Ray Blanco:

China Showcases New Moon Ship and Reusable Rocket in One Extraordinary Test

China’s space program, striving to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030, carried out a test flight of its new Long March 10 rocket booster and its new Mengzhou crewed spacecraft late Tuesday (U.S. time), and the results were spectacular.

The launch of a subscale version of the Long March 10 rocket, still in development, took place on China's Hainan Island. Mengzhou, flying without anyone onboard, climbed into the stratosphere on top of the Long March booster before activating its launch abort motors. It later successfully deployed parachutes and splashed down offshore from Hainan Island.

Mengzhou is the vehicle China will use to ferry astronauts from the Earth to the vicinity of the Moon, where crews will transfer into a lander to carry them to the lunar surface. After a short stay on the Moon, Chinese astronauts will take off and rendezvous with the Mengzhou capsule to bring them home.

China and the United States are racing to accomplish the next human landing on the Moon in a competition for national prestige and lunar resources. The Long March 10 rocket and Mengzhou spacecraft, both tested Tuesday, are core elements of China’s lunar architecture.

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Davis Wilson:

Watch: Coyote Interceptor Downs Drone Swarms With Electromagnetic Weapon

With a single invisible shot, Raytheon's Coyote Block 3 UAV zapped swarms of drones out of the sky in a U.S. Army demonstration showing that a reusable drone with electromagnetic weapons is an economical alternative to explosive interceptors.

Exactly what kind of weapon the Coyote carries remains unknown, but it's likely to be either a High-Power Microwave (HPM) system or an advanced Electronic Warfare (EW) suite.

The former works by firing a directed burst of electromagnetic energy that fires a jolt of high-voltage electricity through the target's circuits, frying them so fast that the drone drops out of the sky. The latter, to put it simply, is more subtle. Instead of burning out the drone's components, it scrambles the signals in a manner akin to a taser.

Whatever the case, Coyote can loiter and attack at the cost of its fuel and battery refurbishment without sacrificing a valuable airframe and sensor suite after each engagement.

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Greg Guenthner:

Waymo Begins Deploying Next-Gen Ojai Robotaxis To Extend Its U.S. Lead

Waymo on Thursday said it has begun using its sixth-generation driverless system to provide robotaxi rides to employees on Ojai vehicles, which use a base model made by Chinese automaker Geely.

By upgrading their driverless tech, and adding more vehicles to its fleet, Waymo aims to extend its U.S. lead and lock in loyal riders. The Alphabet-owned company said its sixth-generation Waymo Driver uses more cost-effective parts, and should be able to navigate through harsher weather conditions than previous generations.

The new system will serve “as the primary engine for our next era of expansion,” Waymo Vice President of Engineering Satish Jeyachandran said in a statement.

Waymo is offering service on its Ojai vehicles to employees and their guests in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles first, before gradually expanding to new cities, with a goal to open to public riders later this year.

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