Suspected Terrorist Arrested: Incident Occurred on March 9, 2025
Rocket Week: Moon Landings, SpaceX Failures, and Faulty Printers
Space news this week is a mixed bag, with some victories and plenty of disappointments. Let's dive in!
Landing on top: Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully touched down on the Moon on March 2. As part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the lander carried ten scientific payloads, including a GPS/GNSS receiver that managed to snag signals from Earth-orbiting satellites. All scientific missions are a wrap, but given the cold lunar nights looming, let's hope the lander hangs in there! Firefly becomes the first commercial entity to pull off a soft landing on the Moon – a historic milestone, indeed.
Close but no cigar: Intuitive Machines' lunar lander, Athena, attempted to land on the Moon the next day. While the landing wasn't a total disaster, the spacecraft now lies on its side, a disappointing outcome that seems to be quite common for recent lunar landings.
Blasting off (literally): The private asteroid mining mission and SpaceX Starship test flight 8 weren't as fortunate. The former bit the dust, while the latter exploded shortly after booster separation. Scott Manley's analysis reveals that a fire in the engine bay could have led to a decrease in thrust from four of the six engines, then a rapid disintegration of the spacecraft due to the resulting tumble. The only silver lining? Another successful booster catch by the chopsticks – though we might be overusing that term by now!
What's less exciting but arguably more frustrating is the printer drama. If you thought manufacturers were bad, Brother had us believing they were the exception to the "buy our consumables or we brick it" game. Alas, it seems that Brother printers are joining the club, albeit with a question mark. Louis Rossman, a right-to-repair advocate, accuses Brother of sending firmware updates that turn off functionality when non-OEM cartridges are used. Brother, for their part, flatly denies the claim, stating that their firmware updates do not restrict the use of third-party ink. So, whether it's the cheapest or most expensive printer, we're stuck in a dilemma. Perhaps the best course of action is to avoid printers altogether, or resign ourselves to the fact that we'll end up harvesting them for parts once the starter cartridges are used up.
If you're hoarding DVDs, you might want to think again. Some DVDs manufactured by Warner Brothers Discovery between 2006 and 2008 have been showing signs of "DVD rot," a vexing phenomenon where the polycarbonate cover delaminates from the inner Mylar layer, causing cloudy areas that obscure the data. Though Warner is aware of the issue and is willing to replace defective discs, it's a bit of a headache given that their Looney Tunes collection (a personal favorite!) might be affected. On the bright side, this serves as a perfect excuse to rewatch all those cartoons!
Lastly, if you were a NASA rocket engineer in the 1960s, leg day was non-negotiable. The Saturn V full-stack shake test on the Apollo program was a herculean task – literally. Engineers had to physically sway the rocket to ensure everything was tightly secured and could withstand the rumbling from the powerful F-1 engines as well as those pesky Florida hurricanes. While it's amusing to imagine the scene, it makes us wonder... What would they have done if the test failed?
- The success of Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 marks a significant milestone in the field of technology and environmental-science, as it becomes the first commercial entity to soft-land on the Moon.
- In the realm of science, the advancement in space-and-astronomy continues with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, using GPS/GNSS receivers to capture signals from Earth-orbiting satellites.
- On the contrary, the entertainment sector is marred by disappointments, as Brother Printers join the club of manufacturers that restrict functionality when non-OEM cartridges are used, potentially leaving consumers in a dilemma.
- In the world of general-news, the issue of DVD rot affecting DVDs manufactured by Warner Brothers Discovery between 2006 and 2008 raises concerns for collectors, offering a rare chance to rewatch classic content.
