NASA Administrator Bill Nelson confirmed Tuesday that the space agency succeeded in its mission to change the orbit of small asteroid Dimorphos. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, aka DARTwas crashed into Dimorphos a few weeks ago to test one possible method of protecting Earth from a dangerous body on a collision course with our planet.

“This is a watershed moment for planetary defense and a watershed moment for humanity,” Nelson said during a press conference.

To be clear, this was only a test of one potential defense method, called “deflection by kinetic impactor,” that doesn’t require any nuclear weapons or celebrities on a suicide mission a la popular Hollywood movies like 1998’s Armageddon. Dimorphos, which is actually a moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos, doesn’t pose an actual threat to Earth. in fact, no known asteroids or near-Earth objects are considered to be a threat to humanitybut there are still plenty of space rocks and comets out there yet to be discovered or tracked by astronomers.

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DART Explained: First Asteroid Crash Images

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DART’s impact with Dimorphos on Sept. 26 appears to have reduced the time it takes the moonlet to orbit Didymos by 32 minutes, from 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes, with a margin of uncertainty of about two minutes. NASA had hoped DART would alter the orbital period by at least 73 seconds but expected it could alter the orbit by at least a

After providing tens of thousands of Starlink terminals to help Ukraine’s war effort, SpaceX has told the Department of Defense that it may not be able to provide future funding for the service, CNN reports. In a letter dated September 8th, the company’s director of government sales reportedly wrote that SpaceX is “not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time.”

The terminals have provided essential connectivity to Ukraine during its war with Russia. Putin’s war machine has targeted Ukraine’s communications infrastructure as part of its invasion of the country, but Starlink’s satellite-based internet connectivity has provided an effective way for Ukraine’s government and troops, as well as civilians and NGOs in the country, to get online and communicate . As of October 9th, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that there are around 25,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine.

In its September letter, SpaceX asked the Pentagon to pay for additional Starlink terminals requested by Ukraine, as well as pay for ongoing service costs. It estimates that these could amount to $124 million between now and the end of the year, and almost $380 million for a full 12 months. Musk previously said the operation has already cost SpaceX $80 million.

Although SpaceX declined to comment to CNN, Musk took to Twitter to respond to the report. “SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several

An Open Letter to the Robotics Industry and our Communities,

General Purpose Robots Should Not Be Weaponized

We are some of the world’s leading companies dedicated to introducing new generations of advanced mobile robotics to society. These new generations of robots are more accessible, easier to operate, more autonomous, affordable, and adaptable than previous generations, and capable of navigating into locations previously inaccessible to automated or remotely-controlled technologies. We believe that advanced mobile robots will provide great benefit to society as co-workers in industry and companions in our homes.

As with any new technology offering new capabilities, the emergence of advanced mobile robots offers the possibility of misuse. Untrustworthy people could use them to invade civil rights or to threaten, harm, or intimidate others. One area of ​​particular concern is weaponization. We believe that adding weapons to robots that are remotely or autonomously operated, widely available to the public, and capable of navigating to previously inaccessible locations where people live and work, raises new risks of harm and serious ethical issues. Weaponized applications of these newly-capable robots will also harm public trust in the technology in ways that damage the tremendous benefits they will bring to society. For these reasons, we do not support the weaponization of our advanced-mobility general-purpose robots. For those of us who have spoken on this issue in the past, and those engaging for the first time, we now feel renewed urgency in light of the increasing public concern in recent months caused by a small