A space observatory designed to map the entire sky over a period of two years to further our understanding of the early universe has started snapping images. SPHEREx, which launched in early March, got started with its observations this past week after over a month of setup procedures and system checks, according to NASA. The space telescope will complete about 14.5 orbits of Earth per day, capturing roughly 3,600 images daily and observing the sky in an unprecedented 102 wavelengths of infrared light. Its observations will eventually be combined to create four “all-sky” maps.

SPHEREx’s 25 month survey will be a comprehensive one. The spacecraft “orbits Earth from north to south, passing over the poles, and each day it takes images along one circular strip of the sky,” NASA explains. “As the days pass and the planet moves around the Sun, SPHEREx’s field of view shifts as well so that after six months, the observatory will have looked out into space in every direction.” Researchers will use the SPHEREx observations to study the universe’s expansion in the moments after the big bang, and search for the ingredients for life elsewhere in the Milky Way.

The Trump administration's preliminary 2026 budget proposes the biggest single-year cut to NASA funding in the agency's 67-year history. The cuts are part of the White House's broader government "skinny budget," which aligns with Elon Musk's DOGE wishlist. The NASA portion would gut the agency’s science programs, cancel the Gateway space station project and phase out the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after a measly three flights.

Trump's proposal would cut NASA's funding by more than $6 billion from its 2025 budget, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. That's a 24 percent decrease and, according to The Planetary Society, the biggest single-year drop in NASA funding ever. Space.com says the most brutal cuts would be to space science (a $2.3 billion decrease), Earth science ($1.2 billion less) and legacy human exploration programs ($900 million less).

Also on the chopping block would be Gateway, the planned lunar orbit space station that would act as a hub for missions to the Moon and (eventually) Mars. Ditto for a joint program with the European Space Station to return Mars soil samples to Earth. The White House proposes ending NASA's sustainable aviation efforts (who needs a healthy planet, amirite?) and "any funding toward misaligned DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility] initiatives."

NASA

In addition, the White House's budget would phase out Boeing's SLS and Lockheed Martin's Orion after only three flights — projects that cost $26.4 billion and $21.5 billion to produce. The Trump administration wants "more cost-effective commercial systems" to replace them. (I'm no NASA budget expert, but that sounds like quite the potential score for the president's billionaire backers, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.)

The only area that would see an increase would be human space exploration, which would see a $650 million boost. Bloomberg says it calls for over a $7 billion increase in lunar exploration funding and a new $1 billion investment in Mars exploration.

If there's a silver lining for those who care about science, Congress would have to approve the budget, so some or all of those bullet points could be slashed before the 2026 funding is approved. Trump's political capital is nowhere near where it was on Inauguration Day. Recent polling reveals plummeting support, including over half of Americans viewing the 47th president as a "dangerous dictator."

Amazon has finally launched its first batch of Project Kuiper internet satellites on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The company was supposed to send the first 27 satellites in the constellation, which will eventually be comprised of more than 3,200 satellites, on April 8. However, the event got pushed back. A previous Bloomberg investigation claimed that Kuiper was way behind schedule, because the company was struggling to ramp up the production of its satellites. If true, the company will have to ask for an extension from the FCC to fulfill its commitment to the government, requiring it to put 1,600 satellites in orbit next summer. 

An Amazon spokesperson denied that the company was having manufacturing issues, however. They said that Amazon was on track to support its target and that it will continue increasing its production and launch rates. Around seven hours after launch, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that the company has confirmed that its "first 27 production satellites are operating as expected in low Earth orbit." Amazon now has over 80 launches scheduled with ULA on top of the Atlas V and the aerospace corporation's newer Vulcan Centaur heavy lift vehicles. The company's goal is to provide internet access to far-flung regions not typically reached by conventional internet connections. Its staunchest rival, SpaceX's Starlink, already has over 7,000 functioning satellites in orbit. 

Picture this: you’re zooming through space in a torpedo-shaped ship doing the dangerous job of salvaging material in a planet’s cluttered orbit when some giant, alien cousin of a fangtooth fish pops up out of nowhere and starts chomping at your tail. Pretty stressful day at work if you ask me. One might even be forgiven for, ahem, accidentally crashing the ship in such conditions. In the Playdate game Suborbital Salvage, though, your supervisor isn’t so sympathetic.

Slam into an asteroid or drone and you’ll be ridiculed ‘til kingdom come by the snarky cat who writes your performance reports. If the fish catches you with one of its enormous teeth, any resulting losses are your fault for “feeding” it (a violation of company policy). That cat has something to say about every slip-up you make, and it’s hilarious. In a weird way, it almost becomes part of the reward for finishing a run. Every time I catastrophically ended my turn, I wasn’t only eager to see my scores, but also what new insult the cat would have ready for me.

Your actual goal in Suborbital Salvage is to collect as many of the little “C” tokens as you can, and travel as far as possible while navigating a space filled with hazardous objects. 

Games Right Meow

Controlling the ship is a bit tough at first, too. You have to use the crank to point it in the right direction, while also pressing the B button (or D-pad buttons) to fire the thrusters. The physics takes some getting used to — and there’s that fish chasing you all the while. The farther you get, the more complex the areas get, and you’ll have to dodge everything from asteroids and mines to what look like giant space mushrooms, and navigate through labyrinthine pipe systems. Flying through rings will give you a boost to get away from the fish, as will flipping the ship in a 360.

The game had me on the edge of my seat concentrating on my survival at just about every second, but it’s not needlessly difficult. Once I got the hang of the controls and how my ship behaves, I was able to get pretty far. But there are leaderboards to show how you stack up against other players in the different areas of the mission — salvage recovery, distance and overall performance — which is always humbling. As are the remarks of that damn cat. Come for the thrilling space adventure, stay for the trash-talking feline.

Some of my favorite lines so far include: “I don’t know if it’s occurred to you but… You really should try flying through the rings, not into them”; “You know, most people try to steer AWAY from space rocks”; and “Are you between a rock and a hard place? No really. Where did you go?” At one point, the cat simply said, “Just be better.” (In the Settings menu, there's an option to toggle the dialogue from “Roast me” to “Shutup cat,” but really, why would you do that?) Suborbital Salvage, by Games Right Meow, is available in the Playdate Catalog for $8.

The Curiosity Mars rover covers a lot of ground for a robot that only moves at a max speed of .1 mph. A photo snapped recently by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provides a pretty cool visualization of what the rover has been up to so far this year, showing the tracks Curiosity left behind as it journeyed from its previous science target — an area called the Gediz Vallis channel — to its next destination. The rover itself is just a tiny speck at the front of the roughly 1,050-foot-long trail, and according to NASA, this snap “is believed to be the first orbital image of the rover mid-drive across the Red Planet.”

The image was captured on February 28 by the orbiter’s HiRISE (High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera, and shows Curiosity’s movement over 11 drives starting at the beginning of that month. While a few weeks might seem like a long time for tire tracks to stick around in the dirt, this is normal for Mars. The tracks are “[l]ikely to last for months before being erased by wind,” NASA says. Curiosity is expected to reach its next science destination, which is home to formations thought to have been created long ago by groundwater, in the coming weeks.

The joint ESA and NASA Solar Orbiter mission has delivered a stunning new image of the Sun and its corona. The sun-observing satellite originally launched in 2020, and besides making the Sun look cool, the data it's captured has impacted things like our understanding of solar wind.

Today's photo shows off the spun-sugar-like particles caught in the magnetic field of the Sun's atmosphere, the dark "filaments" of cooler material weaving their way in between and bursting active areas that emit solar flares. The ESA says the photo is technically a composite of 200 separate images taken with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, around 77 million km from the Sun. The EUI allows the traditionally unobservable parts of the Sun's atmosphere or corona to be visible in photographs.

ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team, E. Kraaikamp (ROB)

Solar Orbiter has regularly provided a clear look at our closest star, and even offered insights into Venus as it made its way to its current position observing the Sun. For more details on the image, and interactive labels explaining the different regions of the Sun, check out the ESA website. 

Getting a robot to stand on two wheels without tipping over involves a challenging dance with the laws of physics. Self-balancing robots are a great way to get into control systems, sensor fusion, and embedded programming. This build by [mircemk] shows how to make one with just a few common components, an Arduino, and a bit of patience fine-tuning the PID controller.

At the heart of the bot is the MPU6050 – a combo accelerometer/gyroscope sensor that keeps track of tilt and movement. An Arduino Uno takes this data, runs it through a PID loop, and commands an L298N motor driver to adjust the speed and direction of two DC motors. The power comes from two Li-ion batteries feeding everything with enough juice to keep it upright. The rest of the magic lies in the tuning.

PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) control is what makes the robot stay balanced. Kp (proportional gain) determines how aggressively the motors respond to tilting. Kd (derivative gain) dampens oscillations, and Ki (integral gain) helps correct slow drifts. Set them wrong, and your bot either wobbles like a confused penguin or falls flat on its face. A good trick is to start with only Kp, then slowly add Kd and Ki until it stabilizes. Then don’t forget to calibrate your MPU6050; each sensor has unique offsets that need to be compensated in the code.

Once dialed in, the result is a robot that looks like it defies gravity. Whether you’re hacking it for fun, turning it into a segway-like ride, or using it as a learning tool, a balancing bot is a great way to sharpen your control system skills. For more inspiration, check out this earlier attempt from 2022, or these self-balancing robots (one with a little work) from a year before that. You can read up on [mircemk]’s project details here.

Boeing’s Starliner has successfully docked with the ISS — but not without some last-minute problems. The company’s first crewed test flight to the space station linked up at 1:34 PM ET after missing its first shot due to several thrusters malfunctioning. Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams plan to spend the next eight days onboard the ISS before returning to Earth.

The capsule docked with the ISS in an orbit about 260 miles over the Indian Ocean. The pair is now circling the planet at around 17,500 mph.

“Nice to be attached to the big city in the sky,” Wilmore spoke over comms to mission control in Houston after the successful docking. The capsule carries 760 pounds of cargo, including about 300 pounds of food and other supplies requested by the four US astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts onboard.

NASA TV

Initially scheduled for 12:15 PM ET, the link-up was delayed after five of Starliner’s 28 reaction control thrusters went down. Several were lost due to a helium propulsion leak. NASA and Boeing concluded that the loss didn’t compromise the mission, and Wilmore and Williams restarted three of them, providing enough redundancy to move forward.

On Wednesday, a small helium leak was detected during liftoff and ascent. Later, two more leaks appeared.

The problems are emblematic of Boeing’s struggles to get its capsules certified for regular flights. Various problems and delays, including orbital flight test issues, valve problems, software glitches and a bum parachute system, have plagued Starliner. Boeing's rival, SpaceX, reached the ISS for the first time in 2020, approximately when this Starliner mission was originally slated to launch.

Boeing is seeking NASA certification to join SpaceX as a regular ride to the ISS. The government agency wanted to have multiple private-sector ferries make routine trips to the space station. Despite Boeing’s troubles, it may get there in the end.

Remember Humane’s AI pin that was hyped as the next big thing right up until people used it? Turns out being an unusable piece of tat wasn’t the only thing wrong with it: Humane has now advised users its charging case may pose a fire risk. There are other less flammable ways to re-juice your unit, with the fault limited to a single component. But, even so, it’s not a good look for a company that already has plenty of eggs on its virtual face.

— Dan Cooper

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Boeing’s first crewed Starliner mission is finally heading to the ISS

It’s carrying two astronauts and 760 pounds of cargo.

Boeing

Starliner has successfully completed its first crewed launch on the back of an Atlas V rocket, nearly a month after originally planned. The vessel is now on course to dock with the ISS with two crew members and 760 pounds of cargo, where it will stay for the next eight days. After so many false starts, let’s hope Starliner can finally start delivering on the promises made all those years ago.

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YouTube is putting new age restrictions on gun videos

No, it wasn’t doing this already.

YouTube has altered its policies on weapon-related videos to ban content for users under 18. Similarly, it’s banning clips detailing how to remove safety devices for all ages from June 18. The move comes a full year after a watchdog group found YouTube was recommending gun content to “child” accounts.

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A $110,000 MicroLED TV? In this economy?

Who needs a home when you can have Samsung’s latest panel?

Samsung

Robin Williams once said [a certain substance best inhaled through the nose] is God’s way of telling you you’re making too much money. To that list, we can add Samsung’s brand new MicroLED TVs, which start at $110,000 and run all the way to $150,000. Just imagine what your local homeless shelter could do with that sort of money.

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Boeing's first Starliner flight with a human crew onboard has successfully blasted off to space on top of United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket, almost a month after it was originally scheduled to launch. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams entered the Starliner capsule and completed necessary checks by 10:08AM ET. Less than 30 minutes after the astronauts entered the capsule, the CEO ULA tweeted that the company was "working an issue with topping valves on the ground side" and that it was running the fix through its Software Integration Lab (SIL) before it's executed. In the end, ULA was able to implement a workaround, and the spacecraft lifted off at 10:52am ET. 

Back on May 6, the companies scrubbed the flight two hours after it was originally scheduled to launch after their ground teams detected "anomalous behavior by the pressure regulation valve in the liquid oxygen tank of the Centaur upper stage of the ULA Atlas V launch vehicle." The valve was replaced and the Starliner teams were ready to make another launch attempt when they encountered another issue: They found a "small helium leak" in the spacecraft's service module. 

NASA and Boeing had to push back Starliner's launch date in order to investigate the leak and figure out how it would affect the flight. They eventually determined that it didn't pose a threat to the mission's safety, so they scheduled a launch attempt for June 1. Last week's launch was also scrubbed last minute due to the "computer ground launch sequencer not loading into the correct operational configuration after proceeding into terminal count."

Aside from the NASA astronauts, Starliner flew with 760 pounds of cargo, including 300 pounds of food and other supplies requested by the crew that's currently onboard the International Space Station. Wilmore and Williams will spend eight days on the ISS conducting tests to help determine whether the Starliner is ready for regular flights to the orbiting laboratory. NASA said that if the mission is completed successfully, it will begin the final process of "certifying Starliner and its systems for crewed rotation missions to the space station."