' battery you can get closer to 51 minutes). One of its most impressive features, though, is its camera. The video quality is excellent, capturing up to 4K to 30fps (and 2.7k at 60fps). There are multiple shooting options here, too, including Single Shot, Timed, Auto Exposure Bracketing (three exposures), Panorama, Sphere, 180°, Wide Angle and HDR.

You can find more great Black Friday drone deals on our hub page. And if you'd like to find out more about drones in general before making a purchase, head over to our best camera drones and best beginner drones guides.

Key features: 248g, 38 minute battery (2,453mAh), up to 12km video transmission, up to 4k video resolution.

Product launched: December 2022

Price history: The DJI Mini 3 usually retails at its full MSRP ($419), so this $90 reduction is a seriously good deal. Amazon had it for the same price but it sold out, so we'd recommend you move fast!

Price comparison: DJI Store: $329 | Walmart: $419

Reviews consensus: If you’re on a budget but would like excellent image quality, DJI reliability, ease of use and all in a small and lightweight package but can live without collision avoidance, the Mini 3 is for you. The cost savings compared to the Mini 3 Pro are significant and make this drone the most accessible in the DJI Mavic series line-up.

TechRadar: ★★★★ | Space: ★★★★ | Toms Guide: ★★★★ | T3: ★★★★

Featured in guides: Best drones, Best beginner drones

✅ Buy it if: You're new to drones but still want something that's excellent quality, compact and can record great 4K video.

❌ Don't buy it if: You're an experienced drone user who wants something seriously cutting edge.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

HTC makes some of the best VR headsets on the market, and some are in this sale. While Black Friday isn't until November 29, the brand has already launched offers on some of its models.

If you can't find what you're after here, check out our Black Friday 2024 deals page, which we update daily with all the latest discounts and offers.

The VIVE XR Elite is a VR headset we rate as the best for hybrid VR, meaning it has an excellent balance of virtual and augmented reality. The VIVE Pro 2 is simply stunning. It's the best high-res model for our money as it boasts 5k graphics, a wide field of view and it runs smoothly. VIVE are known for quality and reliability so the deals above are definitely worth considering.

While these are great savings on VIVE VR paraphernalia, keep in mind there is still time before November 29, so the discounts may change and even get better. We'll update this page with new offers, so you can see all the latest deals here.

For more deals on telescopes, cameras, binoculars, LEGO sets and more, check out our Black Friday 2024 deals page.

Grab the Canon EOS R5 for almost $1500 off the MSRP at Walmart in this early Black Friday camera deal.

We aren't sure how long this Walmart camera deal will last, so we'd recommend grabbing it now if you're looking to purchase the R5. While there isn't a 'before' price, so it isn't technically a deal, it was just on offer for this price, so it's still fantastic value. We gave it top marks because it has 8K video recording, shoots detailed 45MP stills photographs and has great handling and ergonomics.

We've also highlighted our picks of the best Black Friday space gifts at Walmart that are available now.

• We're already checking the best prices over on our Black Day space deals page and you'll find big discounts on the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

In his Canon EOS R5 review, Jacob Little said the R5 had one of the fastest autofocus systems he'd ever used, and the subject tracking was probably the best in class, with accurate face, eye and head detection. Jacob said it made portrait, sports or action photography a breeze, and the continuous focus mode makes keeping objects or people in focus a breeze, even in low-light situations.

The autofocus performance system is not the only thing the R5 has going for it. It's an outstanding camera, superbly versatile and ready to deliver quality results regardless of the photography you shoot, so you'll find the Canon EOS R5 is a more than capable performer.

Key features: 45MP full-frame dual-pixel CMOS sensor, 8K video and superb auto-focus.

Product launched: July 2020.

Price history: This is the cheapest we've seen, beats last year's Black Friday/Cyber Monday price of $2,999 and it's unlikely to get cheaper anytime soon.

Reviews consensus: The R5 features in our best cameras guide and gets top marks across our sister sites thanks to its versatile performance. It's an incredibly powerful tool for almost every kind of photography and video.

Space: ★★★★½ | Live Science: ★★★★½ | TechRadar: ★★★★½ |

Featured in guides: Best camera for photos and videos 2024

Price comparison: Amazon: $2,799| Best Buy: $2,799

✅ Buy it if: You want professional-quality photos and videos or need a versatile camera that's smaller and more nimble to shoot with.

❌ Don't buy it if: You're on a tighter budget because even with this massive discount it's still fairly costly if you're looking for a starter vlogging kit.

Alternative models: We'd recommend looking at the Nikon Z7 II, another of our top-rated cameras. Or if you are looking away from Canon or Nikon systems, the Sony A7R V is one of the best Sony cameras ever made.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

The Colorado company is working through a flight test program of the XB-1 supersonic demonstrator aircraft, which completed its most recent test flight on Nov. 5. This was the seventh out of 10 planned subsonic test flights to confirm XB-1's performance and handling qualities before attempting to reach supersonic speeds. 

During the Nov. 5 test flight, which lasted 55 minutes, XB-1 reached an altitude of 23,015 feet (7,015 meters) and a new top speed of 629 mph (1,012 kph). This means the aircraft reached Mach 0.82, marking a major milestone in its progress toward crossing the threshold of Mach 1 and breaking the sound barrier. 

"XB-1, Boom's supersonic demonstrator aircraft, continues to progress toward Mach 1," Boom Supersonic officials said in a statement releasing the results of the Nov. 5 test flight. "Flight seven focused on flutter envelope expansion and cockpit pressure testing in order to ensure safe performance and handling qualities as XB-1 approaches supersonic speeds and higher altitudes."

XB-1 took its maiden flight earlier this year, on March 22. The fastest the aircraft had traveled in prior test flights was Mach 0.69. 

During XB-1's most recent flight, flutter excitement system (FES) tests were performed at Mach 0.7, 0.75, and 0.8. Flutter tests help ensure there are no undesirable interactions between the airflow around the vehicle and the structure of the aircraft at increasing speeds, according to the statement. 

Having also reached its highest altitude yet, the team performed a final cockpit pressurization test at maximum pressure differential, demonstrating the aircraft is ready to proceed up to 30,000 ft (9,144 m) — the altitude at which XB-1 will fly when it reaches supersonic speeds, officials said. 

"XB-1 continues to perform at progressively faster speeds and higher altitudes, expanding the flight envelope gradually to prepare the aircraft and team for breaking the sound barrier at Mach 1," Boom Supersonic officials said in the statement. 

The performance of XB-1 provides the foundation for the design and development of the company's flagship project called Overture — a planned supersonic airliner aimed at making air travel much faster and more efficient. 

Starting on Oct. 30, engineers with NASA's X-59 Quesst program (Quiet SuperSonic Technology) have been conducting test runs of the jet's engines at the storied Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California.

The tests are going in phases. During the preliminary tests, engineers ran the X-59's engines at low speeds without igniting it to check for any leaks and to make sure the aircraft's various systems work together when running on the jet's own power. The X-59 team then fueled the X-59 and tested the engine on low power. So far, engineers with the program say the jet is performing well.

"The first phase of the engine tests was really a warmup to make sure that everything looked good prior to running the engine," said Jay Brandon, chief engineer for the X-59, in a NASA statement.

"Then we moved to the actual first engine start. That took the engine out of the preservation mode that it had been in since installation on the aircraft. It was the first check to see that it was operating properly and that all the systems it impacted — hydraulics, electrical system, environmental control systems, etc. — seemed to be working."

The X-59 is designed to fly at a cruising speed of Mach 1.4 (or 1.4 times faster than the speed of sound) and an altitude of 55,000 feet (16.7 kilometers). The aircraft is powered by a modified F414-GE-100 jet engine made by General Electric; the F414 engine family is used widely throughout military aircraft, including in some variants of the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet flown by the U.S. Navy. 

In fact, NASA has been using F/A-18s to simulate the sound of the X-59 and validate microphones and other acoustic sensors that will help in the jet's testing campaign. 

The X-59 was designed to fly faster than the speed of sound without creating the thunderous sonic boom that typically accompanies breaking the sound barrier. Currently, supersonic flight above land within a certain distance of the U.S. is prohibited by the FAA. NASA hopes the X-59 can validate that supersonic flight is possible without creating deafening sonic booms; if aircraft can be designed to achieve this, domestic flight times could be reduced by half, aiding not only in commercial air travel but also disaster relief and medical transport, for instance.

To help reduce the volume of its sonic booms, the X-59 features a unique geometry including an elongated, beak-like nose section that takes up 38 feet (11.5 meters) of the aircraft's 99.7-foot (30-m) total length.

Rather than a loud, ground-shaking boom, NASA says the jet should make a soft "thump" when it breaks the sound barrier, similar in volume to the sound of a car door slamming outside, as heard from indoors.

Because of the elongated nose, however, pilots flying the X-59 have limited forward vision. In fact, the cockpit does not even feature a forward-facing window or canopy, but instead has a unique "eXternal Vision System," or XVS, consisting of a camera connected to a cockpit-mounted screen that offers pilots the ability to see what's in front of them via augmented reality technology.

"This groundbreaking technology is really a beacon guiding us towards a future where visibility barriers in aircraft design can be overcome with this inventive solution," NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy said during the X-59 unveiling ceremony in January 2024.

"This isn't the end of the excitement but a small steppingstone to the beginning," said Paul Dees, deputy propulsion lead for the X-59 program, in NASA's statement.

"It's like the first note of a symphony, where years of teamwork behind the scenes are now being put to the test to prove our efforts have been effective, and the notes will continue to play a harmonious song to flight."

The next phase of testing will involve feeding data into the aircraft's computer systems for both normal and failure conditions to see how the vehicle responds. Following that, the X-59 will undergo taxi testing, where the jet will "drive" out of its hangar onto a runway to test how its control surfaces, brakes and engine perform while on the ground.

A date has not yet been set for the X-59's first flight. When it takes to the skies, the X-59 will fly over selected U.S. cities where researchers will collect data about the quieter "thumps" the Quesst makes as it flies, including how the public on the ground perceives and responds to the noise it makes.

The X-59 has undergone years of development and testing to get this far. NASA has been researching quiet supersonic technologies for decades.

NASA first got funding for the project in 2018 and, later that year, hired Lockheed Martin to build its quiet supersonic jet. The experimental aircraft got its name in 2019. NASA originally thought the X-59 could be completed by 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the aircraft's production.

The jet was finally unveiled to the public in January 2024. In May, the jet passed its Flight Readiness Review, which validated the aircraft's testing plan for safety and offered recommendations to NASA and Lockheed Martin as they prepare for the X-59's first flight.

Getting there, however, is complicated. Even if human technology reaches a point in the near future where we could create a propulsion system that could get a spaceship within 10% the speed of light (which is orders of magnitude faster than what is currently possible), a journey to a nearby star hosting a potentially habitable world could take decades or hundreds of years at best. Given these limitations, a number of scientists and science fiction authors have pondered the feasibility of something called a "generation ship." A generation ship is a hypothetical spacecraft capable of sustaining human inhabitants for multiple generations as they make the vast journey to a nearby star system.

A new design competition, dubbed Project Hyperion, is calling for submissions for the design of a crewed interstellar generation ship. The project is part of study that is aiming to provide an assessment of the feasibility of crewed interstellar flight using current and near-future technologies, and hopes to inform future research and technology development as well as informing the public about logistics and potential of interstellar travel.

Rather than focusing on the design of the propulsion system, or structural design of the ship, researchers are specifically interested in answering what an ideal space habitat architecture and social system would look like for such a journey.

For the competition, a team of at least one architectural designer, one engineer, and one social scientist is tasked with designing the habitat of a generation ship, including its architecture, and system of societal organization.

The constraints applications must adhere to are as follows:

• The duration for the hypothetical mission is 250 Earth years from launch to arrival at the destination.
• The target destination is a rocky planet with an artificial ecosystem created by a precursor probe.
• The generation ship/habitat generates Earth equivalent gravity via rotation.
• The habitat will provide atmospheric conditions similar to Earth.
• The habitat shall protect its inhabitants from radiation and possible impacts.
• The ship should be able to accommodate 1000 +-500 people over the entire trip duration.

What are some factors that designers should be mindful of? While no human has spent such long periods of time in space, science fiction authors have been exploring what types of challenges such a project could face, in addition, human beings have been living and working in space for some time. What have we learned?

• Privacy: How will the design of the ship ensure inhabitants can achieve privacy given they are going to be confined to a ship with hundreds of people?
• Mental health: How will the design of the habit mimic Earth's natural environment?
• Conflict resolution: How will the design of the habitat minimize potential conflict, and how will the social system deal with possible unethical behavior?
• Intimacy: How will the design of the ship allow for intimacy between inhabitants?
• Social Hierarchy: How will social roles be allocated/enforced?
• Connection to Earth: How will inhabitants maintain their connection to Earth?

Designs will be evaluated on their architectural considerations, such as how the living space will function for its inhabitants, as well as its aesthetic properties. They will also be evaluated on the technical details, such as how the essential physical needs of the inhabitants are met (e.g. food, water, waste recycling). And lastly they will be evaluated on their social planning, such as what cultural value system will the society adopt, and how this system will mitigate against issues the society is likely to come up against.

For more information about the specific requirements of the competition, and the competition's timeline, you can find them at ProjectHyperion.org.

Researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia developed a new satellite imaging technique that can spot plastics on beaches by measuring differences in reflected light from the debris compared to the surrounding sand, water or vegetation, according to a statement from the university.

This technique was successfully field-tested by satellites observing a remote stretch of coastline in Australia. By looking for unique spectral features in plastics, the satellites were able to accurately identify it on the beach from more than 373 miles (600 kilometers) above. In turn, this satellite technology not only improves the detection of plastic debris, but can also aid cleanup operations to support vulnerable environments, like beaches, the researchers said.

"While the impacts of these ocean plastics on the environment, fishing and tourism are well documented, methods for measuring the exact scale of the issue or targeting cleanup operations, sometimes most needed in remote locations, have been held back by technological limitations," Jenna Guffogg, lead author of the study, said in the statement.

Related: 10 devastating signs of climate change satellites can see from space

This new research builds on existing satellite technology used to detect plastics floating in the ocean. The team developed a new spectral index, called the Beached Plastic Debris Index (BPDI), to identify patterns in reflected light collected by satellites as they pass over an area and specifically spot plastics that can easily blend in with sand.

The team placed 14 pieces of various plastic types on a beach in southern Gippsland, Victoria, to test the BPDI using WorldView-3, an Earth-observing satellite operated by Maxar Technologies. Data collected by the satellite showed that the new index was more successful at differentiating plastics on the beach compared to three other existing satellite technologies, which tended to mis-classify a shadow or water as plastic, according to the statement.

"This is incredibly exciting, as up to now we have not had a tool for detecting plastics in coastal environments from space," Mariela Soto-Berelov, co-author of the study, said in the statement. "Detection is a key step needed for understanding where plastic debris is accumulating and planning cleanup operations, which aligns with several Sustainable Development Goals, such as Protecting Seas and Oceans."

Next, the team aims to use the BPDI to scan coastlines more broadly and test its ability to detect plastic debris in real-world environments. This advanced satellite imagery technique is of growing importance as more than 10 million tons of plastic trash enter Earth’s oceans every year, and is estimated to increase to 60 million tons by 2030. This plastic can endanger wildlife when it is mistaken for food, entangles or traps animals, or further degrades into micro or nano plastics, the researchers said.

"We’re looking to partner with organizations on the next step of this research," Soto-Berelov said in the statement. "This is a chance to help us protect delicate beaches from plastic waste."

Their study was published Oct. 22 in the Marine Pollution Journal.

The license, granted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 18, pertains specifically to setting up a communication network with radio ground stations on Earth, to enable commands to be sent up to Odin and data to be transmitted back to Earth.

In this case, deep space is defined by the International Telecommunications Union as being farther than 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Earth.

AstroForge's ultimate aim is to send a spacecraft to an asteroid, land on it and use an onboard refinery to mine the asteroid for precious metals. But the technology is still very much at the proof-of-concept stage.

Related: Space mining startup AstroForge aims to launch historic asteroid-landing mission in 2025

The company's first space mission, Brokkr-1, was a cubesat that launched in April 2023 and successfully reached Earth orbit. However, AstroForge mission control was unable to successfully activate the prototype refinery technology on board to demonstrate that it works in microgravity. Despite this mishap, AstroForge said on its website that the Brokkr-1 mission had been "invaluable … identifying weaknesses to resolve for our upcoming Mission 2 and providing our team with the experience of a flight campaign from concept design to on-orbit operations and all the steps in between to build, qualify and certify a vehicle for space."

Odin is the company's second space mission. Despite winning the commercial license, it hasn't all been plain sailing for the new effort. In March, the original Odin spacecraft failed a vibration test, meaning that it would be vulnerable to damage during launch. The problem, said AstroForge, was that the spacecraft's baseplate, to which propulsion tanks and thrusters are attached, contained cracks resulting from its manufacture by a third party. This forced AstroForge to make the difficult decision to dump the original Odin spacecraft and accelerate in-house development on the spacecraft for its third mission, Vestri, to be used for Odin instead.

The new Odin spacecraft is a bigger beast than Brokkr-1. Odin weighs 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and will launch as a secondary payload on Intuitive Machines' IM-2 moon mission, currently slated for blastoff in January 2025.

AstroForge has not yet said which asteroid Odin will be heading to, but the plan is for the probe to orbit the asteroid and image its surface, ahead of Vestri, for which a new spacecraft is currently being built, which will land on the asteroid. AstroForge's timeline had Vestri slated for launch in 2025 on board IM-3, but given the need to build a new spacecraft and any uncertainties in Intuitive Machines' launch date, that timeline could change.

Neither Odin nor Vestri will conduct any actual asteroid mining, but should they succeed, they will have demonstrated the key stages of reaching an asteroid and getting in position to begin mining. The actual mining and refining technology would then be demonstrated on subsequent missions.