The Big Picture

Issue with Virgin Orbit’s second stage led to launch failure

“Virgin Orbit, which tried to launch satellites into space from Britain for the first time earlier this week, said that a problem with the rocket’s second-stage engine about 110 miles above the earth caused the failure of the mission. Some of the satellites on board belonged to Britain, the United States and other governments, which are unlikely to feel much financial pain from the loss. But for one of the satellite makers, Horizon Technologies, a start-up based in Reading, England, the loss of its device could threaten the company’s existence.” (New York Times)

First ABL Space Systems launch fails

The first flight of ABL Space Systems’ RS1 rocket failed to reach orbit on Jan. 10 after launching from the Alaska’s Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island. The company said that the nine engines in its first stage shut down simultaneously after liftoff, causing the vehicle to fall back to the pad and explode. The explosion damaged the launch facility but no personnel were injured. (SpaceNews)

VALL-E’s quickie voice deepfakes should worry you, if you weren’t worried already

“VALL-E, posted on GitHub by its creators at Microsoft last week, is a “neural codec language model” that uses a different approach to rendering voices than many before it. Its larger training corpus and some new methods allow it to create “high-quality personalized speech” using just three seconds of audio from a target speaker. But VALL-E is more iterative than breakthrough, and the capabilities aren’t so new as you might think.” (TechCrunch)

FDA no longer needs to require animal tests before human drug trials

“New medicines need not be tested in animals to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, according to legislation signed by President Joe Biden in late December 2022. In place of the 1938 stipulation that potential drugs be tested for safety and efficacy in animals, the law allows FDA to promote a drug or biologic—a larger molecule such as an antibody—to human trials after either animal or nonanimal tests.” (Science)

Scientists See Quantum Interference between Different Kinds of Particles for First Time

“For the first time, scientists have observed quantum interference—a wavelike interaction between particles related to the weird quantum phenomenon of entanglement—occurring between two different kinds of particles. Dissimilar particles can sometimes become entangled, but until now, these mismatched entangled particles weren’t known to interfere with one another. The discovery could help physicists understand what goes on inside an atomic nucleus.” (Scientific American)