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SpaceX successfully catches returning spacecraft booster

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For the primary time, SpaceX not only launched its giant spacecraft, but additionally returned the booster to the launch site and caught it with a pair of enormous “sticks.”

This test flight — the fifth within the Starship development program — took place Sunday morning at Starbase in southeast Texas. The nearly 400-meter-long spacecraft is at the middle of SpaceX’s stated ambitions to make life multi-planetary, but more directly concerns NASA’s ambitious Artemis campaign to return humans to the lunar surface.

SpaceX anticipates quickly reusing your entire Starship, which incorporates the upper stage (also called the Starship) and super-heavy booster, but meaning demonstrating the power to get well each stages and quickly refurbish them for future flights.

Therefore, it is smart that the first goals of the fifth flight test were twofold: attempting to “catch” the super-heavy booster on the launch site for the primary time in history, and re-entering the spacecraft heading in the right direction and splashdown within the Indian Ocean.

The latter goal has already been achieved: SpaceX performed a controlled reentry and splashdown of the spacecraft’s upper stage during its last test mission in June. But the booster clip, as the corporate put it in a blog post, could be “uniquely innovative” in rocket history.

The closest analogue currently is the routine landings of Falcon 9 rockets on autonomous barges and ground landing zones. During today’s launch, the booster slowed to a hover and gently positioned itself within the zone of two “baton” arms attached to the launch tower. These arms then closed across the booster and supported it when its engines stopped working.

The catch may be seen after about 40 minutes SpaceX video from the test. After disconnecting and catching the booster, the Starship continued to climb into orbit before crashing into the Indian Ocean and exploding (SpaceX had no plans to get well the spacecraft).

– SpaceX noted in an update posted on its website that for a capture try and occur, “thousands” of criteria needed to be met, indicating that the systems within the vehicle and on the pad were functional. That test also got here just a little sooner than expected: The Federal Aviation Administration had previously said it didn’t anticipate issuing a modified takeoff license for this test before the top of November.

This timeline deeply offended SpaceX, prompting the corporate to repeatedly highlight what it described as regulatory inefficiencies. However, on Saturday the FAA announced it had approved the launch.

“The FAA has determined that SpaceX has met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements for the suborbital test flight,” the regulator said in an announcement. It’s price noting that the authorization also includes approval for one more test flight, provided that “the changes requested by SpaceX for Flight 6 are within the scope of what has been previously analyzed,” the FAA said.

While waiting for the launch license, SpaceX engineers have been very busy: in recent months, they conducted quite a few tests on the launch tower, completely replaced the rocket’s entire thermal protection system with newer boards and a spare ablative layer, and updated the re-entry vehicle’s software. This week, engineers accomplished tests of propellant loading and tests of the launcher flooding system, whose task is to guard the launcher against the powerful fire of the 33 Raptor engines positioned on the launch pad.

The company plans to eventually move Starship’s upper stage back to the landing site as well, though we’ll need to wait to see that in future test launches.

“When each flight builds on the lessons learned from the previous flight, testing hardware and performance improvements across all aspects of Starship, we are on the cusp of demonstrating techniques critical to a Starship design that allows for full and rapid reusability,” the corporate says. “By continuing to use our equipment in the aerospace environment, and doing so as safely and frequently as possible, we will quickly bring Starship online and revolutionize humanity’s ability to access space.”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident

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Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.

In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”

Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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It’s a Raspberry Pi 5 in a keyboard and it’s called Raspberry Pi 500

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Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.

The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.

The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.

More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)

Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.

The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.

Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.

In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.

Image credits:Raspberry Pi

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Apple Vision Pro may add support for PlayStation VR controllers

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Vision Pro headset

According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.

However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.

Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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