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Tag: spacecraft and satellites

  • Chinese rocket startup Galactic Energy sends five satellites into space | CNN Business

    Chinese rocket startup Galactic Energy sends five satellites into space | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Galactic Energy, a rocket startup in China, launched five satellites into orbit on Monday, boosting the private company’s ambition to become the Chinese rival to SpaceX.

    Galactic Energy’s Ceres-1 rocket lifted off Monday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, sending five commercial satellites into their intended orbits, the Beijing-based company said in a statement on the same day.

    The five satellites will be used for telecommunication, weather forecasts and scientific research for government agencies in the country, the company added.

    The mission marks the fifth launch of the Ceres-1 rocket — a small solid fuel orbital rocket designed by the company, Galactic Energy said. So far, it has successfully put 19 commercial satellites into space, setting a record for a private Chinese firm.

    “It sounds the trumpet for us to start a high-density orbital launch in 2023,” it said, adding that it plans to complete 8 to 10 missions for this year.

    Galactic Energy conducted the first Ceres-1 launch on November 7, 2020, which makes it the second Chinese private company to launch a satellite into low Earth orbit. A Beijing-based startup, i-Space, was the first to do so in 2019.

    Many Chinese commercial satellite launch providers are currently using small solid-propellant rockets like Ceres. But some firms are developing or testing reusable liquid-propellant rocket engines, which allow precise control of the thrust after ignition.

    Last year, Galactic Energy successfully tested its liquid-propellant Welkin engine for its next-generation rockets. Its founder Liu Baiqi said that they want to build the Chinese version of the Merlin engine, which was developed by SpaceX.

    Founded in 2018, Galactic Energy has received several rounds of financing from private equity investors and venture capitalists, worth more than $250 million in total. Major investors include the investment arm of Aviation Industry Corporation of China, a state-owned aerospace and defense conglomerate.

    China’s commercial space industry has expanded rapidly since 2015, when the government began encouraging private companies to enter the space sector. Before that, launching rockets and satellites had been the monopoly of state-owned aerospace companies.

    Over the past few years, more than 170 private companies have entered the space industry, according to a 2020 research report by Future Space Research, a research institute based in Beijing.

    The successful launch by the Chinese startup came on the same day that Virgin Orbit suffered failure on its first rocket launch from the United Kingdom.

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  • NASA and Russia weigh options for astronaut return after spacecraft leak | CNN

    NASA and Russia weigh options for astronaut return after spacecraft leak | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Officials at NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, are working to decide how to bring home several people at the International Space Station after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft sprang a leak last week.

    None of the seven people currently on board the ISS — including three Roscosmos cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts and one astronaut with Japan’s space agency — were ever in any danger as a result of the leak, officials have noted. But it’s not yet clear whether the spacecraft will be able to make a trip back home with its crew on board.

    The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft ferried NASA’s Frank Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, to the space station on September 21. It was scheduled to bring them back to Earth in March. But Roscosmos is now evaluating whether to fly its next Soyuz mission to the ISS empty and move the launch up two to three weeks so that the spacecraft can serve as a rescue vehicle for Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin if Soyuz MS-22 is deemed not safe enough for the crew. If Roscosmos goes with that plan, the next Soyuz mission could lift off in February, according to Montalbano.

    The leak on the Soyuz MS-22, which is currently attached to the ISS at one of the orbiting laboratory’s eight docking ports, was identified on December 14. It forced the delay of a planned spacewalk by two cosmonauts last week, and live images during a NASA broadcast showed liquid spewing out from the spacecraft.

    Roscosmos determined that the leak occurred on an external cooling loop of the Soyuz. The leak is not expected to cause any external corrosion or damage to the exterior of the ISS, Montalbano noted, saying the leaked coolant “boils up very quickly” as it’s exposed.

    It’s not yet clear was caused the leak, which has been traced to a small hole that could have been caused by a collision with a piece of space debris, a mechanical problem or some other issue, according to Montalbano.

    Space debris was, however, the certain cause of a one-day delay for a spacewalk planned by the United States. Two astronauts were slated to venture out on Wednesday to install a new solar array to the space station’s exterior, but the ISS had to maneuver out of the way of a piece of spaceborne garbage. The debris was determined to be a piece of an old Russian rocket.

    The ISS was able to maneuver successfully, and the US spacewalk kicked off Thursday morning without issue.

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  • Soyuz spacecraft docked to International Space Station springs ‘fairly significant’ coolant leak | CNN

    Soyuz spacecraft docked to International Space Station springs ‘fairly significant’ coolant leak | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A planned spacewalk by the Russian space agency Roscosmos has been called off following the discovery of a coolant leak coming from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, which is currently docked to the International Space Station.

    NASA’s Rob Navias, speaking on the NASA TV broadcast, called it a “fairly significant” leak. Live images during the broadcast showed liquid spewing out from the Soyuz. Navias said the leak was first observed around 7:45 p.m. ET Wednesday.

    The Soyuz spacecraft is docked to the Russian segment of the space station.

    The crew is safe, and all systems of the space station and the ship are operating normally, according to Roscosmos, in a statement in Russian released Thursday morning on Twitter. (CNN translated the statement.)

    “The crew reported that the warning device of the ship’s diagnostic system went off, indicating a pressure drop in the cooling system,” according to Roscosmos. “A visual inspection confirmed the leak, after which it was decided to interrupt the planned extravehicular activities by the crew members of the ISS Russian Segment Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin.”

    Navias said the cause of the coolant leak is “unknown and the effect at this point unknown as Russian managers continue to look over the data and consult with both NASA managers and engineers” and outside experts. He said the astronauts inside the space station were “never in any danger.”

    Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, using the camera on Russia’s Nauka module on the space station, “photographed and filmed the outer surface of the ship,” according to Roscosmos. “The data was transmitted to Earth, and the specialists have already begun to study the images.”

    “No decisions have been made regarding the integrity of the Soyuz MS-22 or what the next course of action will be,” Navias added, wrapping up NASA-TV coverage of the canceled spacewalk.

    Roscosmos added that the situation will be analyzed before a decision is made about what comes next.

    NASA took a similar tone in a Thursday statement: “NASA and Roscosmos will continue to work together to determine the next course of action following the ongoing analysis.”

    The Soyuz MS-22 ferried NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts to the space station on September 21 and is scheduled to bring them back to Earth in late March.

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  • Historic moon mission ends with splashdown of Orion capsule | CNN

    Historic moon mission ends with splashdown of Orion capsule | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The Artemis I mission — a 25½-day uncrewed test flight around the moon meant to pave the way for future astronaut missions — came to a momentous end as NASA’s Orion spacecraft made a successful ocean splashdown Sunday.

    The spacecraft finished the final stretch of its journey, closing in on the thick inner layer of Earth’s atmosphere after traversing 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) between the moon and Earth. It splashed down at 12:40 p.m. ET Sunday in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California.

    This final step was among the most important and dangerous legs of the mission.

    But after splashing down, Rob Navias, the NASA commentator who led Sunday’s broadcast, called the reentry process “textbook.”

    “I’m overwhelmed,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Sunday. “This is an extraordinary day.”

    The capsule is now bobbing in the Pacific Ocean, where it will remain until nearly 3 p.m. ET as NASA collects additional data and runs through some tests. That process, much like the rest of the mission, aims to ensure the Orion spacecraft is ready to fly astronauts.

    “We’re testing all of the heat that has come and been generated on the capsule. We want to make sure that we characterize how that’s going to affect the interior of the capsule,” NASA flight director Judd Frieling told reporters last week.

    A fleet of recovery vehicles — including boats, a helicopter and a US Naval ship called the USS Portland — are waiting nearby.

    The spacecraft was traveling about 32 times the speed of sound (24,850 miles per hour or nearly 40,000 kilometers per hour) as it hit the air — so fast that compression waves caused the outside of the vehicle to heat to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).

    “The next big test is the heat shield,” Nelson had told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, referring to the barrier designed to protect the Orion capsule from the excruciating physics of reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.

    The extreme heat also caused air molecules to ionize, creating a buildup of plasma that caused a 5½-minute communications blackout, according to Artemis I flight director Judd Frieling.

    INTERACTIVE: Trace the path Artemis I will take around the moon and back

    As the capsule reached around 200,000 feet (61,000 meters) above the Earth’s surface, it performed a roll maneuver that briefly sent the capsule back upward — sort of like skipping a rock across the surface of a lake.

    There are a couple of reasons for using the skip maneuver.

    “Skip entry gives us a consistent landing site that supports astronaut safety because it allows teams on the ground to better and faster coordinate recovery efforts,” said Joe Bomba, Lockheed Martin’s Orion aerosciences aerothermal lead, in a statement. Lockheed is NASA’s primary contractor for the Orion spacecraft.

    “By dividing the heat and force of reentry into two events, skip entry also offers benefits like lessening the g-forces astronauts are subject to,” according to Lockheed, referring to the crushing forces humans experience during spaceflight.

    Another communications blackout lasting about three minutes followed the skip maneuver.

    As it embarked on its final descent, the capsule slowed down drastically, shedding thousands of miles per hour in speed until its parachutes deploy. By the time it splashed down, Orion was traveling about 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour).

    While there were no astronauts on this test mission — just a few mannequins equipped to gather data and a Snoopy doll — Nelson, the NASA chief, has stressed the importance of demonstrating that the capsule can make a safe return.

    The space agency’s plans are to parlay the Artemis moon missions into a program that will send astronauts to Mars, a journey that will have a much faster and more daring reentry process.

    The Orion capsule captures a view of the lunar surface, with Earth in the background lit in the shape of a crescent by the sun.

    Orion traveled roughly 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) during this mission on a path that swung out to a distant lunar orbit, carrying the capsule farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever traveled.

    A secondary goal of this mission was for Orion’s service module, a cylindrical attachment at the bottom of the spacecraft, to deploy 10 small satellites. But at least four of those satellites failed after being jettisoned into orbit, including a miniature lunar lander developed in Japan and one of NASA’s own payload that was intended to be one of the first tiny satellites to explore interplanetary space.

    On its trip, the spacecraft captured stunning pictures of Earth and, during two close flybys, images of the lunar surface and a mesmerizing “Earth rise.”

    Nelson said if he had to give the Artemis I mission a letter grade so far, it would be an A.

    “Not an A-plus, simply because we expect things to go wrong. And the good news is that when they do go wrong, NASA knows how to fix them,” Nelson said. But “if I’m a schoolteacher, I would give it an A-plus.”

    With the success of the Artemis I mission, NASA will now dive into the data collected on this flight and look to choose a crew for the Artemis II mission, which could take off in 2024.

    Artemis II will aim to send astronauts on a similar trajectory as Artemis I, flying around the moon but not landing on its surface.

    The Artemis III mission, currently slated for a 2025 launch, is expected to put boots back on the moon, and NASA officials have said it will include the first woman and first person of color to achieve such a milestone.

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  • Astronauts will give the space station a power boost during Saturday spacewalk | CNN

    Astronauts will give the space station a power boost during Saturday spacewalk | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The International Space Station will receive a power boost during a spacewalk on Saturday, as NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio install a solar array outside the floating laboratory.

    The spacewalk is on track to begin at 7:25 a.m. ET and will last for about seven hours, with live coverage streaming on NASA’s website.

    During the event, Cassada will serve as extravehicular crew member 1 and will wear a suit with red stripes, while Rubio will wear an unmarked white suit as extravehicular crew member 2. The duo conducted their first spacewalk together in November. Against the backdrop of spectacular views of Earth, the team assembled a mounting bracket on the starboard side of the space station’s truss.

    This hardware allows for the installation of more rollout solar arrays, called iROSAs, to increase electrical power on the space station.

    The first two rollout solar arrays were installed outside the station in June 2021. The plan is to add a total of six iROSAs, which will likely boost the space station’s power generation by more than 30% once all are operational.

    Two more arrays were delivered to the space station on November 27 aboard the 26th SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply mission, which also carried dwarf tomato seeds and other experiments to the orbiting laboratory.

    The arrays were rolled up like carpet and are 750 pounds (340 kilograms) and 10 feet (3 meters) wide.

    During Saturday’s spacewalk, Cassada and Rubio will install a solar array to increase capacity in one of the space station’s eight power channels, located on the station’s starboard truss.

    Once the array is unfurled and bolted into place by the astronauts, it will be about 63 feet (19 meters) long and 20 feet (6 meters) wide.

    The spacewalking duo will also disconnect a cable to reactivate another power channel that recently experienced “unexpected tripping” on November 26.

    “By isolating a section of the impacted array, which was one of several damaged strings, the goal is to restore 75% of the array’s functionality,” according to a release from NASA.

    Cassada and Rubio will go on another spacewalk on December 19 to install a second roll-out solar array on another power channel, located on the station’s port truss.

    The original solar arrays on the space station are still functioning, but they have been supplying power there for more than 20 years and are showing some signs of wear after long-term exposure to the space environment. The arrays were originally designed to last 15 years.

    Erosion can be caused by thruster plumes, which come from both the station’s thrusters and the crew and cargo vehicles that come and go from the station, as well as micrometeorite debris.

    The new solar arrays are being placed in front of the original ones. It’s a good test for the new solar arrays, because this same design will power parts of the planned Gateway lunar outpost, which will help humans return to the moon through NASA’s Artemis program.

    The new arrays will have a similar 15-year life expectancy. However, since the degradation on the original arrays was expected to be worse, the team will monitor the new arrays to test their true longevity, because they may last longer.

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  • New era begins with China’s launch of crewed mission to its space station | CNN

    New era begins with China’s launch of crewed mission to its space station | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three astronauts lifted off to China’s nearly completed space station on Tuesday, marking the beginning of the country’s long-term presence in space.

    It’s a major achievement for China’s ambitious space program, which has explored the far side of the moon and Mars. The milestone also means the aging International Space Station’s role as the sole venue for continuous human occupancy in Earth’s orbit is coming to an end.

    The three astronauts launched aboard the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft at 11:08 p.m. local time (10:08 a.m. ET) on Tuesday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia. The Shenzhou-15 spacecraft is expected to dock with the Tiangong Space Station about 6.5 hours after launch.

    The arrival of the three astronauts — Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu — will mark the first crew rotation on the space station, with two teams overlapping for five to 10 days before the Shenzhou-14 crew, who landed at the station in June, returns to Earth.

    The Shenzhou-15 mission will finish the orbital outpost’s construction, expected by the end of December, and launch the first stage of “its application and development,” Ji Qiming, assistant to the China Manned Space Agency director, said at a press conference on Monday, according to state media Xinhua.

    During the mission, according to state media, the crew will also conduct more than 40 experiments and tests in the fields of space science research, space medicine and space technology, as well as three to four extravehicular activities — performed by astronauts in space suits.

    Once construction is completed, the space station is expected to last for 15 years. China plans to launch two crewed missions and two cargo missions to the station every year, according to the CMSA.

    Tiangong, which means heavenly palace, is smaller than the International Space Station but similar in its modular design. The new space station will typically house three rather than six astronauts.

    Officials at NASA have said it will retire the ISS, which is a collaboration between the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency, in 2030.

    However, Russia has threatened to quit the ISS starting in 2024, which would make operating the ISS difficult, said Dr. Stefania Paladini, a reader in economics and global security at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom.

    “There is no clarity about the future of the ISS after 2024. While the US seems committed to extend its life until 2030, Russia threatened to withdraw its participation after that date, (which would) make it extremely challenging to continue flying the ISS,” said Paladini, author of “The New Frontiers of Space: Economic Implications, Security Issues and Evolving Scenarios.”

    “The Chinese Space Station may … end up remaining the only human presence in Earth’s orbit for a while.”

    The new space station is expected to host around 1,000 scientific experiments during its life span.

    Most of the experiments taking place on board the Tiangong will involve research originating from China, but the country has invited experiments from international researchers, including how cancer tumors react to zero gravity.

    China’s astronauts have long been excluded from the ISS, due to US political objections and legislative restrictions. However, CMSA astronauts have trained with their counterparts at the European Space Agency.

    It’s not clear whether China would welcome astronauts from other countries to its space station, but Molly Silk, a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester in the UK focused on China’s space program, said she thought it very likely that international astronauts would visit in the coming years.

    “Several European astronauts have been learning Chinese in order to better cooperate with their Chinese counterparts, which suggests that a visit to the CSS could be on the cards. Pakistan has also been trying to coordinate with China to send their first astronaut to space,” she said.

    “This project demonstrates to the world that China has both the vision and capabilities to pull off such an immensely challenging feat. The CSS will not only allow for China and other nations to conduct experiments in space, but acts as an important checkpoint for China’s planned international research base on the moon.”

    Earlier this year, the space station’s two laboratory modules — Wentian and Mengtian — docked along the Tianhe core cabin, the main living space for the astronauts.

    The Mengtian lab was launched by China’s massive Long March 5B rocket, remnants of which made an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere in early November.

    It was the fourth uncontrolled reentry for a Long March 5B rocket since China’s space agency started flying it two years ago, as the vehicle was designed without the necessary equipment to steer itself to a safe landing.

    Officials at NASA have slammed China for taking unnecessary risks. However, Tuesday’s launch involved China’s smaller Long March-2F rocket, used for human space flight, which experts have previously said is less likely to produce hazardous debris.

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  • NASA’s Orion spacecraft snaps a selfie on its journey beyond the far side of the moon | CNN

    NASA’s Orion spacecraft snaps a selfie on its journey beyond the far side of the moon | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    NASA released a selfie taken by the Orion capsule and close-up photos of the moon’s crater-marked landscape as the spacecraft continues on the Artemis 1 mission, a 25-and-a-half day journey that will take it more than 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon.

    Orion’s latest selfie — taken Wednesday, the eighth day of the mission, by a camera on one of the capsule’s solar arrays — reveals the spacecraft giving angles with a bit of moon visible in the background. The close-up photos were taken Monday as Orion made its closest approach to the moon, passing about 80 miles (129 kilometers) above the lunar surface.

    Should Orion complete its trek beyond the moon and back to Earth, it will be the furthest a spacecraft intended to carry humans has ever traveled. For now, the capsule is only carrying inanimate, scientific payloads.

    Orion is part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to eventually establish a lunar outpost that can permanently host astronauts for the first time in history, in the hopes of one day paving a route to Mars.

    The Artemis I mission launched November 16, when NASA’s beleaguered and long-delayed Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket vaulted the Orion capsule to space, cementing the rocket as the most powerful operational launch vehicle ever built.

    As of Thursday afternoon, the capsule was 222,993 miles (358,972 kilometers) from Earth and 55,819 miles (89,831 kilometers) from the Moon, zipping along at just over 2,600 miles per hour, according to NASA.

    Orion is now about a day from entering a “distant retrograde orbit” around our closest neighbor — distant, because it will be at a very high altitude above the lunar surface, and retrograde, because it will circle the moon in the opposite direction from which the moon travels around Earth.

    The path is meant to “stress test” the Orion capsule, as Michael Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager, put it last week.

    According to NASA’s Artemis blog, the agency’s television coverage of the distant retrograde orbit insertion burn is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET Friday and the burn is scheduled to take place at 4:52 p.m. ET.

    After lapping the moon, the Orion capsule is expected to turn back toward Earth and make a gentle splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.

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  • Philippines and China tussle over retrieving rocket debris floating in disputed South China Sea | CNN

    Philippines and China tussle over retrieving rocket debris floating in disputed South China Sea | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    The Philippines and China tussled on Sunday over Chinese rocket debris in the disputed South China Sea, raising tensions ahead of a scheduled visit by US Vice President Kamala Harris.

    A Chinese vessel allegedly blocked a Philippine naval boat twice before taking the debris it was towing off Thitu Island, which is occupied by the Philippines and known locally as Pag-asa Island, said Philippine Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos.

    In a statement issued Monday, Carlos said that the Chinese coast guard had “forcefully retrieved” floating debris off the waters. He said local personnel used a long-range camera and spotted the debris about 800 yards away from a sandbar on Sunday and set out to inspect it.

    The debris was described as “metallic” and similar to fragments recovered in other parts of the country two weeks ago, raising suspicions that it originated from a recent Chinese rocket launch, state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA) reported.

    Speaking at a regular press conference on Monday, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also confirmed that Chinese maritime police ships found an unknown floating object in the disputed waters on Sunday.

    Mao denied any confrontation and told reporters “there was no so-called interception and seizure at the scene.”

    “After identifying it as the debris of a rocket fairing recently launched by China, local personnel first salvaged and towed the floating object. After friendly negotiations between the two sides, the Philippine side returned the floating object to the Chinese side on the spot, and Chinese personnel expressed their gratitude to the Philippine side,” Mao said Monday.

    The incident was reported Sunday, a day before a scheduled visit by Harris to the western province of Palawan where a Philippine military command in charge of defending and patrolling its waters on the edge of the South China Sea is located.

    This was not the first time China’s space debris was found near the Philippines. Debris retrieved in two different locations off the waters of Palawan and Occidental Mindoro may have come from a Long March 5B rocket that China launched in late October, the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) said in a statement on November 9.

    “In relation to this, PhilSA would like to reiterate its sustained efforts to promote and encourage accountability among nations for objects launched into space,” the statement said.

    China has been criticized repeatedly for allowing rocket stages to make uncontrolled reentry to Earth, with NASA last year accusing Beijing for “failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris” after parts of a Chinese rocket landed in the Indian Ocean.

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  • Apple invested $450 million in a satellite-powered SOS system. We tested it out | CNN Business

    Apple invested $450 million in a satellite-powered SOS system. We tested it out | CNN Business

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    CNN Business
     — 

    When Apple announced at its closely-watched September product launch event that it would soon introduce an Emergency SOS feature powered by a network of satellites orbiting above Earth, Brooklyn probably wasn’t the secluded location most had in mind for using it.

    But on a rainy afternoon last week, I found myself trying to stay connected to one of the satellites from Prospect Park as part of a demo of the upcoming feature. I stepped out from under a giant oak tree and the rain started to come down harder. Then I moved my device slightly to the right and quickly regained access to the signal and continued messaging with an emergency dispatcher.

    The rain wasn’t the issue; it was the foliage limiting my phone’s view of the sky.

    On Tuesday, Apple

    (AAPL)     will launch the Emergency SOS via Satellite feature for those with an iPhone 14 in the United States and Canada, with plans to roll it out in the UK, France, Germany and Ireland next month. The free feature promises to let iPhone users contact dedicated dispatchers in emergency situations via satellites when a cell phone network is unavailable.

    Hikers, emergency responders and intrepid travelers may be well versed in the existing world of satellite phones, which provide voice, SMS, and data services anywhere on Earth. Now Apple is attempting to do the same with its iPhones, as part of a broader pitch this year to consumers that its devices don’t just help them live better, but also live safer. In the process, it could make its pricey products seem a bit more indispensable in an uncertain economic environment that has some rethinking expenses.

    Apple recently invested $450 million in Globalstar, a global satellite service, and other providers to support the development of 24 low-orbit satellites flying 16,000 mph at a higher altitude than the International Space Station. The investment is part of Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund, which has previously been used for glass production with Corning and laser technology for facial recognition.

    During my test with an iPhone 14 provided by Apple, I attempted to call 911 but was automatically redirected to Emergency SOS via Satellite dispatchers for the purposes of the demo. When the device was unable to connect to cellular service, a small green icon appeared at the bottom right of the call screen to initiate a text conversation with emergency services.

    I was prompted to fill out a questionnaire and tapped through a handful of short multiple choice questions; I noted I was lost but not injured. Nearly 20 seconds later, I received confirmation that my geo-location coordinates were sent to a dispatcher, along with my medical ID, emergency contact information and the answers to my questions. I was told to keep responses short, likely to cut down on the amount of data needed to transfer to the satellite and back down to a dispatcher. I was also asked to identify nearby landmarks and where I entered the park. My total exchange lasted about four minutes.

    Apple said the size of messages was greatly condensed so the satellite can more efficiently route them to ground stations located all over the world. Once received, texts are sent to local emergency services or a relay center with Apple-trained emergency specialists who can send help.

    But even in a city, I lost access to the satellite several times when I wasn’t in clear view of the sky. A grayscale circle with a green signal image showed up when connected but turned yellow when conditions were poor and red when connectivity was lost. I walked about 200 feet away from my original location to find a satellite. Once there, I held the device naturally in my hand; Apple said there’s no need to raise or wave it around.

    When it works, the lifesaving potential for such a feature is obvious. But there are some caveats. To start, it’s text only; users will need to physically have the device in their hands to start an exchange, which may not always be possible if injured. The tool does, however, work with the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch’s crash detection feature, so it could automatically dial emergency services or send coordinates to a dispatcher when a user is unconscious or unable to reach their iPhone.

    For now, Emergency SOS via satellite only works in English, Spanish, and French, although the dispatchers have professional interpretation services available for many more languages. Apple said it also may not work in all areas, such as in places above 62° latitude, including northern parts of Canada and Alaska.

    For iPhone 14 users who want to see how the tool works, and test out the process for searching for a satellite, a demo is now available in Settings under “Emergency SOS via satellite.” Apple said the feature is available for free for two years and then it will reevaluate the offering based on what it’s learned about usage during that time.

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  • First-time NASA spacewalkers venture outside the space station | CNN

    First-time NASA spacewalkers venture outside the space station | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Things are about to get busy on the International Space Station as the first in a series of end-of-the-year spacewalks kicked off Tuesday morning.

    First-time spacewalkers and NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio began their excursion outside the space station at 9:14 a.m. ET, with live coverage on NASA’s website. The event is expected to last for about seven hours.

    Cassada is wearing the spacesuit with red stripes as extravehicular crew member 1, while Rubio is in the unmarked suit as extravehicular crew member 2.

    The astronauts will assemble a mounting bracket on the starboard side of the space station’s truss. The hardware that will be installed during the spacewalk was delivered to the space station on November 9 aboard a Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, which safely delivered its cargo despite only one of its two solar arrays deploying after launch.

    This hardware will allow for the installation of more rollout solar arrays, called iROSAs, to give the space station a power boost. The first two rollout solar arrays were installed outside the station in June 2021. Six iROSAs total have been planned and will likely boost the space station’s power generation by more than 30% once all are operational.

    During two more spacewalks on November 28 and December 1, a two-astronaut crew will unroll and install another pair of solar arrays once the mounting hardware is in place. The solar arrays will be delivered on the next SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply mission, currently slated for launch on November 21.

    Spacewalks are part of the space station crew’s routine as they maintain and upgrade the aging orbital laboratory, but Tuesday’s spacewalk is NASA’s first since March. The agency’s spacewalks came to a halt after European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer ended his first spacewalk with water in his helmet.

    A thin layer of moisture that exceeded the normal, expected amount was discovered in Maurer’s helmet once he returned to the airlock after a nearly seven-hour spacewalk. Maurer quickly shed the helmet, in an event deemed “a close-call” by NASA, and water samples, suit hardware and the spacesuit itself were returned to Earth for investigation. Officials at NASA determined the suit didn’t experience any hardware failures.

    “The cause for the water in the helmet was likely due to integrated system performance where several variables such as crew exertion and crew cooling settings led to the generation of comparatively larger than normal amounts of condensation within the system,” according to NASA in a blog post update.

    “Based on the findings, the team has updated operational procedures and developed new mitigation hardware to minimize scenarios where integrated performance results in water accumulation, while absorbing any water that does appear. These measures will help contain any liquid in the helmet to continue to keep crew safe.”

    Officials at NASA gave the “go” for spacewalks to resume after concluding the review in October.

    The investigation team has developed techniques to manage temperatures in the suit and added new absorption bands to the helmet, said Dina Contella, operations integration manager for the International Space Station Program.

    The thin orange pieces have been placed in different parts of the helmet, which has already been tested on orbit by the astronauts inside the space station.

    “We’ve taken several different models of this up and the crew on board sloshed water around, essentially tried to inject water into the helmet at the same rate that would be kind of a worst, worst case. And we found that these pads were very, very effective,” Contella said.

    Tuesday’s spacewalk will allow the crew to test the new pads as they work outside of the space station before the more complex solar array installation spacewalks within the next couple of weeks.

    Meanwhile, a Russian spacewalk is scheduled to take place on Thursday. Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will begin their walk at 9 a.m. ET to work on the outside of the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. The duo will prepare a radiator for transfer from the Rassvet module to Nauka during their seven-hour spacewalk, which will also stream live on NASA’s website.

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  • International Space Station swerves to avoid Russian space debris, NASA says | CNN

    International Space Station swerves to avoid Russian space debris, NASA says | CNN

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    Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.



    CNN
     — 

    The International Space Station fired its thrusters to maneuver out of the way of a piece of oncoming Russian space junk, NASA said late Monday.

    The space agency said in a news release that the ISS conducted a five minute, five second burn to avoid a fragment of Russia’s Cosmos 1408 satellite, which the country destroyed in a weapons test in November last year.

    Officials at NASA have previously warned about the risks of the proliferation of debris in space, caused by a dramatic increase in the number of satellites in orbit and several instances of governments intentionally destroying satellites and creating new plumes of junk.

    The space station conducted a “Pre-Determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver,” or PDAM, to give the ISS “an extra measure of distance away from the predicted track of a fragment of Russian Cosmos 1408 debris,” the space agency said.

    “The thruster firing occurred at 8:25 p.m. EDT and the maneuver had no impact on station operations. Without the maneuver, it was predicted that the fragment could have passed within about three miles from the station.”

    The burn raised the space station’s altitude by 2/10 of a mile, according to the space agency.

    On November 15, 2021, Cosmos 1408, a no longer operational satellite, was destroyed, generating a cloud of debris including some 1,500 pieces of trackable space debris.

    US Space Command said Russia tested a direct-ascent anti-satellite, or DA-ASAT missile and strongly condemned the anti-satellite test, calling it “a reckless and dangerous act” and saying that it “won’t tolerate” behavior that puts international interests at risk.

    The ISS was forced to make a similar maneuver in June to avoid debris created by the anti-satellite test. In January, a piece of debris created by that test came within striking distance of a Chinese satellite, in an encounter the Chinese government called “extremely dangerous.”

    The ISS typically has to shift its orbit to avoid space junk around once a year, maneuvering away from the object if the chance of a collision exceeds one in 10,000, according to NASA.

    Invisible in the night sky, there are hundreds of millions of debris objects orbiting our planet. This debris is composed of parts of old satellites as well as entire defunct satellites and rocket bodies.

    According to a 2021 report by NASA, at least 26,000 of the pieces of space junk orbiting the Earth are the size of a softball or larger – big enough to wreck a satellite; more than 500,000 pieces of debris are marble-sized – capable of damaging spacecraft; while “over 100 million pieces are the size of a grain of salt that could puncture a spacesuit.”

    As these fragments knock into each other, they can create yet more pieces of smaller orbital debris.

    Russia said earlier this year it is planning to pull out of the International Space Station and end its decades-long partnership with NASA at the orbiting outpost, which is due to be retired by 2031.

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  • Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical satellite services in Ukraine, asks Pentagon to pick up the tab | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical satellite services in Ukraine, asks Pentagon to pick up the tab | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Since they first started arriving in Ukraine last spring, the Starlink satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX have been a vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.

    So far roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine, with Musk tweeting on Friday the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”

    But those charitable contributions could be coming to an end, as SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.

    Documents obtained by CNN show that last month Musk’s SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service as it has. The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months.

    “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in the September letter.

    Among the SpaceX documents sent to the Pentagon and seen by CNN is a previously unreported direct request made to Musk in July by the Ukrainian military’s commanding general, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, for almost 8,000 more Starlink terminals.

    In a separate cover letter to the Pentagon, an outside consultant working for SpaceX wrote, “SpaceX faces terribly difficult decisions here. I do not think they have the financial ability to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General Zaluzhniy.”

    The documents, which have not been previously reported, provide a rare breakdown of SpaceX’s own internal numbers on Starlink, detailing the costs and payments associated with the thousands of terminals in Ukraine. They also shed new light on behind-the-scenes negotiations that have provided millions of dollars in communications hardware and services to Ukraine at little cost to Kyiv.

    The letters come amid recent reports of wide-ranging Starlink outages as Ukrainian troops attempt to retake ground occupied by Russia in the eastern and southern parts of the country.

    Sources familiar with the outages said they suddenly affected the entire frontline as it stood on September 30. “That has affected every effort of the Ukrainians to push past that front,” said one person familiar with the outages who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “Starlink is the main way units on the battlefield have to communicate.”

    There was no warning to Ukrainian forces, a second person said, adding that now when Ukraine liberates an area a request has to be made for Starlink services to be turned on.

    The Financial Times first reported the outages which resulted in a “catastrophic” loss of communication, a senior Ukrainian official said. In a tweet responding to the article, Musk didn’t dispute the outage, saying that what is happening on the battlefield is classified.

    SpaceX’s suggestion it will stop funding Starlink also comes amid rising concern in Ukraine over Musk’s allegiance. Musk recently tweeted a controversial peace plan that would have Ukraine give up Crimea and control over the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

    After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the question of who Musk sides with, he responded that he “still very much support[s] Ukraine” but fears “massive escalation.”

    Musk also argued privately last month that Ukraine doesn’t want peace negotiations right now and that if they went along with his plan, “Russia would accept those terms,” according to a person who heard them.

    “Ukraine knows that its current government and wartime efforts are totally dependent on Starlink,” the person familiar with the discussions said. “The decision to keep Starlink running or not rests entirely in the hands of one man. That’s Elon Musk. He hasn’t been elected, no one decided to give him that power. He has it because of the technology and the company he built.”

    On Tuesday Musk denied a report he has spoken to Putin directly about Ukraine. On Thursday, when a Ukrainian minister tweeted that Starlink is essential to Ukraine’s infrastructure, Musk replied: “You’re most welcome. Glad to support Ukraine.”

    More than seven months into the war, it’s hard to overstate the impact Starlink has had in Ukraine. The government in Kyiv, Ukrainian troops as well and NGOs and civilians have relied on the nimble, compact and easy-to-use units created by SpaceX. It’s not only used for voice and electronic communication but to help fly drones and send back video to correct artillery fire.

    CNN has seen it used at numerous Ukrainian bases.

    Elon Musk pauses and looks down as he speaks during a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022.

    “Starlink has been absolutely essential because the Russians have targeted the Ukrainian communications infrastructure,” said Dimitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank. “Without that they’d be really operating in the blind in many cases.”

    Though Musk has received widespread acclaim and thanks for responding to requests for Starlink service to Ukraine right as the war was starting, in reality, the vast majority of the 20,000 terminals have received full or partial funding from outside sources, including the US government, the UK and Poland, according to the SpaceX letter to the Pentagon.

    SpaceX’s request that the US military foot the bill has rankled top brass at the Pentagon, with one senior defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the gall to look like heroes” while having others pay so much and now presenting them with a bill for tens of millions per month.

    According to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities. Those entities also paid for about 30% of the internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 each month per unit for the most advanced service. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted there are around 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.)

    In his July letter to Musk, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Zaluzhniy, praised the Starlink units’ “exceptional utility” and said some 4,000 terminals had been deployed by the military. However, around 500 terminals per month are destroyed in the fighting, Zaluzhniy said, before asking for 6,200 more terminals for the Ukrainian military and intelligence services and 500 per month going forward to offset the losses.

    SpaceX said they responded by asking Zaluzhniy to instead take up his request to the Department of Defense.

    On September 8 the senior director of government sales for SpaceX wrote the Pentagon saying the costs have gotten too high, approaching $100 million. The official asked the Department of Defense to pick up Ukraine’s new request as well as ongoing service costs, totaling $124 million for the remainder of 2022.

    Those costs, according to the senior defense official, would reach almost $380 million for a full year.

    SpaceX declined repeated requests for comment on both the outages and their recent request to the Pentagon. A lawyer for Musk did not reply to a request for comment. Defense Department spokesman Bob Ditchey told CNN, “The Department continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine’s armed forces as they repel Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression. We do not have anything else to add at this time.”

    Early US support for Starlink came via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which according to the Washington Post spent roughly $3 million on hardware and services in Ukraine. The largest single contributor of terminals, according to the newly obtained documents, is Poland with payment for almost 9,000 individual terminals.

    US Pentagon in Washington DC building looking down aerial view from above

    The US has provided almost 1,700 terminals. Other contributors include the UK, NGOs and crowdfunding.

    The far more expensive part, however, is the ongoing connectivity. SpaceX says it has paid for about 70% of the service provided to Ukraine and claims to have offered that highest level – $4,500 a month – to all terminals in Ukraine despite the majority only having signed on for the cheaper $500 per month service.

    The terminals themselves cost $1500 and $2500 for the two models sent to Ukraine, the documents say, while consumer models on Starlink’s website are far cheaper and service in Ukraine is just $60 per month.

    That’s just 1.3% of the service rate SpaceX says it needs the Pentagon to start paying.

    “You could say he’s trying to get money from the government or just trying to say ‘I don’t want to be part of this anymore,’” said the person familiar with Ukraine’s requests for Starlink. Given the recent outages and Musk’s reputation for being unpredictable, “Feelings are running really high on the Ukrainian side,” this person said.

    Musk is the biggest shareholder of the privately-held SpaceX. In May, SpaceX disclosed that its valuation had risen to $127 billion and it has raised $2 billion this year, CNBC reported.

    Last week, Musk faced a barrage of criticism on Twitter – including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – after presenting in a series of tweets his peace plan to end the war. It would include giving Crimea to Russia and re-do referenda, supervised by the United Nations this time, in the four regions Russia recently illegally annexed.

    It echoed comments he’d made last month at an exclusive closed-door conference in Aspen, Colorado called “The Weekend,” at which Musk told a room full of attendees that Ukraine should seek peace now because they’ve had recent victories.

    “This is the time to do it. They don’t want to do it, that’s for sure. But this is the time to do it,” he said, according to a person in the room. “Everyone wants to seek peace when they’re losing but they don’t want to seek peace when they’re winning. For now.”

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  • 5 things to know for Oct. 11: Ukraine, Rail strike, Trump, School shootings, Speeding | CNN

    5 things to know for Oct. 11: Ukraine, Rail strike, Trump, School shootings, Speeding | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    If you’re planning to take a trip this winter, now’s the time to pounce on the best prices available for airfares. Some travel experts recommend securing holiday flights before Halloween because prices typically increase considerably as Thanksgiving gets closer.

    Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.

    (You can get “5 Things You Need to Know Today” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)

    Air raid sirens sounded in multiple regions of Ukraine today after Russia launched new missile attacks. This comes after Russia unleashed a wave of attacks across Ukraine on Monday, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than 100 others, according to Ukrainian officials. Critical infrastructure was hit in several regions and in the capital Kyiv, where dozens of fires broke out, Ukraine’s emergency services said. Numerous areas in the region are still without power today following the barrage of Russian strikes that were partly targeted at energy facilities to leave Ukrainians without electricity. President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, condemning the strikes and pledging continued US security assistance “including advanced air defense systems.”

    The threat of a freight rail strike is back after a major union of railroad workers rejected a tentative agreement Monday with the nation’s freight carriers. More than half of the 23,000 members in one of the largest rail unions opposed the agreement, meaning the two parties will now enter negotiations in hopes of reaching a deal. Without a new deal, there could be a strike that significantly impacts the nation’s already struggling supply chains. But such a strike would not occur until at least November 19, according to the union. The Biden administration has been desperate to avoid a strike because major railroads carry 30% of the nation’s freight and a strike could cause shortages and higher prices for essentials like food and gasoline. A strike could also force factories without parts to close and leave store shelves empty during the holiday shopping season. 

    Romans: There is a move afoot here for better quality of living

    New emails released by the General Services Administration debunk claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies that the government agency is to blame for packing boxes from the White House that ended up at his Mar-a-Lago residence after his presidency. Former presidents are allowed to take certain government materials and office equipment to set up a permanent office away from the White House. But that does not include the sort of classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago – which are at the center of an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation. Trump and his allies have said GSA was responsible for classified documents being at his Florida home. The newly released emails, however, make clear that the boxes had already been packed and sat shrink-wrapped in an empty office space.

    Here’s why Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon’s decisions are under scrutiny

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys will present closing arguments today in the sentencing trial of the Parkland school shooter. This will be the last opportunity for them to make their cases before the jury will help decide whether the gunman will be sentenced to death or to life in prison. The imminent conclusion of the trial comes almost a year after the 24-year-old shooter pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and other charges for the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three school staff members were killed. Separately, in Uvalde, Texas, the school district’s superintendent announced his retirement Monday after new details surfaced about the Robb Elementary School massacre, which left 19 students and two teachers dead.

    Families of victims and survivors testify in Parkland shooter trial

    The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended a new vehicle system that could stop drivers from speeding. The technology essentially recognizes speed limits and either issues visual or audible alerts when a driver is speeding or prevents vehicles from going above those limits. New York City has become the first city in the US to test the speed-limiting technology in 50 of its fleet vehicles. “There’s no reason today, with so much technology and so much awareness, that anybody should die at the hands of an automobile,” said Meera Joshi, New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Operations. After more than 20,000 deaths on US roads this year alone, the NTSB has called on the federal government to start incentivizing car makers to put speed-limiting systems in new cars, according to a report. It will be up to automobile manufacturers whether they introduce the technology.

    Actor William Shatner shares what it’s like traveling to space

    “Everything I had expected to see was wrong,” Shatner wrote in a new biography. Learn about the actor’s life-changing experience aboard a suborbital space tourism flight.

    Football player Sebastian Gutierrez swaps pizza shop for the New England Patriots

    A former pizza shop worker is now earning his dough in the NFL! Read his inspirational story here.

    How dogs changed the course of civilization

    Did you know dogs were the first animal that humans ever domesticated? Here’s how adorable fur babies became a part of our daily lives.

    Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reunion delights ‘Back to the Future’ fans

    The pair had an epic reunion at Comic Con 37 years after the release of the sci-fi comedy. (Can you believe it’s been 37 years? Take a second to remember those good old days.)

    Shaquille O’Neal reiterates his desire to buy an NBA team

    The four-time NBA champion shared a cryptic message about his wish to buy an NBA team “back home.” Here are some possibilities where that could be.

    Eileen Ryan, a veteran actress and the mother of actor Sean Penn, has died, Penn’s publicist shared in a statement. She was 94. Ryan appeared in more than 60 television shows and films over her long career, including the acclaimed films “Magnolia” and “I Am Sam.”

    $18 million

    That’s the prize Dustin Johnson won after clinching the inaugural LIV Golf championship, tournament officials announced Monday. The 38-year-old made the switch from the PGA Tour to the Saudi-backed rebel series in June. The controversial LIV Golf series has caused a rift in professional golf, as LIV golfers have been banned from the PGA Tour for participating in the breakaway series.

    “No child should ever be subjected to such racist, mean and dehumanizing comments, especially from a public official.”

    – Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin and his husband, issuing a family statement after his fellow council member, Nury Martinez, made racist remarks about him and his Black child. In leaked audio obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Martinez says Bonin, a White man, appeared with his son on a float in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade and “handled his young Black son as though he were an accessory.” The Times reported that Martinez also said of Bonin’s child, “Parece changuito,” or “He’s like a monkey.” Following the backlash for an array of offensive comments heard in the audio, Martinez resigned as Los Angeles City Council president on Monday.

    Fall temperatures for the Northeast as rain hits Florida

    Check your local forecast here>>>

    Today is National Coming Out Day

    Every year on October 11, National Coming Out Day celebrates the act of “coming out” – when an LGBTQ person decides to publicly share their gender identities or sexual orientation. Watch this 2-minute video to learn how the rainbow flag became a symbol of LGBTQ pride. (Click here to view)

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  • A failed truce renewal in Yemen could further complicate US-Saudi relations | CNN

    A failed truce renewal in Yemen could further complicate US-Saudi relations | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Abu Dhabi, UAE
    CNN
     — 

    After a rare six months of relative calm, Yemen’s warring sides last week failed to renew a truce deal, with calls from the United Nations for an extension falling on deaf ears.

    With one side backed by Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia, it remains to be seen whether the US will support its Middle Eastern ally after last week’s whopping oil cut – seen as a snub from the oil-rich kingdom to the Biden administration ahead of the US midterm elections.

    The country’s Iran-backed Houthis and their rival Saudi-led coalition had agreed on a nationwide truce in April, the first since 2016. The two-month truce was renewed twice but came to an end last week over eleventh-hour demands put forward by the Houthis with regards to public sector wages.

    At the last minute, the Houthis imposed “maximalist and impossible demands that the parties simply could not reach, certainly in the time that was available,” said US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking in a statement, adding that diplomatic efforts by the US and the UN continue.

    “The unannounced reasons [for not renewing the truce] are speculated to be that the Iranians asked the Houthis, directly, to help escalate things in the region,” said Maged Almadhaji, director of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies.

    “Iranians and Houthis are in a difficult political position,” Almadhaji told CNN, adding that Iranians are under immense pressure amid raging protests at home and might be trying to keep Gulf rivals at bay by keeping them occupied with Yemen’s conflict.

    The few months of ceasefire were a breath of fresh air for millions of Yemenis who, in the last seven years of conflict, were driven to “acute need,” the UN said. The peace period saw the monthly rate of people displaced internally dip by 76%, and the number of civilians killed or injured by fighting lowered by 54%, said the UN last week.

    Yemen has been described by the UN as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

    Lenderking said that some aspects of the initial truce are still being upheld, such as relatively low violence, continued fuel shipments that can still offload into the Houthi-held Hodeidah port as well as resumed civilian-commercial flights from Sanaa airport. But the risks are very high.

    The Houthis have already warned investors to steer clear of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as they are “fraught with risks” – a message seen as a direct threat that the Iran-backed group is ready to strike once again.

    “With the Houthis, it is always risky not to take their threats seriously,” Peter Salisbury, consultant at International Crisis Group, told CNN.

    Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have previously launched attacks on the oil-rich countries, mainly targeting oil fields and key airports. In March, Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on an Aramco oil storage facility in Jeddah. And in January, they said they were behind a drone strike on fuel trucks near the airport in Abu Dhabi.

    Saudi Arabia has previously sounded alarms to its powerful US security ally over these attacks, criticizing the Biden administration over what it perceived as waning US security presence in the volatile Middle East.

    Security agitation among Gulf monarchies was exacerbated by US nuclear talks with Iran earlier this year, where the possibility of lifted economic sanctions posed the risk of an emboldened Tehran that, it was feared, would, in turn, further empower and arm its regional proxies – predominantly the Houthis.

    But the Houthis are already arguably emboldened, said Gregory Johnsen, a former member of the United Nations’ Panel of Experts on Yemen.

    “I think Iran would like nothing better than to leave the Houthis in Sanaa on Saudi’s border as check against future Saudi behavior,” Johnsen told CNN.

    Saudi Arabia’s strongest security ally has been the US, and traditionally the two countries’ unwritten agreement has been oil in exchange for security – namely against Iranian hostility.

    But now, as Saudi Arabia defies the US with its latest OPEC oil cut, the two countries’ friendship is under increased strain. And with already existing reluctance in congressional politics to increase military support to Saudi Arabia, it remains unclear whether the US will respond with swift support to its Middle Eastern ally should violence flare, said Salisbury.

    A number of US Democratic politicians have accused Saudi Arabia of siding with Russia, saying the oil cut should be seen as a “hostile act” against the US.

    The threats made by certain US senators against Saudi Arabia after Wednesday’s OPEC oil cut – some of whom have called on US President Joe Biden to “retaliate” – are not credible, said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political science professor in the UAE, adding that the response from the Biden administration “has been more restrained.”

    It is in America’s interest to protect Middle Eastern oil producers, Abdulla told CNN, especially as supply tightens amid the Ukraine war and stalled nuclear talks with Iran.

    “At this moment in history, America needs Saudi Arabia, needs the UAE, just as much as we need them for security purposes,” Abdulla said.

    US policy toward Yemen has in recent years been in disarray, analysts say. The Obama administration first backed the Saudi-led coalition in 2016, but levels of support later changed as evidence emerged of civilian casualties in the Saudi-led air campaign.

    Saudi Arabia enjoyed extensive support for its Yemen policy during the Trump administration. In late 2019, Biden promised to make the kingdom a pariah and, a little over a year later, he slashed US support for Saudi Arabia’s offensive operations in Yemen, “including relevant arms sales.”

    The US continues, however, to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia through the loophole of “defense.”

    The Biden administration last August approved and notified Congress of possible multibillion-dollar weapons sales to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, citing defense against Houthi attacks as a legitimate cause for concern.

    “Now, the US is frustrated with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while it has no leverage with the Houthis,” said Johnsen. “The US has been lost at sea for the past year and a half when it comes to a Yemen policy,” he added, labelling it a situation largely “of its own making.”

    While there is pressure within the US to sternly react to Saudi Arabia’s energy policies, it is yet to be seen how the US will respond to the developments in Yemen, where some say Washington would be wise to uphold its security guarantees.

    “I don’t think it is in the best interest of America to reduce their military assistance to Saudi Arabia,” said Abdulla. “If they do, it will backfire on America more than many of these senators would imagine.”

    At least 185 people, including at least 19 children, have been killed in nationwide protests across Iran since September, said Iran Human Rights (IHR), an Iran-focused human rights group based in Norway, on Saturday.

    CNN cannot independently verify death toll claims. Human Rights Watch said that, as of September 30, Iranian state-affiliated media placed the number of deaths at 60.

    Now in their third week, protests have swept across Iranian cities following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by morality police and taken to a “re-education center” for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.

    Here is the latest on this developing story:

    • Iranian police on Sunday dispersed high school girls who gathered to protest in southwestern Tehran. Meanwhile, an eyewitness told CNN that in the southeastern part of the city, girls took to the street shouting “woman, life, freedom” and “death to the dictator.”
    • The death toll from the crackdown on Saturday’s protests in Iran’s Kurdish city of Sanandaj has increased to at least four, according to the Iranian human rights group Hengaw on Sunday.
    • Iran’s state broadcaster IRINN (Islamic Republic of Iran News Network) was allegedly hacked during its nightly news program on Saturday, according to the pro-reform IranWire outlet, which shared a clip of the hacking. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported on the hacking, saying that IRIB/IRINN’s 9 p.m. newscast was hacked for a few moments by anti-revolutionary elements.
    • The internet connectivity monitoring service NetBlocks on Saturday said that Iran had shut off the internet in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj in an attempt to curb a growing protest movement amid reports of new killings.

    Violent weekend as four Palestinians killed in West Bank, Israeli soldier killed in Jerusalem shooting

    An Israeli soldier has died following a rare shooting at a military checkpoint in East Jerusalem on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces said. The attack comes after a violent two days in the occupied West Bank where Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, Palestinian authorities said.

    • Background: The shooting happened at a checkpoint of the normally quiet area near the Shuafat Refugee Camp in northeast Jerusalem, an area considered occupied territory by most of the international community. Video of the incident shows a man coming up to a group of soldiers and shooting them point blank before running away. Noa Lazar, an 18-year-old female soldier, was killed, and a 30-year-old guard was critically injured. In a statement, Prime Minister Yair Lapid called the attacker a “vile terrorist” and said Israel will “not rest until we bring these heinous murderers to justice.” Prior to the checkpoint attack, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over two days, according to Palestinian authorities. Two were killed in the Jenin Refugee Camp on Saturday when, the IDF said, clashes broke out as they came to arrest an “Islamic Jihad operative” that the IDF claimed was “involved in terrorist activities, planning and carrying out shooting attacks towards IDF soldiers in the area.” Another two, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in separate incidents elsewhere in the territories. The occupied West Bank, especially the areas of Jenin and Nablus, is in an increasingly volatile and dangerous situation, as near-daily clashes take place between the Israeli military and increasingly armed Palestinians.
    • Why it matters: More than 105 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces so far this year, making it the deadliest year for Palestinians in the occupied territories since 2015, according to Palestinian health authorities. Israel says most Palestinians killed were engaging violently with soldiers during military operations, although dozens of unarmed civilians have been killed as well, human rights groups including B’Tselem have said. Some 21 civilians and soldiers have been killed so far this year in attacks targeting Israelis.

    US says a failed rocket attack targeted US and partnered forces in Syria

    One rocket was launched at a base housing US and coalition troops in Syria on Saturday night, according to US Central Command. No US or coalition forces were injured in the attack, and no facilities or equipment were damaged, CENTCOM said in a statement.

    • Background: The rocket was a 107mm rocket, and additional rockets were found at the launch site, CENTCOM said. The attack is under investigation. On September 18, a similar rocket attack using 107mm rockets was launched against Green Village in Syria, a base housing US troops. Three 107mm rockets were launched and a fourth was found at the launch site.
    • Why it matters: The attack comes two days after US forces killed two top ISIS leaders in an airstrike in northern Syria, and three days after a US raid killed an ISIS smuggler. Although there is no attribution for the attack, such rocket launches are frequently used by Iranian-backed militias in Syria.

    UAE president to meet with Putin during visit to Russia on Tuesday

    UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Russia on Tuesday, UAE state-run news agency WAM said.

    • Background: “During his visit, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed will discuss with President Putin the friendly relations between the UAE and Russia along with a number of regional and international issues and developments of common interest,” WAM said.
    • Why it matters: The visit comes less than a week after OPEC+, the international cartel of oil producers, announced a significant cut to output in an effort to raise oil prices. The UAE is a member of the organization led by Saudi Arabia and Russia. CNN has reached out to the UAE government for comment.

    Before clicking enter on your Google search today, take a minute to check out today’s ‘Google Doodle.’ Standing by a library and a lighthouse is prominent Egyptian historian Mostafa El-Abbadi, who would have turned 94 today.

    Hailed as “champion of Alexandria’s Resurrected Library” by the New York Times, he was the key player in resurrecting the Great Library of Alexandria.

    The son of the founder of the College of Letters and Arts at the University of Alexandria, El-Abbadi’s love for academia came at a very young age.

    The intellectual went on to graduate from the University of Cambridge and returned home as a professor of Greco-Roman studies at the University of Alexandria, where his love for the Library of Alexandria grew.

    El-Abbadi sought to restore the glory of the “Great Library” which disappeared between 270 and 250 A.D. – and he succeeded.

    Combined efforts by the Egyptian government, UNESCO, and other organizations led to the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on October 16, 2002.

    Despite being the main driver of the project, El-Abbadi was not invited to the ceremony after he became a critic of how the scheme was handled by the authorities.

    “It became the project of the presidents, of the people who cut the rope, the people who stood on the front stage, and not of Mostafa El-Abbadi,” said Prof. Mona Haggag, a former student of El-Abbadi and head of the department of Greek and Roman archaeology at the University of Alexandria, according to the New York Times.

    By Mohammed Abdelbary

    Models present creations by Italy's iconic fashion house Stefano Ricci at the temple of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut on the west bank of the Nile river, off Egypt's southern city of Luxor, on October 9.

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  • SpaceX, NASA to launch 3 astronauts and 1 cosmonaut to the ISS. Here’s everything you need to know | CNN

    SpaceX, NASA to launch 3 astronauts and 1 cosmonaut to the ISS. Here’s everything you need to know | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    SpaceX and NASA are set to launch a crew of astronauts who hail from all over the world on a trip to the International Space Station.

    The mission, which will include some historic firsts, is moving forward even as rising geopolitical tensions brew on the ground.

    The four crew members — astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, astronaut Koichi Wakata of JAXA, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of Roscosmos — are on track to launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft at 12 p.m. ET Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If bad weather or other issues interfere, the teams could try again Thursday at 11:38 a.m. ET.

    A live broadcast on NASA’s website kicked off just after 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. NASA will also stream a post-event briefing, tentatively scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET, to discuss the launch.

    Dubbed Crew-5, the mission is the sixth astronaut flight launched as a joint endeavor between NASA and SpaceX, a privately held aerospace company, to the space station.

    The upcoming spaceflight marks a historic moment, as Mann will not only become the first Native American woman ever to travel to space. She’ll also serve as mission commander, making her the first woman ever to take on such a role for a SpaceX mission.

    What’s more, Kikina will be the first Russian to join a SpaceX mission as part of a ride-sharing deal NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, inked in July. Her participation in the flight is the latest clear signal that, despite mounting tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the decades-long US-Russia partnership in space will persist — at least for now.

    After the anticipated launch on Wednesday, the Crew Dragon spacecraft will separate from the SpaceX rocket that boosts it to orbit and begin a slow, precise trek to the ISS, which orbits about 200 miles (322 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. The spacecraft is aiming to dock with the space station on Thursday around 5 p.m. ET.

    Launching NASA astronauts to the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is nothing new. The space agency collaborated with SpaceX for years to transition the task of shuttling people to and from the space station after NASA retired its Space Shuttle Program in 2011.

    With the return of astronaut launches from US soil, SpaceX has offered a stage for several historic firsts. The Crew-4 Dragon mission, for example, carried NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, the first Black woman ever to join the ISS crew.

    On this flight, Mann, a registered member of the Wailacki tribe of the Round Valley Reservation, will become the first Native American woman ever to travel to orbit.

    “I am very proud to represent Native Americans and my heritage,” Mann said. “I think it’s important to celebrate our diversity and also realize how important it is when we collaborate and unite, the incredible accomplishments that we can have.”

    In her role as commander, Mann will be responsible for ensuring the spacecraft is on track from the time it launches until it docks with the ISS and again when it returns home with the four Crew-5 astronauts next year. Never before has a woman taken on the commander role on a SpaceX mission, though a couple of women served in that position during the Space Shuttle Program.

    Kikina, the Roscosmos cosmonaut, will become the first Russian ever to launch on a SpaceX vehicle at a time when US-Russian relations are hitting near fever pitch over the Ukraine war.

    But officials at NASA have said repeatedly that joint operations with Russia on the ISS, where the two countries are the primary operators, will remain isolated from the fray. Kikina’s flight comes just weeks after NASA’s Dr. Frank Rubio launched to the ISS aboard a Roscosmos Soyuz capsule.

    “I really love my crewmates,” Kikina told reporters after she arrived at the Florida launch site on Saturday. “I really feel good, comfortable. … We will do our job the best way: happy.”

    READ MORE: Meet the space trailblazers of color who empowered others to dream

    Mann and her fellow NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, who grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, both joined NASA in 2013. Cassada has described Mann as one of his “closest friends on the planet.”

    As with Mann, this mission will be the first trip to space for Cassada and Kikina.

    For veteran astronaut Wakata, who has previously flown on both NASA’s space shuttle and Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, this trip marks his fifth spaceflight mission.

    “I still remember when I first flew and saw our beautiful home planet,” he recalled during an August press conference. “It was so wonderful, such a beautiful planet, then I felt very lucky to be able to call this planet our home.”

    After reaching the ISS, the crew will join the seven astronauts already aboard the ISS — including four NASA astronauts, a European Space Agency astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts.

    There will be a handover period, where the current ISS crew will help the newly arrived astronauts settle in before a separate Crew Dragon spacecraft brings the four astronauts who were part of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission back home.

    Then the Crew-5 astronauts will set to work conducting spacewalks, during which astronauts exit the ISS, to maintain the space station’s exterior, as well as performing more than 200 science experiments.

    “Experiments will include studies on printing human organs in space, understanding fuel systems operating on the Moon, and better understanding heart disease,” according to NASA.

    Crew-5 is slated to return from space in about five months.

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  • Out-of-service satellites must be removed within 5 years, FCC says | CNN Business

    Out-of-service satellites must be removed within 5 years, FCC says | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    Satellites that are no longer in service must get out of the sky far more quickly under a new rule adopted by US federal regulators Thursday — and it’s all in the name of combating the garbage in Earth’s orbit.

    Unused satellites in low-Earth orbit, which is the area already most congested with satellites, must be dragged out of orbit “as soon as practicable, and no more than five years following the end of their mission,” according to the new Federal Communications Commission rule.

    That’s far less time than the long-standing rule of 25 years that has been criticized as too lax. Even NASA advised years ago that the 25-year timeline should be reduced to five years.

    “Twenty-five years is a long time. There is no reason to wait that long anymore, especially in low-Earth orbit,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at Thursday’s meeting. The FCC rule passed unanimously.

    The goal of this rule is prevent the dangerous proliferation of junk and debris in space. Already, there’s estimated to be more than 100 million pieces of space junk traveling uncontrolled through orbit, ranging in size from a penny to an entire rocket booster. Much of that debris, experts say, is too small to track.

    Collisions in space have happened before. And each collision can span thousands of new pieces of debris, each of which risk setting off even more collisions. One well-known theory, called “Kessler Syndrome,” warns that it’s possible for spaceborne garbage to set of disastrous chain reactions, potentially causing Earth’s orbit to become so cluttered with junk that it could render future space exploration and satellite launches impractical and even impossible.

    More than half of the roughly 10,000 satellites the world has sent into orbit since the 1950s are now obsolete and considered “space junk,” Rosenworcel said, adding that the debris poses risks to communication and safety.

    The FCC plan had been questioned by some US lawmakers who have said the rules could create “conflicting guidance” and without clear congressional authority. But Thursday’s vote moved forward nonetheless.

    “At risk is more than the $279 billion-a-year satellite and launch industries and the jobs that depend on them,” according to an FCC document released earlier this month. “Left unchecked, orbital debris could block all of these benefits and reduce opportunities across nearly every sector of our economy.”

    The number of satellites in low-Earth orbit, which is the sphere of orbit extending about 2,000 km or 1,200 miles out, has grown exponentially in recent years, thanks in large part to massive, new “megaconstellations” of small satellites pouring into space, largely by commercial companies. Most notably, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched about 3,000 satellites to space for its space-based internet service, Starlink.

    There’s also plans to put tens of thousands of new satellites in low-Earth orbit in years to come, FCC commissioner Nathan Simington noted during Thursday’s meeting.

    Commercial companies have routinely promised to take the debris issue seriously, and SpaceX had already agreed to comply with the recommended five-year rule for getting defunct satellites out of orbit.

    But there has long been a broader push within the space community to codify new regulations. So the FCC announced plans in early September to at least vote on updates to US regulations.

    The FCC also specified that it will apply the rule not only to the US satellite operators it oversees but also to “non-US-licensed satellites and systems seeking US market access.”

    “A veritable Cambrian explosion of commercial space operations is just over the horizon, and we had better be ready when it arrives,” said Simington.

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  • Firefly successfully launches unmanned rocket | CNN Business

    Firefly successfully launches unmanned rocket | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Texas-based commercial rocket company Firefly launched a rocket into space Friday morning, about a year after a previous attempt ended in an explosion.

    The company announced “100% Mission success” on Twitter.

    The Alpha rocket launched at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

    It was originally set to launch September 11, but that was scrapped because the rocket’s helium pressure dropped, affiliate KSBY reported.

    “The Alpha is an economical small satellite launch vehicle,” Vandenberg reported on its website. “Firefly had three educational payloads aboard and successfully inserted into an elliptical transfer orbit, coast to apogee, and performed a circularization burn.”

    It was the company’s second unmanned launch ever from Vandenberg.

    In September 2021, a rocket appeared to have a smooth liftoff but then malfunctioned. US Space Force officials ordered the company to destroy the rocket in mid-air to prevent hurting people or property below. No one was injured.

    Firefly and other commercial rocket companies are trying to make space a place of competitive business rather than the sole domain of governments.

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