James Altucher:

Rocket Lab To Acquire Iridium in $8B Cash-and-Stock Deal

Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB) announced that it has agreed to acquire Iridium Communications in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at approximately $8 billion in a deal that would combine a leading launch and spacecraft manufacturer with an established global satellite communications operator.

Under the terms of the agreement, Iridium shareholders will receive $27 in cash and a portion of Rocket Lab stock for each Iridium share, subject to a collar mechanism tied to Rocket Lab’s share price. The total consideration implies a value of about $54 per Iridium share.

Following the announcement, Rocket Lab shares surged almost 12% to about $94, while Iridium stock jumped 22% to about $53.

The companies said the combination would unite Rocket Lab’s launch services and satellite manufacturing capabilities with Iridium’s low Earth orbit communications network, global spectrum rights, and subscriber base. The merged group would operate as a vertically integrated space company spanning launch, spacecraft production, and satellite-based communications services.

The transaction is expected to close in mid-2027, pending regulatory approvals and Iridium shareholder consent.

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Chris Campbell:

The Humanoid Blueprint

There are forty-odd motors that move a single robot. Each uses a magnet containing rare-earth metals like neodymium and – critically – dysprosium and terbium, sprinkled in so the magnet survives the heat. A single robot needs a few pounds of the stuff.

The problem? China refines roughly 90% of the world's rare earths, and on the heavy ones – the dysprosium and terbium that keep a magnet strong when it's hot – it holds close to a monopoly.

U.S. robotics companies like Tesla can't integrate their way out of China's monopoly. The only way to break free is America creating new mines and refineries over the next decade.

So follow the logic all the way down. As I mentioned last week, the hardest part of the robot is the hand. But the hardest part of the hand is the magnet. And the hardest part of the magnet is a fistful of elements that come, almost entirely, from one country.

So the magnets – and the strange metals inside them – are the chokepoint beneath the chokepoint. And America's only just begun the long climb to bring those rare earths home. Looking ahead, the metals suppliers sitting at the bottom of the tree will catch the ripest fruit.

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Ray Blanco:

NASA’s X-59 “Frankenjet” Tests Supersonic Flight Without the Sonic Boom

More than two decades since the Concorde supersonic airliner last took to the skies, NASA has been flying an experimental aircraft designed to replace loud sonic booms with a quieter thump equivalent to a car door slamming shut 20 feet away.

The Lockheed Martin X-59 QueSST – an acronym for Quiet SuperSonic Technology – first took flight late last year and recently began supersonic test flights. But unlike with many experimental “X-plane” aircraft, NASA plans to take the X-59 “frankenjet” on a tour around the U.S. so residents of cities and towns can provide feedback on the quieter sonic “thumps” it produces.

The move comes at a time when the U.S. Congress has been advancing legislation that could legalize overland supersonic travel. That would reverse a 1973 ban implemented by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which was informed by the public backlash and noise complaints following U.S. military tests of supersonic flights.

But even if the X-59 program shows that quieter supersonic travel is possible, any potential revival of commercial supersonic flights would still have to prove financially viable despite challenges such as massive fuel consumption costs.

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