Jeff Bezos, a man with a plan, and Lauren Sánchez, his “alive girl” of several years, are getting married. On Wednesday, they celebrated with an engagement party off the coast of beautiful Positano on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, the land of hills and Aperol spritzes. It’s a fine place to drop the anchor of one’s $500 million yacht after bopping around the Mediterranean for months. You can say a lot of things about Jeff Bezos, but you can’t accuse him of neglecting his shiny new toy. He and Sanchez have been using that yacht.
The engagement celebration on the top deck was “intimate” according to Page Six. Just Bill Gates, his girlfriend, Paula Hurd,Wendi Murdoch, a handful of other notable names, and presumably 30 to 40 staff, or however many Bezos employs to keep the lights on and the boat floating. A small gathering on the new whip checks out for the couple, who reportedly began dating before Bezos’s marriage to his first wife, the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, was over. But I’d really love to know one thing: What does one man whose name is synonymous with a magnificent fortune give another on the occasion of his engagement? Bezos already has a yacht. He already has a small boat, the purpose of which is to carry people from land to the big boat. He has a newspaper and a whole company that builds and launches rockets! It launches rockets into space!
I think we can assume that Bezos and Sánchez already have glassware that says “Mrs.” and “Mr.” They already have an ice bucket with their initials on it. They can’t eat anymore of those damn delicious Harry & David pears. So maybe Gates got a little creative. Maybe he gave Bezos his tabloid-photographed image. The paparazzi got close-up shots of Gates and his date, and yet, we have no idea what Bezos and Sanchez wore to their own party. Perhaps Gates sacrificed his own exposure for that of his peer. It would certainly be thoughtful.
It looks like it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Jeff Bezos this summer — and we’re not just talking about his 500-foot mega sailing yacht.
Per a new report from CNBC, a rocket engine from the Blue Origin fleet, Bezos’ space exploration and tourism company, blew up during testing last month.
The BE-4 engine reportedly exploded about 10 seconds into its test, according to “people familiar with the matter,” who noted that they viewed footage showing a massive explosion.
The test occurred on June 30 at Blue Origin’s West Texas facility.
A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches from Launch Site One in West Texas north of Van Horn on March 31, 2022 (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
“No personnel were injured, and we are currently assessing root cause,” Blue Origin representatives said in a statement to CNBC.
Company personnel also said they “have proximate cause and are working on remedial actions” for the rocket engine, which was set to fly on the Vulcan Centaur’s second launch (it had already been pushed back from its original May 4 debut date).
The same engines are also used on Blue Origin’s “New Glenn” rocket, named after famed astronaut John Glenn.
The Vulcan Centaur is owned by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a customer of Blue Origin. ULA’s president and CEO Tony Bruno confirmed the failure Tuesday on Twitter.
Sure. Every engine, elex box, COPV, etc, gets an Acceptance Test (ATP) as they come off the line to verify good workmanship. (The one time Qual verifies the design. BE4 is qualified). The BE4’s on Cert1 have passed ATP, as have many others. This engine failed ATP. https://t.co/2n73TwlTa8
A regular Jane celebrating a personal renaissance after a long-term relationship might commemorate the new era with an ankle tattoo of a spiritual saying. When you’re a billionaire, you could do it instead with a $500 million megayacht.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made waves in May riding around the roughly 127-meter “Koru,” a Māori term that may signify a fresh start, with his reported fiancée Lauren Sanchez. (In 2019, Bezos finalized his divorce from MacKenzie Scott, whom he was married to for 25 years).
Tech billionaires like Bezos, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, and Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have all purchased their own mini vacation hubs at sea, decking their boats with amenities like gyms, spas, pools, nightclubs, and movie theaters.
For those wishing to experience life aboard these multi-million-dollar yachts, some are available to rent out for a few nights or weeks at a time. Late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s yacht can be booked for $2.2 million per week or more, according Bloomberg.
Chartering yachts owned by billionaires like Alphabet cofounder Sergey Brin has previously cost customers anywhere from $773,000 a week to $1.2 million.
Take a look at some of the yachts that have been owned by tech billionaires.
A mystery buyer bought a 414-foot superyacht that was once owned by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen for $278 million. Allen had the boat, which was named “Octopus,” built in 2003 for $200 million. Since the tech billionaire’s death in 2018, the boat had been listed for as much as $325 million.
Octopus in Canary Wharf, London, in 2012. Ki Price/Reuters Source: SuperYacht Times
The wealthy can book the yacht for a weekly rate of $2.2 million or more, through the luxury company Camper & Nicholsons, Bloomberg reported last year.
414ft luxury yacht ‘Octopus’ owned by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, is moored to fuel up at Ege Ports in Kusadasi district of Aydin, Turkey on April 27, 2015. Ibrahim Uzun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Amazon founder Bezos’ $500 million megayacht, the roughly 127-meter “Koru,” sparked attention in May for its artistic decor. A sculpture of a woman on the boat appeared to observers to be the likeness of Bezos’ reported fiancée Sanchez, who was also seen that month on the yacht sporting a large ring.
Jeff Bezos was spotted aboard his megayacht “Koru” in May. Lift Aircraft.
Even before its completion, “Koru” drew the ire of Dutch people vowing to hurl eggs at the boat if it would require a historic bridge in Rotterdam to be taken apart to let it through. An egg crisis was averted however, as the company making the ship found a less-irksome alternative.
View of the Koningshaven Bridge, known as De Hef in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Peter Dejong/AP
Bezos has long been interested in yachts. In 2019, he was spotted aboard entertainment mogul David Geffen’s superyacht.
David Geffen’s superyacht Flickr via BI
Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison owns a 288-foot yacht named Musashi that he acquired in 2013. The yacht has several amenities, including an elevator, swimming pool, movie theater, and both an indoor and outdoor gym.
The Oracle cofounder also has a knack for competitive yacht racing, and helped to found and back a racing team, called Oracle Team USA, in 2000. The team has found success and won several prestigious titles over the years.
Xaume Olleros/Getty Images Sport Source: Telegraph
Ellison previously owned a bigger, 454-foot yacht called Rising Sun, which was designed specifically for the CEO in 2005. That yacht reportedly has 82 rooms, a movie theater, a wine cellar, and a basketball court. However, Ellison sold off the Rising Sun to Geffen for a reported $300 million.
Ellison’s boat, Musashi, is a sister ship to the yacht of another billionaire, former Sears CEO Eddie Lampert. However, the yacht, named Fountainhead, is often mistaken for belonging to billionaire investor Mark Cuban. “The guy who owns the boat tells everyone that it’s mine,” Cuban told Page Six in 2016. “It’s so crazy … I don’t even own a boat.”
Ellison’s yacht reportedly influenced the decision of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs to get a boat himself. However, Jobs never set foot on the boat — the yacht was commissioned in 2008, but wasn’t completed until 2012, a year after his death.
When Jobs died in 2011, his yacht — along with his $14.1 billion fortune — was inherited by his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president of a social-impact nonprofit called the Emerson Collective. The 256-foot yacht is named Venus, and is worth $130 million.
Google’s billionaire cofounders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are known to splurge. An Insider feature in December documented some of the trappings of their luxury, including planes and yachts.
Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page. Getty / Michael Nagle
Page owned a yacht named Senses, a $45 million, 194-foot boat that he bought in 2011 from a New Zealand businessman. He’s since sold the yacht, Insider reported in 2021, a vessel that had a private beach club with a Jacuzzi and sun beds, both indoor and outdoor dining areas, and a helicopter pad. It’s unclear what other sea vessels he owns, though Insider has previously reported he might have another yacht.
Dragonfly, the $80 million boat that has a movie-theater, shares a name with Google’s once-secret project to launch a censored search engine in China. Google said in 2019 it had officially terminated the project.
Eric Risberg/Associated Press Source: Insider, Forbes.
The former Google CEO picked up the Alfa Nero yacht for nearly $68 million in an auction in June, according to a Bloomberg report. The yacht had apparently been left amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to the report.
Eric Schmidt REUTERS/Brian Snyder Source: Bloomberg.
For Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom, his interest in yachts skews toward racing and competitive sailing. Zennstrom has gone through a succession of boats all named Ran.
Co-Founder and CEO of Skype Technologies, United Kingdom Niklas Zennstroem listens during a plenary entitled ‘Digital 2.0:Powering a Creative Economy’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, AP Photo/Michel Euler
The Ran VII yacht is among the most advanced of Zennstrom’s boats. The racing yacht uses electrical power, which Zennstrom has said makes it “lighter, less drag, quieter, and most importantly it is environmentally friendly.”
The 40-foot yacht has been meant to compete in regattas through the racing team owned by Zennstrom and his wife, Catherine. The Ran racing team launched in 2008, and has won some prestigious regattas.
Barry Diller, chairman of digital media company IAC, co-owns a $70 million yacht with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg.
Diane von Furstenberg, left, and Barry Diller. Scott Olson/Getty Images Source: Business Insider
The sailing yacht, named Eos, is 350 feet long with six bedrooms. The power couple has hosted many celebrities over the years — a few that have been spotted aboard Eos include model Karlie Kloss, actor Bradley Cooper, journalist Anderson Cooper, and singer Harry Styles.
For Jim Clark, the cofounder of Netscape, one yacht hasn’t been enough. Clark has owned boats for more than 30 years, and in 2012, he put up two of his sailing yachts for sale.
Jim Clark, right. Cameron Spencer/Getty Images Source: Business Insider
Clark listed the boats for a combined $113 million: the 136-foot Hanuman for $18 million, and the 295-foot Athena for $95 million. However, Clark has yet to offload Athena. Clark also previously owned a 155-foot yacht named Hyperion, and currently also owns a sloop called Hanuman.
Charles Simonyi worked at Microsoft until 2002, and oversaw the creation of Microsoft Office software. A few years before he left, Simonyi decided to purchase a yacht. He told the designer that wanted his yacht to be “home away from [his] home in Seattle.”
The product of that conversation in 1999 is Simonyi’s yacht named Skat, meaning “treasure” in Danish. The yacht measures 233 feet long, and is unique with its nontraditional design and gray color. Skat features a matching gray helicopter, a gym, and motorcycles.
Opulent British billionaire Richard Branson owned a yacht until he sold it in September 2018. The 105-foot catamaran sold for $3 million, significantly lower than the $9.6 million price Branson listed the boat for in 2014.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic launched its first commercial space flight Thursday, sending three Italian researchers, two company pilots and an astronaut trainer on a high-speed thrill ride to the edge of space aboard a winged rocketplane.
Cheered on by Virgin employees, family members and friends gathered at Spaceport America in New Mexico, the twin-fuselage VMS Eve carrier jet took off around 10:30 a.m. EDT, carrying the company’s VSS Unity spaceplane and its six passengers up to an altitude of about 45,000 feet.
After final checks, clamps opened and Unity detached from Eve’s mid-wing attachment mechanism at 11:28 a.m.
Seconds later, the spacecraft’s hybrid rocket motor ignited with a rush of flame, instantly propelling Unity up and out of the lower atmosphere on a near-vertical trajectory. Cameras mounted on the hull of the ship showed the Earth dropping away and the sky changing to deep black as the ship gained altitude.
Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane launched with its first commercial crew aboard on June 28, 2023.
Virgin Galactic
One minute later, now traveling 2.8 times the speed of sound at an altitude of 136,000 feet, the rocket motor shut down, leaving the six crew members weightless as Unity coasted up to an altitude of 51.8 miles, just above the somewhat arbitrary 50-mile-high “boundary” between space and the discernible atmosphere.
Along the way, veteran pilot Mike Masucci and rookie co-pilot Nicola Pecile “feathered” the ship’s wings, folding the swept-back wing-tip fins up about 60 degrees in a unique procedure invented by legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan to minimize heating and speeds during re-entry.
In the meantime, Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi and Pantaleone Carlucci, representing Italy’s National Research Council, began carrying out or monitoring 13 experiments designed to collect data about the effects of weightlessness on themselves and a variety of technological processes.
Amid switch throws and experiment activations, Villadei took a moment to unfurl an Italian flag as he floated above his crewmates.
The researchers were assisted by Colin Bennett, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut trainer. It was the company’s sixth piloted sub-orbital space flight and the first to carry paying customers, a milestone that has taken the company more than a decade longer than expected to achieve.
Meet the crew from the @ItalianAirForce & @CNRSocial_. On June 29, they will take-off to conduct more than a dozen experiments in space, which will examine how microgravity effects the human body and other materials. Learn more about their roles and sign… pic.twitter.com/1CKq2FTKtn
As with all such sub-orbital flights, the crew only had about three minutes of weightlessness as the ship arced over the top of its trajectory and began falling back to Earth, weightlessness giving way to increasing “G” loads as the vehicle rapidly slowed during re-entry.
Finally, back in the dense lower atmosphere, Unity’s two wings rotated back down to their normal positions and the pilots manually flew the spaceplane through a spiraling glide to landing on Spaceport America’s 12,000-foot-long runway. Total time between Unity’s air launch and landing: just under 14 minutes.
Virgin has now launched 25 people to the edge of space, several of them more than once, including Masucci, making his fourth flight, and Bennett, making his second. Arch rival Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has launched 32 people on six sub-orbital spaceflights using its more traditional New Shepard booster and capsule.
The competition between the two companies in the space tourism marketplace has been fierce.
Virgin’s first space flight came in 2018 when two company pilots flew Unity to an altitude of 51 miles. That initial launch to space came four years after a catastrophic test flight that destroyed Virgin’s original spaceplane, killed the co-pilot and seriously injured the pilot when the feather mechanism was unlocked earlier than planned.
After addressing that issue, Virgin launched four successful test flights in a row before standing down for two years to upgrade the Eve carrier jet and carry out more modifications. A fifth successful test flight on May 25 cleared the way for Thursday’s launch.
Blue Origin, meanwhile, began commercial operations in 2021. But the company’s most recent launch in September 2022, an uncrewed research flight, experienced a booster malfunction and while the capsule’s abort system operated as planned and the ship landed successfully, launches currently are on hold.
The six-member crew of Blue Origin’s fifth flight in June 2022 included Hamish Harding, a billionaire pilot and explorer who was killed along with four others when the submersible Titan imploded June 18 during a commercial dive to view the wreckage of the Titanic. The mishap has raised fresh questions about the risks of private ventures into inherently dangerous environments.
Commercial spaceflight is monitored by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is responsible for licensing and ensuring minimal risk to the public. But legislation forbids the FAA from regulating crew safety procedures during a so-called “learning period” as as the commercial space market matures. Instead, passengers must provide “informed consent” that they understand the risks.
That learning period expires October 1, and the FAA is considering steps it might take if Congress does not extend the deadline.
“This includes the establishment of an Aerospace Rulemaking Committee to provide recommendations on the scope and costs of future regulations,” the FAA said in a statement. “The FAA also is updating its recommended practices for human spaceflight occupant safety and is working with international organizations to develop voluntary consensus standards.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Photographer: Thorsten Wagner/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued Amazon, alleging the nation’s dominant online retailer intentionally duped millions of consumers into signing up for its mainstay Prime program and “sabotaged” their attempts to cancel.
The agency claims Amazon violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act by using so-called dark patterns, or deceptive design tactics meant to steer users toward a specific choice, to push consumers to enroll in Prime without their consent.
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.
Amazon spokesperson Heather Layman said in a statement that the FTC’s claims are “false on the facts and the law.”
“The truth is that customers love Prime, and by design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership,” Layman said. “As with all our products and services, we continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience, and we look forward to the facts becoming clear as this case plays out.”
The company’s shares were flat in afternoon trading.
The FTC had been investigating sign-up and cancellation processes for Amazon’s Prime program since March 2021. Tensions flared between Amazon and the FTC when the agency sought to have CEO Andy Jassy and founder Jeff Bezos testify on the company’s Prime practices. Amazon argued the request would be unduly and burdensome, which the FTC rejected.
Launched in 2005, the Prime program has grown to become one of the most popular subscription services in the world, with more than 200 million members globally, and it has generated billions of dollars for Amazon. Membership costs $139 a year and includes perks like free shipping and access to streaming content.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, accuses Amazon leadership of slowing or rejecting changes that would have made it easier for users to cancel Prime because those changes “adversely affected Amazon’s bottom line.”
Amazon made it difficult for consumers to buy items on its site without Prime, and a button that instructed users to complete their transaction did not clearly state that they were also agreeing to join Prime for a recurring subscription, the complaint states.
The cancellation process is also difficult to navigate and designed to deter consumers from ending their Prime subscription, the FTC alleged. Amazon used an internal term called “Iliad” to describe the process, referencing Homer’s epic poem about the Trojan War, the agency said, citing a report by Insider.
The complaint marks the third lawsuit the FTC has filed against Amazon in the last month. Amazon in late May agreed to pay the agency more than $30 million to settle cases alleging privacy lapses in its Alexa and Ring units. The company said it disagreed with the FTC’s claims but that it settled in order to move on from the matter.
SpaceX launched a powerful Indonesian communications satellite Sunday, the linchpin in a $550 million project to provide high-speed internet access to schools, medical centers and thousands of public and government facilities across the island nation.
Using a first stage making its 12th flight, the Falcon 9 rocket roared to life at 6:21 p.m. EDT and shot away from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, arcing to the east over the Atlantic Ocean and quickly disappearing from view.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 blasts off on a Father’s Day flight to put a powerful Indonesian communications satellite into orbit, boosting broadband access across thousands of islands in the vast archipelago.
William Harwood/CBS News
After jettisoning the first stage, which flew itself to a pinpoint landing on an offshore droneship, the second stage’s single engine fired twice to reach the planned elliptical deploy orbit, releasing the 10,100-pound SATRIA satellite to fly on its own about 37 minutes after launch.
Built by Thales Alenia Space, the satellite will use onboard ion thrusters to circularize its orbit at an altitude of 22,300 miles above the equator at 126 degrees east longitude.
Satellites at that geosynchronous altitude take 24 hours to complete one orbit, rotating in lockstep with Earth to appear stationary in the sky. That allows the use of fixed antennas on the ground, greatly simplifying the infrastructure needed to send and receive data.
SATRIA is a public-private project between the government of Indonesia and a consortium led by satellite operator PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara, or PSN.
The SATRIA satellite drifts away from the Falcon 9’s second stage after successfully reaching orbit. After its solar arrays are deployed, the five-ton spacecraft will use electric ion thrusters to reach its final orbit 22,300 miles above the equator over Indonesia.
SpaceX
With a throughput of 150 gigabytes per second, SATRIA will connect some 94,000 schools, nearly 50,000 village offices, other government facilities and thousands of hospitals and medical facilities across the vast archipelago, the fourth most populous country in the world.
Going into Sunday’s launch, Indonesia relied on five domestic communications satellites and and four “foreign” relay stations with a combined 50 gigabytes of telecommunications bandwith.
“With a capacity of 150 Gbps, (SATRIA) can provide more than three times the combined national capacities that are currently in use,” Adi Rahman Adiwoso, chief executive officer of PSN, was quoted by SpaceTechAsia. “We are confident that SATRIA can be the solution to the digital gap that still exists in Indonesia.”
The satellite is designed to operate for at least 15 years.
Sunday’s launch was SpaceX’s 41st Falcon-family flight so far this year, the fifth this month and the company’s 245th overall, including five Falcon 1 rockets, six Falcon Heavies and one Super Heavy-Starship.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Jeff Bezos’ $500 million superyacht has been making waves (and not just in the ocean) since the public learned of its controversial riff with the Dutch shipyard where it was being built and its over-the-top amenities and features.
Now in sailing shape, photos of Bezos cruising through the Italian Riviera with his fiancé Lauren Sanchez hit the internet on Wednesday, showing the billionaire dotingly playing the role of “Instagram Fiancé” as he snapped photos of Sanchez to get the perfect shot.
Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos on the Koru sailing yacht on June 12, 2023, in Portofino, Italy (Getty Images)
Bezos named the vessel Koru, which is the name of a spiral shape based on the appearance of a new “unfurling silver fern frond.” In Māori culture, the symbol symbolizes new life, growth, strength, and peace.
A figure of a woman’s body is also emblazoned on the front of the boat, which eagle-eyed Bezos fans have noticed bares an uncanny resemblance to Sanchez. Bezos has not confirmed nor denied the speculation.
The boat is roughly 417 feet long and reportedly the largest sailing yacht in the world.
Bezos’ sailing yacht “Koru” sails through the Mediterranean off the coast of Ibiza (Getty Images)
In the sculpture, the woman figure is wearing a necklace with the Koru symbol.
Bezos’ net worth as of Wednesday afternoon was an estimated $151 billion.
You may have heard that Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos are engaged. That’s right, the helicopter pilot and a billionaire have graduated to a new stage of their relationship after five years together. It’s been a long time coming. Bezos and his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott and Sanchez and her ex-husband Patrick Whitesellseparated before their respective, official splits in 2019. They’ve been together ever since.
It’s an auspicious time for the couple. Bezos’s space flight company, Blue Origin, won a NASA contract; the company will provide a lander for the agency’s 2029 mission to the moon. And currently Bezos and Sanchez are yachting while engaged, also an important next step of every couple’s long-term development. Seriously, if you are in it for the long haul, do not skip this part! The repercussions for your relationship could be disastrous without the sacrosanct step of yachting in Mallorcan waters on your estimated $500 million boat that has a figurehead made in the image of your beloved fiancée.
The couple arrived in Spain on May 15, according to reports, but examine paparazzi photos from May 17 and they reveal that Sanchez managed to keep their engagement quiet. How? She used the age-old technique of turning the enormous rock portion of the ring toward the palm of her hand. A band is much harder to see than what appears to be, according to one diamond expert, “a spectacular cushion-cut diamond in the 25–30 carat range set in an ultra-classic four-prong platinum mounting.” This worked for several days. Though it was rumored that she was wearing an engagement ring while out, the paps couldn’t get a straightforward photo. An anonymous source finally confirmed it to Page Six on May 22, and she began wearing the diamond ring out while in Cannes for the film festival this week.
These advanced strategies of subterfuge will certainly come in handy when married to one of the wealthiest men on earth. The public will be fascinated by the highs, lows, and everything in between as they make their way down the aisle. That she has a keen sense of what it takes to protect one’s privacy is just one more sign that they were meant for each other. And Bezos appears to put some stock in signs and symbols. He’s named his big ship Koru, Maori for “loop or coil” that signifies “new beginnings,” and proposed to Sanchez in time for one of its first voyages. According to experts, marriages are 4,000% more likely to last if they begin with taking one’s superyacht for a whirl. 4,100% if the figurehead on the boat is an exact replica of one half of the couple’s face and body. The odds are in their favor.
It is yacht season, a time of year that occurs whenever or wherever there is nice weather for yachting on one’s yacht. What are the activities of yacht season? Well, if one is a billionaire or friends with one, dining, swimming, lounging, tanning, and feeling the ocean breeze through your hair. But for those landlubbers destined to only ever look at yachts through a screen, the activity of yacht season is mainly looking at photos of the yachters on their yachts while comparing the billionaires’ big boats.
Roman Abramovich’s yacht Eclipse has a mini submarine on board and two helipads. Bernard Arnault’s yacht has a grand piano and a cinema. Jeff Bezos’s new yacht also has a name—Koru—and has three large masts, making it a sailing schooner that harkens back to the golden age of seafaring (though, at 417 feet, way bigger than those boats generally were). It’s the Renaissance fair of the seas.
And no Dutch-built yacht would be complete without a Valkyrie at its prow. The one on Koru looks a helluva lot like Lauren Sanchez, his girlfriend. Bezos has not commented on his ship to the press, so whether the figurehead is explicitly based on Sanchez’s visage and body is simply conjecture. Here, for example, is the Daily Mail conjecturing: “curvaceous winged GODDESS…bears striking resemblance to none other than…Ms. Sanchez!”
And here is the original Lauren Sanchez:
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Some people’s love language is words of affirmation. Some prefer giving gifts. Still more people’s love language is building hyperrealistic shrines to your love on your big, huge, reportedly half-a-billion-dollar yacht. All are valid ways of expressing devotion.
Besides a lifelike statue of his girlfriend, Bezos’s yacht has an on-deck pool as well as a pet yacht—that is, a smaller dinghy (only 246 feet) that provides a helipad and storage for “toys,” and follows the big yacht around, according to The New York Times. Koru has been under construction for years, but Bezos’s yacht was first spotted sailing in the seas of Spain’s Mallorca on Monday. The couple were photographed on board in their swim trunks, enjoying the fruits of their patience.
Rocket Lab launched two toaster-size satellites for NASA on Sunday, the first of four “cubesats” designed to provide hourly updates of typhoon and hurricane development in a bid to improve forecasting and provide new insights into how tropical storms evolve and intensify.
An Electron rocket blasts off from Rocket Lab’s picturesque Mahia, New Zealand, launch site, carrying two small NASA satellites designed to monitor tropical storm development.
Rocket Lab
“The threat to our friends and neighbors is real and repeats every year,” said Ben Kim, a program executive with NASA’s Earth Science Division. The TROPICS mission, he said, “aims to improve our scientific understanding by obtaining microwave observations that allow us to see the inner structure of these storms approximately hourly.
“These observations will complement the existing weather satellites, and ultimately then can be tied to the broader understanding of the entire earth system.”
TROPICS, one of NASA’s more convoluted acronyms, stands for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats. The bargain-basement $30 million mission takes advantage of miniaturized electronics and the evolution of cubesats capable of taking on big-ticket science.
The cubesats aren’t intended to replace larger, much more powerful and much more expensive weather satellites. But they offer a low-cost way to augment those “flagship” missions with complementary science and much shorter development times
“We utilize a balanced mission portfolio that ranges from the really large observatories, like Landsat 9 at around 6,000 pounds, down to the very smallest of satellites like TROPICS at around 12 pounds,” Kim said.
“This mix within our portfolio allows us to maximize the science per taxpayer dollar, and thus do more science than if we only focus on the large missions.”
The first two of six planned TROPICS cubesats were lost last year when their Astra rocket failed during the climb to space. NASA then moved the four remaining cubesats to Rocket Lab’s more reliable Electron in order to get them into orbit in time for this year’s tropical storm season.
Running about a week late because of stormy weather, the first of the two remaining missions got off to a picture-perfect start at 9 p.m. EDT Sunday with launch from Rocket Lab’s picturesque Mahia, New Zealand, launch site.
An artist’s impression of a NASA TROPICS satellite studying a tropical storm from orbit. Four such satellites will enable hourly passes over developing storms to help scientists learn more about how storms develop and evolve.
NASA
The 59-foot-tall carbon-composite rocket’s nine 3D-printed Rutherford engines pushed the booster out of the lower atmosphere before falling away and handing off to the rocket’s second stage, which put the craft into an initial parking orbit nine-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.
A third “kick” stage then finished the job, releasing TROPICS 3 and 4 to fly on their own about 33 minutes after launch. It was Rocket Lab’s 36th Electron launch and its 16th successful flight in a row.
If all goes well, Rocket Lab will launch TROPICS 5 and 6 before the end of the month to complete a four-satellite constellation. All four satellites will operate in 341-mile-high orbits carrying them about 30 degrees to either side of the equator, ideal for “revisit” observations of developing storms on an hourly basis.
William Blackwell, the TROPICS principal investigator at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, said getting microwave observations of growing storms, at the rapid revisit rates the cubesats provide, is critical to understanding the development and behavior of tropical storms. . “We’ve been making (such observations) for 40 years from space, but the thing that has eluded us is this ability to capture the dynamics of the storm,” he said. “So this new hourly cadence that we’ll get with the constellation is really going to push us forward in terms of what the observations are able to do to explain how things are changing in the storm.”
The observations, in concert with data collected by larger, more powerful weather satellites, are expected to “improve understanding of the basic processes that drive the storms and ultimately improve our ability to forecast track and intensity.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
After multiple delays for weather and technical issues, SpaceX finally launched a Falcon Heavy rocket Sunday carrying a competitor’s internet satellite, the first of three next-generation data relay stations capable of terabyte-per-second performance.
After a final hour-long delay because of gusty winds, SpaceX’s most powerful operational rocket flashed to life at 8:26 p.m. EDT and climbed away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center atop more than 5 million pounds of thrust.
SpaceX launched its sixth Falcon Heavy rocket Sunday, using the company’s most powerful operational booster to put a third-generation ViaSat internet satellite into orbit along with two smaller hitchhiker satellites.
William Harwood/CBS News
Powered by 27 Merlin engines in three strapped-together Falcon 9 first stage boosters, the Falcon Heavy quickly accelerated as it consumed its kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants and lost weight. After initially climbing straight up, the rocket arced over on an easterly trajectory, putting on a spectacular early-evening show for area residents and tourists.
SpaceX normally recovers first stage boosters for refurbishment and reuse, but all of the available propellant was needed Sunday to boost the 13,000-pound ViaSat-3 satellite into its planned orbit.
As a result, all three core stages were discarded to fall into the ocean more than 50 miles below after pushing the rocket out of the lower atmosphere.
The single engine powering the Falcon Heavy’s upper stage shut down eight minutes after launch, putting the vehicle in an initial parking orbit. Two more firings were planned over the next three hours and 44 minutes to get the satellite into the planned geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the equator.
A close-up view of launch from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
SpaceX
Sunday’s flight capped an intense few days for SpaceX, which launched 46 of its own low-altitude Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday. The company then launched two medium-altitude broadband satellites for Luxembourg-based SES from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Friday.
All three launchings highlight the ongoing race to deploy space-based internet relay stations to provide broadband access to customers anywhere in the world, including rural, hard-to-reach or under-served areas, as well as aircraft and ships at sea.
The Starlink satellites are part of a fast-growing constellation of small, low-altitude laser-linked satellites designed, built and operated by SpaceX to provide high-speed, low-latency internet to users anywhere in the world.
Thousands of Starlinks are required to ensure that multiple fast-moving satellites are above a user’s horizon at any given moment to provide uninterrupted service. The satellites receive user inputs, and send those to nearby Starlinks for relay to “gateway” ground stations connected to high-speed data lines. Responses are then passed along back to the user.
An artist’s impression of a ViaSat-3 internet relay satellite in orbit, with its huge mesh antenna deployed to enable high-speed data transfers.
ViaSat
ViaSat is taking a different approach, stationing satellites in 22,300 mile-high-orbits above the equator where they rotate in lockstep with the planet below and thus appear stationary in the sky. Three such ViaSat-3 satellites are planned to provide global space-based internet access on hemispheric scales.
The powerful satellites are equipped with huge solar panels generating 25 kilowatts of power and stretching 144 feet from tip to tip when fully unfolded.
Capable of handling up to 1 terabyte of data per second, the satellites are equipped with the largest dish antenna ever launched on a commercial satellite. Once on station, the huge mesh reflector will unfold atop an 80- to 90-foot-long telescoping boom based on technology developed for the James Webb Space Telescope.
If all goes well, the first ViaSat-3 will provide internet access to customers in the Western Hemisphere starting this summer. Two more satellites, covering Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, are expected to launch over the next two years.
“If you are a low-Earth orbit (provider), by definition, in order to stay up in orbit, you’re going to be screaming across the sky fairly fast. So your terminal on the ground has to be more complicated … and more expensive,” David Ryan, president of space and commercial networks at ViaSat, told CBS News.
“The other advantage of geosynchronous orbit is that you can see a third of the Earth with one satellite. So with one launch, one satellite, you potentially can connect to a third of the Earth. And that’s the principle behind ViaSat-3.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
SpaceX fired off two SES broadband communications satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday atop a Falcon 9 rocket, and then tried to launch a ViaSat internet relay station from the nearby Kennedy Space Center aboard a triple-core Falcon Heavy booster. However, a last-minute glitch triggered a frustrating abort at the end of the launch window.
SpaceX tweeted that the ViaSat payload, and the rocket — the company’s most powerful operational booster — were healthy and that another launch opportunity was available Saturday. But no details were provided, and it wasn’t immediately known if whatever went wrong could be fixed in time to permit a 24-hour turnaround.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying two broadband relay satellites, the third and fourth launched by the California rocket builder for Luxembourg-based SES.
SpaceX
The scrub capped an especially busy day in space, with the first launch coming just two hours after NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen and United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi completed a 7-hour and one-minute spacewalk outside the International Space Station to make preparations for installation of roll-out solar blankets in June to augment the lab’s aging power system.
The spacewalkers also tried to bring in a degraded communications antenna back to Earth for refurbishment, but they were foiled by a jammed bolt and were forced to leave it in place to await another attempt on a future spacewalk. It was the eighth spacewalk for Bowen, who now ranks 10th on the list of most experienced spacewalkers, and the first for Alneyadi.
“Sultan, you’ve now entered an exclusive club of humans who have stepped out into the void of space and in doing so, you’ve marked a milestone for the United Arab Emirates,” astronaut Anne McClain radioed from mission control in Houston. “Congratulations to you both.”
Astronauts Stephen Bowen, left, and United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, right, are seen after a failed attempt to retrieve a degraded 145-pound antenna assembly, center, for return to Earth, refurbishment and relaunch. A stuck bolt prevented the unit’s removal from a stowage platform. NASA likely will make another attempt during a future spacewalk.
NASA
Alneyadi, the first Arab astronaut to make both a long-duration flight aboard the ISS and a spacewalk, thanked NASA and the leadership of both countries for the opportunity, saying “it’s a great moment for the UAE.”
“It might be a first in the Arab world, but it definitely won’t be the last,” he said. “We have astronauts under training now to undergo missions to the ISS, to the lunar surface and to Mars. I would like to thank everone who helped getting us to this moment.”
Back on Earth, SpaceX was in the midst of gearing up for a dramatic doubleheader, and what would have been the shortest time between two orbit-class launches since 1966. It also would have been the company’s second and third launches in just two days.
SpaceX tried to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket Friday evening, but a last-minute abort foiled the company’s attempt to launch two rockets within a little more than two hours of each other, the shortest time between two orbit-class launches since 1966. But it was not to be.
SpaceX
On Thursday, a Falcon 9 boosted 46 Starlink internet satellites into space from California, but stormy weather in Florida blocked an attempt to get the Falcon Heavy off the ground carrying the first of three ViaSat broadband relay stations.
Despite another gloomy forecast, the ViaSat launch was reset for Friday, shortly after another Falcon 9 launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to put the two SES 03b mPOWER medium-altitude internet satellites into orbit.
That flight got off the ground at 6:12 p.m. EDT using a first stage making its second flight. Two hours later, the two SES satellites were released to fly on their own as another SpaceX team was fueling the Falcon Heavy for liftoff at 8:26 p.m. SpaceX had hoped to launch the Heavy at 7:29 p.m., but the flight was re-targeted for the end of the launch window because of weather.
Everything appeared to be going smoothly as the countdown ticked into its final minutes. Then, at T-minus 59 seconds, when the rocket’s flight computer began final checks, the clock stopped and the countdown was aborted. SpaceX provided no immediate explanation, other than to say another launch opportunity was available Saturday.
Thursday’s Starlink launch, the SES flight Friday and the eventual launch of ViaSat’s third-generation satellites, highlight the ongoing competition to deploy internet relay stations in space to provide broadband access to customers anywhere in the world, including rural, hard-to-reach or under-served areas, as well as aircraft and ships at sea that cannot be serviced by traditional suppliers.
The satellites illustrate the different architectures being employed, from multi-thousand satellite constellations in low-Earth orbit like SpaceX’s Starlink initiative — 4,284 Starlinks have been launched to date — to ViaSat’s plan to launch a handful of much more powerful, high-altitude satellites that can provide broadband access on hemispheric scales.
How those competing architectures will play out is anyone’s guess, but the rush to stake out a claim on that high frontier is heating up.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
The long-awaited, blood-soaked Dead Island 2 released today, and after almost a decade of waiting, I’m sure you have some questions. The game shares a peacefully embarrassing sense of humor with the first game, 2011’s Dead Island, repeatedly referring to your threatening surroundings as “Hell-A” while being gory enough to actually justify the zombified dad joke, but it’s also changed in important ways. Skill cards make their first appearance, and playing on modern consoles comes with its own idiosyncrasies.
This New Series Completes Studio MAPPA’s Dark Trilogy
The unknown is scary. But I’ll guide you through it, and tell you everything I wish someone told me before I started playing Dead Island 2.
How to unlock co-op
Dead Island 2, like the original, employs co-op, so that players can wield an array of unique playable characters—six, in this case—against a neverending onslaught of zombies with dislocated jaws.
To activate co-op in a new game, play through the first three missions of the main story. Co-op unlocks in the fourth, appropriately named “Call the Cavalry,” and you’ll be able to add, at most, two players to your game by choosing either “online options” or “social” when prompted.
Once co-op is enabled, as long as they’re at the same point in the game or earlier, you can accept a friend’s request to join their game, or you can select “Join” from the main menu for a random multiplayer pairing. Quest progress saves in co-op, so you’ll be able to play the entire game while alternating between single and multiplayer at your leisure.
Note that there’s no crossplay, though.
Even the apocalypse is better with friends.Image: Deep Silver Dambuster Studios
I know it’s annoying, but you should spam the “pick up” button
Like Amazon continues to turn our planet into a desolate Funko Pop landfill, Dead Island 2 environments are stuffed with stuff. You’ll find upgrade materials like adhesives, aerosols, and blades on top of tables, inside shut drawers, and raining down from felled like you burst a grisly piñata.
Forget your hand-wringing about storage management—in the zombie apocalypse, everyone’s a scavenger. Pick the stuff up. All of it. As long as you’re regularly upgrading weapons using the materials you’ve found, you’ll find that your Dead Island 2 inventory is impressively bottomless.
Keeping upgrade materials on hand saves you time when you’re at sporadic upgrade workbenches. Though these benches allow you to “track” materials you’re missing, they’re most helpful when you have your materials ready to go, and can repair broken weapons or make them even stronger immediately before your next fight.
To make space, scrap worthless weapons like wooden planks and sell real weapons to traders for lots of money. Upgrade materials let you create weapon mods, upgrades, and repairs, but money is necessary to actually buy them.
You’ll need to make trade offs between special mods and attack power
You’ll unlock and find motley weapon blueprints (often placed, conveniently, right on top of an undiscovered workbench) as you progress further into the game, allowing for wild mods that turn your weapon into two-punch electro-cutioners and cremators, as well as upgrades that bolster your weapon’s damage output.
While the constant influx of shiny toys is understandably tempting, you should be aware that extreme weapon modifications and upgrades aren’t always compatible. While some upgrades’ descriptions plainly indicate that they need certain mods to be equipped, general upgrades like Damaging, which increases a weapon’s damage dealt, will lose their overall potency when paired with a mod. Try to have a plan for the type of weapon you want to ultimately end up with before you irrevocably alter it at a workbench.
“Slaughter” is a perfect weapon upgrade
The game’s huge range of weapon customization options leaves a lot to consider, but I think you should especially prioritize the Slaughter upgrade.
It lets you hack limbs off with more efficiency, making it most compatible with gliding bladed weapons like katanas and hunting knives, but also lifts weapon durability.
Dead Island 2 weapons can break obnoxiously quickly, leaving you suddenly barefisted in the middle of an encounter.
Though you can keep track of weapon breakage by looking at the depleting meter in the bottom right corner of the screen, it’s best to avoid it by adding Slaughter. Don’t forget to repair your favorite weapons whenever you’re near a workbench, too.
You can’t bulldoze through combat—learn to dodge
Despite Dead Island 2’s quickly forming reputation as a brainless, mass bloodletting event, trying to aimlessly plow your way through fields of snarling zombies will get you killed quickly, and destroy your weapon stash even faster.
To protect both yourself and your arsenal, practice dodging, or tapping L1 in the split seconds before a zombie attacks—and I really do mean split seconds.
It took me a while to master the timing. I’d recommend you practice by singling out rogue zombies you come across while exploring environments, and not necessarily in the middle of a stressful main mission. When you nail a dodge (or, alternatively, block an incoming attack), you stun a zombie, opening them up for a health-melting counter attack.
Here come the fireworks.Image: Deep Silver Dambuster Studios
When a zombie mob is descending, use their own powers against them
Just as each playable slayer has their own innate advantages, every zombie you encounter will have its own violent quirk.
Most of them are thematic and obvious. Like, a frizzy zombie surrounded by blue sparks will eventually release a giant explosion of electricity, or a crispy zombie completely immersed in flames will, if it touches you, set you on fire.
Notice these quirks and use them to your advantage when you’re confronted by swarms of zombies that, at first glance, seem unmanageable. Throw a fuel can at a fire zombie to trigger a remote AoE eruption that will murder nearby zombies. Using an electric modded weapon to burst a hole into the water canisters some zombies carry on their backs, and turn the resulting puddle into a livewire trap.
And, once it becomes accessible to you in the game, don’t forget to use Fury Mode, which builds up as you slay zombies and imbues you with their destructive powers, for a brief period of time.
Make sure to level up, but it’s not necessarily as crucial as you might think
Once you hit a main story boss battle or reach a wild enemy with a skull over its head, meaning it’s higher level than you, you’ll feel the power disparity immediately.
To avoid getting overwhelmed by too-strong enemies, take a look at main story and side quests’ recommended levels and make sure your natural leveling up matches them before attempting them.
Though, you don’t have to be at a chapter or enemy’s recommended level to try it. Most of the time, especially in the rogue combat you’ll spend most of your time engaging with, leveling up makes a barely discernible difference in terms of damage output or defense. Most standard wild enemies also conform to your level, too, reflected by the number that appears next to the name over their heads.
If you get stuck on the main story, pivot to a side quest you can benefit from
In the case that you are not at the appropriate level to finish a main level chapter (without great difficulty, at least), don’t worry; you have 33 side quests to choose from.
You’ll unlock these without really trying—by exploring new environments, answering radio calls, or chatting with friendly NPCs.
But before you commit to a side quest, open up the Quests tab, glance at the rewards listed, and consider what your main story goals are. Do you want to level up ASAP? Pick a side quest with abundant XP gains. Do your weapons all suck, and you need something more excruciating? Take the side quest that gifts you a special weapon. Have fun while being practical. Slay responsibly.
Some NPCs are friendly. Others sort of look like Josh Groban.Image: Deep Silver Dambuster Studios
Don’t shy away from customizing your low-stakes skill deck
As you blaze through levels, the main story, and side quests, slots on your skill card deck will unlock. You acquire skill cards without truly trying, either grabbing them after you’ve spammed your “pick up” button, or by killing for them.
You can rearrange or cull your deck at any time, so try any skill card that intrigues you. Most skill benefits are nebulous enough—specializing the type of kick you do, or how you regenerate health—that choosing them never feels make-or-break. It’s more like deciding whether or not you want pickles on your burger.
Did you know there’s voice control?
Dead Island 2 has a unique voice-control system, which beguiled me at first as someone who knows how to use the computer, but just barely.
It lets you speak scripted commands to swap weapons, taunt zombies, and engage extra-powerful Fury Mode, among other things, by using a microphone and your Amazon account.
To activate it, plug your Amazon account information into the “Alexa Game Control” section of the Options menu, make sure Voice Commands is set to “enabled,” and select your preferred input audio device. Read through the available commands in the Voice Controls, found in the Tutorials section, and wonder, like me, if Jeff Bezos can hear you scream.
US Space Force General B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations, testifies about the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget request during a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 14, 2023. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
When Gen. Chance Saltzman took the stage for his keynote at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this week, his message was simple: The U.S. is in a new era of space activity.
“The threats that we face to our on-orbit capabilities from our strategic competitors has grown substantially,” Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force’s second-ever chief of space operations, said in a CNBC interview after the speech. “The congestion we’re seeing in space with tracked objects and the number of satellite payloads, and just the launches themselves, have grown at an exponential rate.”
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“I want to make sure that we are thinking about our processes and procedures differently,” he said in an interview for CNBC’s “Manifest Space” podcast, his first broadcast interview since becoming the service’s highest-ranking military official last November.
The message comes at a key moment as space rapidly commercializes and a heightened geopolitical backdrop increasingly sees threats extending beyond Earth to a domain for which rules of engagement remain unclear.
Follow and listen to CNBC’s “Manifest Space” podcast, hosted by Morgan Brennan, wherever you get your podcasts.
Military experts say space is likely to be the front line in any future conflicts – a battlefield that could extend to the private sector and impact civilians in real time. Look no further than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example: Recall the unprecedented cyberattack on the European communications network of U.S. satellite operator Viasat just as Russian soldiers mobilized to cross sovereign boundaries.
Saltzman said the space-based tactics of adversaries like Russia and China run the gamut, from the communications jamming of the GPS constellation; to lasers and “dazzlers” that interfere with cameras on-orbit to prevent imagery collection; to anti-satellite missiles like the one Russia tested in late 2021.
“We’re seeing satellites that actually can grab another satellite, grapple with it and pull it out of its operational orbit. These are all capabilities they’re demonstrating on-orbit today, and so the mix of these weapons and the pace with which they’ve been developed are very concerning,” he said.
It speaks to why, despite a wave of fervent debate, the Space Force was briskly stood up in 2019 as the first new branch of the U.S. armed services in seven decades.
To respond to evolving threats and secure space assets more quickly, Saltzman is looking to further augment the service’s capabilities to make satellite constellations more resilient and acquire more launch services by tapping into a burgeoning cadre of commercial space players.
Case in point: the Space Force’s recently announced procurement strategy for more launch services. The new “dual-lane acquisition approach” is intended to create more opportunities for rocket startups to compete for national security launch contracts.
With business to be awarded next year, the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 is estimated to run into the billions of dollars and is expected to draw bids from the likes of Rocket Lab, Relativity Space and Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin, among others. Phase 2 awards went to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
An expanding budget helps, too. While still just a fraction of the country’s overall defense budget, the Space Force’s $30 billion request for fiscal 2024 represents a 15% increase from this year’s enacted levels.
“This is a team sport and none of us is going to be successful going in alone,” Saltzman said.
“Manifest Space,” hosted by CNBC’s Morgan Brennan, focuses on the billionaires and brains behind the ever-expanding opportunities beyond our atmosphere. Brennan holds conversations with the megamoguls, industry leaders and startups in today’s satellite, space and defense industries. In “Manifest Space,” sit back, relax and prepare for liftoff.
A new rocket, the world’s first made up of mostly 3D-printed components and fueled by liquid natural gas, blasted off on its maiden flight Wednesday night and climbed out of the lower atmosphere only to suffer a second stage malfunction that prevented it from reaching orbit.
It was a disappointing setback for Relativity Space, a California start-up vying to become a major player in the emerging commercial launch market, but such anomalies are not unusual when flight testing a new rocket and the company vowed a thorough investigation to find and fix what went wrong.
A time exposure captures the brilliant exhaust plume of the methane-burning Terran 1 rocket as it thundered away from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
William Harwood/CBS News
“No one’s ever attempted to launch a 3D-printed rocket into orbit and while we didn’t make it all the way today, we gathered enough data to show that flying 3D-printed rockets is possible,” one of the company’s launch commentators said.
The 110-foot-tall Terran 1 rocket, powered by nine Relativity-developed Aeon 1 engines generating a combined 207,000 pounds of thrust, blasted off from pad 16 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:25 p.m. EDT, climbing straight up and then arcing away to the east over the Atlantic Ocean.
Two earlier launch attempts on March 8 and 11 were scrubbed by a combination of issues, mostly related to flight software, officials said later. The countdown Wednesday was held up by higher-than-allowable winds aloft and by a boat that strayed into the off-shore danger zone.
But the final moments ticked down without a hitch and the rocket put on a dramatic show, its engines generating a brilliant blue-white flame in sharp contrast to the orange hues produced by kerosene-burning engines.
For its initial flight, Terran 1 was not carrying a customer payload and was not equipped with the nose fairing normally used to protect satellites during the climb out of the lower atmosphere.
The test flight was intended to “prove that 3D printed structures can withstand the pressures of flight, which will prove our hypothesis that 3D printing is a viable way to manufacture rockets,” Relativity tweeted before the company’s first launch attempt.
Wednesday night, the rocket’s first stage did just that, burning liquid natural gas — methane — with liquid oxygen, safely accelerating through the region of maximum aerodynamic stress, known as “max Q,” as it powered its way out of the dense lower atmosphere.
The first stage engines shut down as expected about two minutes and 50 seconds after launch and the stage fell away as planned. A camera mounted on the rocket showed the second stage engine beginning to start a few seconds later, but it did not appear to fully ignite.
Moments after that, an anomaly was declared and commentators on the company’s livestream confirmed the vehicle did not achieve orbit.
Terran 1 on the launch pad.
Relativity Space
“Maiden launches are always exciting, and today’s flight was no exception,” one said. “Although we didn’t reach orbit, we significantly exceeded our key objectives for this first launch, and that objective was to gather data at max Q, one of the most demanding phases of flight, and achieve stage separation.”
Relativity Space was founded in 2015 by college classmates Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone, who both gained experience working for Blue Origin and SpaceX. The Long Beach, California-based company has now grown to 1,000 employees and has a market valuation of $4.2 billion. Among its early investors is billionaire Mark Cuban.
The Terran 1 rocket is capable of putting payloads weighing up to 2,755 pounds into low-Earth orbit for an advertised price of $12 million. About 85 percent of the launcher, including its propellant tanks, bulkheads and major engine components, was 3D printed by Relativity.
“No new company has ever had their liquid rocket make it to space on their first attempt,” Josh Brost, a Relativity vice president, told Spaceflight Now before launch. “So if everything goes incredibly well, and we achieve orbit on our first launch … that would be a remarkable milestone for us, which we would be, of course, over the moon excited about.”
But it was not to be.
Terran 1 is the latest in an increasingly crowded field of rockets designed to carry relatively small satellites to orbit that otherwise might have to wait on rides as secondary payloads on larger rockets.
Relativity also is developing a much larger, more powerful and fully reusable rocket known as Terran R that will compete with medium-class rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Terran R will be capable of boosting up to 44,000 pounds to low-Earth orbit, even more if flying in expendable mode.
Ellis said earlier that Terran 1 served as a “fantastic learning platform for developing technologies directly applicable to Terran R, giving us a lot of confidence we are ahead in the race to become the next great launch company.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
A Rocket Lab Electron booster blasted off from Virginia’s Eastern Shore on Thursday evening, boosting a pair of commercial radar imaging satellites into orbit that are capable of “seeing” through clouds, in daylight or darkness, to monitor the planet below.
Making Rocket Lab’s 34th flight, the Electron’s nine Rutherford first-stage engines thundered to life at 6:38 p.m. EDT, smoothly pushing the 59-foot-tall rocket away from launch complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Island, Virginia, flight test facility.
Climbing away to the southeast over the Atlantic Ocean, the Electron raced past the speed of sound one minute after liftoff, rapidly accelerating out of the thick lower atmosphere and disappearing from view.
A Rocket Lab Electron booster streaks away from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Eastern Shore carrying two commercial radar imaging satellites. It was Rocke Llab’s 34th launch but only its second from Virginia.
Rocket Lab
The single engine powering the rocket’s second stage took over two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, propelling the craft to an initial parking orbit. A “kick” stage carrying the two Capella Space radar satellites then fired nearly an hour after launch to put the vehicle in the planned deploy orbit.
A few minutes later, the two Capella satellites were released to fly on their own.
San Francisco-based Capella Space was founded in 2016 to provide commercial Earth imagery to government agencies and the private sector using small satellites carrying synthetic aperture radar systems capable of imaging the planet below in daylight or darkness, regardless of cloud cover.
NASA used similar technology to map the surface of cloud-shrouded Venus in the 1990s and radar imaging is routinely used by military spy satellites. But Capella Space says it’s the first company to utilize the technology with commercial remote sensing spacecraft.
Including an initial prototype, the company has now launched 10 radar satellites to provide around-the-clock Earth observation. Applications include verifying damage claims for the insurance industry, monitoring natural disaster damage, intelligence gathering and detection of illegal maritime activities.
“Capella’s innovative small satellite design and rapid manufacturing-to-launch deployment gives our constellation (the ability) to effectively monitor the entire globe,” the company says, “and give decision-makers the information they need on the Earth.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
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Jeff Bezos’ mysterious mega yacht, which cost an estimated $500 million to build, has been the cause of much contention in the past due to its massive size nearly becoming the reason that a historic bridge in the Netherlands was going to need to be dismantled.
Instead, after public outcry, the boat was towed from the Dutch shipyard where it was built without its sails, thus saving the famed Koningshaven Bridge in Rotterdam from being taken apart.
Word on the boat went relatively silent until this week when footage was released that reportedly shows the billionaire’s massive ship (called Koru) out at sea a few weeks ago.
The giant sailing yacht reportedly left Rotterdam on February 13 and took a trial run sailing the North Sea, per the footage released by Dutch Yachting.
Bezos originally commissioned the yacht to be built in May 2021 by Dutch-based boating company Oceanco, dubbed project Y721. It’s rumored to have multiple decks, a pool, and a separate, smaller yacht with a helipad to allow the billionaire easy access to and from the boat.
Neither the Amazon founder nor Oceanco have confirmed that Bezos owns the boat seen in the footage.
A look at Bezos’ rumored mega yacht in the Oceanco shipyard in August 2022. (via Shutterstock)
It’s no secret that Bezos is a fan of privacy and luxury when it comes to his time off.
Just months after he paid for the commission of Koru, he reportedly purchased a $78 million Hawaiian compound called the Carter Estate, which includes a deeded cover part of the Pacific Ocean, making Bezos not only the owner of a private beach but of a part of the ocean itself.
Bezos’ net worth was an estimated $118.1 billion as of Wednesday afternoon.
Elon Musk is now worth $187 billion, according to the latest installment of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the wealthiest man in the world.
But Musk regained the top spot today, edging out Arnault by $2 billion. For those keeping score at home, the third richest man in the world is Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos with a paltry $117 billion.
First, Tesla stock has rallied significantly after dropping almost 70%. Musk also tweeted that Twitter is on pace to break even after suffering big losses in 2022.
Last 3 months were extremely tough, as had to save Twitter from bankruptcy, while fulfilling essential Tesla & SpaceX duties. Wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone.
Twitter still has challenges, but is now trending to breakeven if we keep at it. Public support is much appreciated!
Musk has also had some legal victories. Last month, Tesla shareholders sued him for making false statements in his tweets in 2018 about taking the company private. The jury sided with Musk, clearing him of any wrongdoing.
While working to fix a problem that derailed an attempt to launch a four-man crew to the International Space Station, SpaceX pressed ahead with the launch of another Falcon 9 rocket Monday, this one carrying 21 next-generation Starlink internet satellites.
The last-minute scrub of a Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon capsule at the Kennedy Space Center was caused by trouble with the rocket’s first-stage engine ignition system. To allow time to fix the problem, and to avoid expected bad weather Tuesday, another attempt to send the Crew Dragon fliers on their way was delayed to Thursday.
But that didn’t affect work at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station where a different SpaceX team counted down to launch of another Falcon 9 from pad 40. This time around, after a delay due to high levels of electrically charged solar wind particles, the countdown ticked smoothly to zero at 6:13 p.m. EST.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thunders away from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying 21 second-generation Starlink internet satellites. The California rocket builder has now launched more than 4,000 broadband relay stations with thousands more to come.
William Harwood/CBS News
Streaking away to the southeast a few minutes before sunset, the first stage boosted the vehicle out of the dense lower atmosphere in spectacular fashion before falling away and heading for landing on an offshore droneship.
The second stage continued the climb to orbit and one hour after liftoff, the 21 Starlinks were released to fly on their own in a 230-mile-high orbit that will carry them 43 degrees to either side of the equator. In that orbit, the satellites will fly over all points as far north as Boston and as far south as New Zealand.
The Starlink system is designed to deliver relatively high-speed internet to customers anywhere on Earth using thousands of broadband relay stations in multiple low-altitude orbits. The satellites maintain connections with customers using laser links to hand off data streams from one to another as they pass overhead.
Including Monday’s launch, SpaceX has now launched 4,002 Starlinks, “and is providing high-speed internet to more than one million locations around the world, the majority of which are households,” the company said in an online overview.
“Starlink continues to grow rapidly, and SpaceX has raced to keep up with a surging demand for connectivity across the globe, especially in areas where few, if any, options for broadband connections have existed before now.”
To meet that demand, the company is now building two versions of a larger, more powerful Starlink satellite. One that is intended to fly on the company’s planned Super Heavy/Starship rocket and a slightly smaller variant that can be carried aloft by the less powerful Falcon 9.
The Version 2, or V2, satellites launched on Falcon 9 “are a bit smaller, so we affectionately refer to them as ‘V2 Mini’ satellites,” SpaceX said. “But don’t let the name fool you, a V2 Mini satellite has four times the capacity for serving users compared to its earlier counterparts.”
Twenty-one second-generation “V2 Mini” Starlink satellites are shown stacked for launch before encapsulation inside a Falcon 9 nose cone fairing. The satellites are larger and more powerful than the models launched to date.
SpaceX
SpaceX is one of several companies building space-based internet delivery systems, raising concerns about the possibility of malfunctions and debris-creating collisions threatening other spacecraft.
But SpaceX says its satellites are designed to operate in relatively low-altitude orbits that allow atmospheric drag to quickly deorbit spacecraft at the end of their lives or in case of disabling malfunctions, minimizing the threat of collisions.
The satellites can automatically change course to avoid potential close encounters with other spacecraft or debris and the company publishes detailed tracking data to give governments and other satellite operators detailed situational awareness.
One major issue associated with Starlinks and other planned “mega constellations” of space-based internet relay stations is their reflectivity and potential impact on ground-based optical and radio telescopes.
SpaceX said it is actively working with the astronomical community to develop mitigations, including advanced coatings and operational procedures designed to minimize the reflectivity of the V2 satellites.
“While our V2 Mini satellites are larger than earlier versions, we’re still expecting them to be as dark or darker once the full range of mitigations are implemented and the satellites reach their operational orbit,” SpaceX said.
“However, we want to emphasize that even though brightness component measurements, ground modeling and analysis show effective brightness mitigations, we won’t know the full efficacy of our efforts until on-orbit observations are made of the satellites and data is collected and analyzed.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
SpaceX launched Falcon 9 rockets from both coasts Friday, firing off 51 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites from California, and then boosting a high-power Inmarsat commercial relay station into orbit from Florida.
The latest batch of Starlinks was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, northwest of Los Angeles, at 2:12 p.m. EST. The climb to space went smoothly, and 15 minutes after liftoff, the Starlinks were released in a batch, slowly spreading apart as they drifted away.
SpaceX has now launched 3,981 broadband relay stations in 75 flights as the California rocket builder populates its globe-spanning commercial constellation with tens of thousands of satellites, providing low-latency, relatively high-speed internet to customers at any point on the planet.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roars to life and climbs away from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, boosting Inmarsat’s 6/F2 communications satellite to orbit. It was the California rocket builder’s second launch in nine hours.
SpaceX
With the Starlinks safely away, SpaceX engineers at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida pressed ahead with the launch of Inmarsat’s second 6-series communications satellite, a powerful new dual-band relay station intended for government and industrial-level mobile communications.
The countdown went off without a hitch and the rocket blasted off at 10:59 p.m. EST, lighting up a cloudy overnight sky for miles around as it climbed away to the east over the Atlantic Ocean. About 30 minutes later, the 12,345-pound satellite was released to fly on its own.
“Inmarsat has focused exclusively on mobility, we do not serve residential consumers and fixed businesses so much,” Peter Hadinger, Inmarsat’s chief technology officer, told Spaceflight Now. “Our focus is on the maritime industry, the aviation industry and governments. But the majority of things we do are on the move.”
The Inmarsat 6/F2 relay station was released from the Falcon 9’s second stage a half hour after launch.
SpaceX
Inmarsat 6/F2 is able to provide two-way communications with aircraft, ships at sea and other vehicles as they are “rolling and rocking and doing whatever they’re doing,” Hadinger said. “So all of this has to be tracked and handed off from beam to beam and from satellite to satellite as the user moves around the world.”
Released into an highly elliptical orbit, the new satellite will use electric thrusters to circularize its orbit at an altitude of 22,300 miles above the equator where it will appear to hang stationary in the sky.
After tests and checkout, Inmarsat 6/F2 will go into service over the Atlantic Ocean, joining an identical satellite launched earlier.
“The thing that makes it unique is all of the signal processing that goes on,” Hadinger said. The satellites are “capable of forming beams on the Earth and moving them around in real time, creating channels as we need them, moving the spacecraft’s power to where it’s required. And that makes it a very capable spacecraft.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Bezos’ sailing yacht “Koru” sails through the Mediterranean off the coast of Ibiza (Getty Images)
