Month: April 2023

Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Monday called off a highly anticipated launch of its powerful new Starship rocket, delaying the first uncrewed test flight of the vehicle into space.

The two-stage rocketship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 m) high, originally was scheduled for blast-off from the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica, Texas, during a two-hour launch window that began at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT).

But the California-based space company announced in a live webcast during the final minutes of the countdown that it was scrubbing the flight attempt for at least 48 hours, citing a pressurization issue in the lower-stage rocket booster.

Musk, the company’s billionaire founder and chief executive, told a private Twitter audience on Sunday night that the mission stood a better chance of being scrubbed than proceeding to launch on Monday.

Getting the vehicle to space for the first time would represent a key milestone in SpaceX’s ambition of sending humans back to the moon and ultimately to Mars – at least initially as part of NASA’s newly inaugurated human spaceflight program, Artemis.

A successful debut flight would also instantly rank the Starship system as the most powerful launch vehicle on Earth.

Both the lower-stage Super Heavy booster rocket and the upper-stage Starship cruise vessel it will carry to space are designed as reusable components, capable of flying back to Earth for soft landings – a maneuver that has become routine for SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 9 rocket.

But neither stage would be recovered for the expendable first test flight to space, expected to last no more than 90 minutes.

Prototypes of the Starship cruise vessel have made five sub-space flights up to 6 miles (10 km) above Earth in recent years, but the Super Heavy booster has never left the ground.

In February, SpaceX did a test-firing of the booster, igniting 31 of its 33 Raptor engines for roughly 10 seconds with the rocket bolted in place vertically atop a platform.

The Federal Aviation Administration just last Friday granted a license for what would be the first test flight of the fully stacked rocket system, clearing a final regulatory hurdle for the long-awaited launch.

If all goes as planned for the next launch bid, all 33 Raptor engines will ignite simultaneously to loft the Starship on a flight that nearly completes a full orbit of the Earth before it re-enters the atmosphere and free-falls into the Pacific at supersonic speed about 60 miles (97 km) off the coast of the northern Hawaiian islands.

After separating from the Starship, the Super Heavy booster is expected to execute the beginnings of a controlled return flight before plunging into the Gulf of Mexico.

As designed, the Starship rocket is nearly two times more powerful than NASA’s own Space Launch System (SLS), which made its debut uncrewed flight to orbit in November, sending a NASA cruise vessel called Orion on a 10-day voyage around the moon and back.
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Japanese video games group Sega has offered to buy Angry Birds maker Rovio, valuing the Finnish company at over $770 million, the companies said Monday.   

“Combining the strengths of Rovio and Sega presents an incredibly exciting future,” Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, CEO of Rovio, said in a statement, which added that Rovio was recommending shareholders to accept the offer.   

The offer, which represents a 19% premium over Rovio’s closing share price on Friday, is part of the Sonic the Hedgehog maker’s “long-term goal” of expanding into the mobile gaming market, Sega CEO Haruki Satomi said.   

“Among the rapidly growing global gaming market, the mobile gaming market has especially high potential,” he added.   

In 2022, Rovio, which employs over 500 people, saw a revenue of $350 million, and an adjusted net profit of $34.5 million.   

Rovio launched the bird slingshot game in 2009 and it soared rapidly to become one of the most popular games on Apple’s App Store.   

In 2016, the “Angry Birds” movie, produced by Sony Entertainment, was a huge success and grossed $350 million worldwide.   

Rovio also manages Angry Birds theme parks in several countries and oversees the publication of children’s books about the famous birds in a dozen languages.   

Following the global success of Angry Birds, Rovio has remained heavily reliant on its flagship game, struggling to develop another similar hit.   

After years of success tied to its Angry Birds mobile games, Rovio hit a rough patch in 2015 and laid off a third of its staff.   

Sega is aiming to open the offer period in early May, hoping to complete the deal in the third quarter, the company said. 
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Floating in the port of Los Angeles, a strange-looking barge covered with pipes and tanks contains a concept that scientists hope to make waves: a new way to use the ocean as a vast carbon dioxide sponge to tackle global warming.

Scientists from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have been working for two years on SeaChange — an ambitious project that could one day boost the amount of CO2, a major greenhouse gas, that can be absorbed by our seas.

Their goal is “to use the ocean as a big sponge,” according to Gaurav Sant, director of the university’s Institute for Carbon Management (ICM).

The oceans, covering most of the Earth, are already the planet’s main carbon sinks, acting as a critical buffer in the climate crisis.

They absorb a quarter of all CO2 emissions, as well as 90% of the warming that has occurred in recent decades due to increasing greenhouse gases.

But they are feeling the strain. The ocean is acidifying, and rising temperatures are reducing its absorption capacity.

The UCLA team wants to increase that capacity by using an electrochemical process to remove vast quantities of CO2 already in seawater — rather like wringing out a sponge to help recover its absorptive power.

“If you can take out the carbon dioxide that is in the oceans, you’re essentially renewing their capacity to take additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” Sant told AFP.

Engineers built a floating mini-factory on a 30-meter-long boat which pumps in seawater and subjects it to an electrical charge.

Chemical reactions triggered by electrolysis convert CO2 dissolved in the seawater into a fine white powder containing calcium carbonate — the compound found in chalk, limestone and oyster or mussel shells.

This powder can be discarded back into the ocean, where it remains in solid form, thereby storing CO2 “very durably… over tens of thousands of years,” explained Sant.

Meanwhile, the pumped water returns to the sea, ready to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Sant and his team are confident the process will not damage the marine environment, although this will require further testing to confirm.

A potential additional benefit of the technology is that it creates hydrogen as a byproduct. As the so-called “green revolution” progresses, the gas could be widely used to power clean cars, trucks and planes in the future.

Of course, the priority in curbing global warming is for humans to drastically reduce current CO2 emissions — something nations are struggling to achieve.

But in parallel, most scientists say carbon dioxide capture and storage techniques can play an important role in keeping the planet livable.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) could help to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 as it offsets emissions from industries which are particularly difficult to decarbonize, such as aviation, and cement and steel production.

It could help to tackle the stocks of CO2 that have been accumulating in the atmosphere for decades.

Keeping global warming under control will require the removal of between 450 billion and 1.1 trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2100, according to the first global report dedicated to the topic, released in January.

That would require the CDR sector “to grow at a rate of about 30 percent per year over the next 30 years, much like what happened with wind and solar,” said one of its authors, Gregory Nemet.

UCLA’s SeaChange technology “fits into a category of a promising solution that could be large enough to be climate-relevant,” said Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

By sequestering CO2 in mineral form within the ocean, it differs markedly from existing “direct air capture” (DAC) methods, which involve pumping and storing gas underground through a highly complex and expensive process.

A start-up company, Equatic, plans to scale up the UCLA technology and prove its commercial viability, by selling carbon credits to manufacturers wanting to offset their emissions.

In addition to the Los Angeles barge, a similar boat is currently being tested in Singapore.

Sant hopes data from both sites will quickly lead to the construction of far larger plants that are capable of removing “thousands of tons of carbon” each year.

“We expect to start operating these new plants in 18 to 24 months,” he said.
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Information in this article is confirmed with other sources and may be used without attribution to The Associated Press in broadcasts — websites still must use the attribution. The News Center has no plans currently to match it.  

(With AP Photo) 

Europe’s Most Powerful Nuclear Reactor Kicks Off in Finland 

Apr 16, 2023 13:05 (GMT) – 423 words |By JARI TANNER The Associated Press 

FOR RADIO: HELSINKI (AP) — Finland’s much-delayed and costly new nuclear reactor, Europe’s most powerful by production capacity, has completed a test phase lasting over a year and has started regular output, significantly boosting the Nordic country’s electricity self-sufficiency. The Olkiluoto 3 reactor, which has 1,600-megawatt capacity, was connected into the Finnish national power grid in March 2022 and kicked off regular production Sunday. Operator Teollisuuden Voima, or TVO, tweeted that “Olkiluoto 3 is now ready” after a delay of 14 years from the original plan. It will help Finland achieve its carbon neutrality targets and increase energy security at a time when European countries have cut oil, gas and other power supplies from Russia, Finland’s neighbor. 

FOR WEB: HELSINKI (AP) — Finland’s much-delayed and costly new nuclear reactor, Europe’s most powerful by production capacity, has completed a test phase lasting over a year and started regular output, boosting the Nordic country’s electricity self-sufficiency significantly. 

The Olkiluoto 3 reactor, which has 1,600-megawatt capacity, was connected into the Finnish national power grid in March 2022 and kicked off regular production Sunday. Operator Teollisuuden Voima, or TVO, tweeted that “Olkiluoto 3 is now ready” after a delay of 14 years from the original plan. 

It will help Finland to achieve its carbon neutrality targets and increase energy security at a time when European countries have cut oil, gas and other power supplies from Russia, Finland’s neighbor. 

“The production of Olkiluoto 3 stabilizes the price of electricity and plays an important role in the Finnish green transition,” said TVO President and CEO Jarmo Tanhua in a statement. The company added that “the electricity production volume of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant unit is a significant addition to clean, domestic production.” 

Construction of Olkiluoto 3 began in 2005 and was to be completed four years later. However, the project was plagued by several technological problems that led to lawsuits. The last time a new nuclear reactor was commissioned in Finland was over 40 years ago. 

The Olkiluoto 3 is western Europe’s first new reactor in more than 15 years. It is the first new-generation EPR, or European Pressurized Reactor, plant to have gone online in Europe. It was developed in a joint venture between France’s Areva and Germany’s Siemens. 

Primarily due to safety concerns, nuclear power remains a controversial issue in Europe. The launch of the Finnish reactor coincides with Germany’s move to shut down its last remaining three nuclear plants Saturday. 

Experts have put Olkiluoto 3’s final price tag at some 11 billion euros ($12 billion) — almost three times what was initially estimated. Finland now has five nuclear reactors in two power plants located on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Combined, they cover more than 40% of the nation’s electricity demand. 

The conservative National Coalition Party, or NCP, which won Finland’s April 2 general election, wants to increase the share of energy that the country of 5.5 million gets from nuclear power still further. 

NCP leader Petteri Orpo, Finland’s likely new prime minister, said during the election campaign that the new Cabinet should make nuclear power “the cornerstone of the government’s energy policy.” 
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to take its most daring leap yet with a round-the-world test flight of its mammoth Starship.

It’s the biggest and mightiest rocket ever built, with the lofty goal of ferrying people to the moon and Mars.

Jutting almost 120 meters into the South Texas sky, Starship could blast off as early as Monday, with no one aboard. Musk’s company got the OK from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Friday.

It will be the first launch with Starship’s two sections together. Early versions of the sci-fi-looking upper stage rocketed several miles into the stratosphere a few years back, crashing four times before finally landing upright in 2021. The towering first-stage rocket booster, dubbed Super Heavy, will soar for the first time.

For this demo, SpaceX won’t attempt any landings of the rocket or the spacecraft. Everything will fall into the sea.

“I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. It won’t be boring,” Musk promised at a Morgan Stanley conference last month. “I think it’s got, I don’t know, hopefully about a 50% chance of reaching orbit.”

Here’s the rundown on Starship’s debut:

Supersize rocket

The stainless-steel Starship has 33 main engines and 7.6 million kilograms of thrust. All but two of the methane-fueled, first-stage engines ignited during a launch pad test in January — good enough to reach orbit, Musk noted. Given its muscle, Starship could lift as much as 250 tons and accommodate 100 people on a trip to Mars. The six-engine spacecraft accounts for 50 meters of its height. Musk anticipates using Starship to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit, including his own Starlinks for internet service, before strapping anyone in. Starship easily eclipses NASA’s moon rockets — the Saturn V from the bygone Apollo era and the Space Launch System from the Artemis program that logged its first lunar trip late last year. It also outflanks the former Soviet Union’s N1 moon rocket, which never made it past a minute into flight, exploding with no one aboard.

Game plan

The test flight will last 1 ½ hours and fall short of a full orbit of Earth. If Starship reaches the three-minute mark after launch, the booster will be commanded to separate and fall into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft would continue eastward, passing over the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans before ditching near Hawaii. Starship is designed to be fully reusable, but nothing will be saved from the test flight. Harvard astrophysicist and spacecraft tracker Jonathan McDowell will be more excited whenever Starship lands and returns intact from orbit. It will be “a profound development in spaceflight if and when Starship is debugged and operational,” he said.

Launch pad

Starship will take off from a remote site on the southernmost tip of Texas near Boca Chica Beach. It’s just below South Padre Island, and about 32 kilometers from Brownsville. Down the road from the launch pad is the complex where SpaceX has been developing and building Starship prototypes for the past several years. The complex, called Starbase, has more than 1,800 employees, who live in Brownsville or elsewhere in the Rio Grande Valley. The Texas launch pad is equipped with giant robotic arms — called chopsticks — to eventually grab a returning booster as it lands. SpaceX is retooling one of its two Florida launch pads to accommodate Starships down the road. Florida is where SpaceX’s Falcon rockets blast off with crew, space station cargo and satellites for NASA and other customers.

The odds

As usual, Musk is remarkably blunt about his chances, giving even odds, at best, that Starship will reach orbit on its first flight. But with a fleet of Starships under construction at Starbase, he estimates an 80% chance that one of them will attain orbit by year’s end. He expects it will take a couple of years to achieve full and rapid reusability.

Customers

With Starship, the California-based SpaceX is focusing on the moon for now, with a $3 billion NASA contract to land astronauts on the lunar surface as early as 2025, using the upper stage spacecraft. It will be the first moon landing by astronauts in more than 50 years. The moonwalkers will leave Earth via NASA’s Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket, and then transfer to Starship in lunar orbit for the descent to the surface, and then back to Orion. To reach the moon and beyond, Starship will first need to refuel in low-Earth orbit. SpaceX envisions an orbiting depot with window-less Starships as tankers. But Starship isn’t just for NASA. A private crew will be the first to fly Starship, orbiting Earth. Two private flights to the moon would follow — no landings, just fly-arounds.
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