DTN 182: Starship reaches orbit on first operational mission

“My hot take on what is undervalued is that biotech is deep tech. It deals with atoms and software, and I think it is the most undervalued category right now. It is finally coming into the spotlight because of AI and the realization that we can all sequence our genome. We have been investing in that space for about three years. It also scratches a real itch, because it is hard to debate that curing cancer or solving autoimmune disease would be a big deal. I actually think people underestimate how significant the market of staying healthy is. That is the big one.”

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Starship Reaches Orbit on 14th Test Flight

“SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time Monday morning.

Flight 14 was the first operational mission for Starship. That’s good news for many in the space industry, who are planning their missions around the capacity offered by the spacecraft.

Starship lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase, TX launch pad at 8:48am ET. During its ascent, the ship lost one of its six engines, briefly putting SpaceX’s orbital ambitions in doubt as engineers double-checked that the ship was in tip top shape for orbital insertion. 

However, engineers ultimately decided to go since the ship didn’t need the lost engine again, and Starship entered orbit ~25 minutes after liftoff.

Meanwhile, the Super Heavy booster made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf roughly seven minutes after liftoff. The booster failed to relight all of its engines as was planned during descent, repeating a recurring issue despite SpaceX’s hardware and software fixes after past flights. 

After reaching orbit, Starship deployed 26 V3 Starlink sats over about 30 minutes using its ‘Pez dispenser’ system. 

Monday’s 26 sats add roughly 10x the capacity of a Falcon 9 Starlink launch, according to SpaceX, and a full 60-sat Starship load would equal about 20x V2s. Musk said on X that all 26 satellites were deployed and “operating nominally. (via Payload)

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“Human movement augmentation is a new and growing area of research that aims to extend human capabilities beyond their natural limits. Within this field, researchers are developing and studying artificial limbs that can be added to the human body. These are known as supernumerary robotic limbs, or SRLs.

Current SRLs are largely experimental, but in the future wearable robotic limbs could help in a range of areas. They could have an impact in manufacturing, health care, space, music, arts, gaming and rehabilitation.

Unlike prostheses, SRLs increase the overall capacity of the human body rather than restoring the capacity of a missing limb.

So far, they tend to be controlled using another body part, most often the foot. By using pedals or shoes fitted with sensors, a person can generate forces or make movements with their feet that are then translated into movements of a robotic limb. Recent research has also investigated using the muscles around the ears for control.” (via The Conversation)

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