SpaceX delivers new crew to orbiting station in just 15 hours
The four US, Russian and Japanese astronauts pulled up in their SpaceX capsule after launching from Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre.
Advertisement
They will spend at least six months at the orbiting lab, swapping places with colleagues who have been up there since March. SpaceX will bring those four back as early as Wednesday.
Moving in are Nasa's Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan's Kimiya Yui and Russia's Oleg Platonov – each of whom had been originally assigned to other missions.
The docked SpaceX capsule next to the International Space Station (Nasa and SpaceX via AP)
'Hello, space station,' Mr Fincke radioed as soon as the capsule docked high above the South Pacific.
Ms Cardman and another astronaut were pulled from a SpaceX flight last year to make room for Nasa's two stuck astronauts, Boeing Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose space station stay went from one week to more than nine months.
Advertisement
Mr Fincke and Mr Yui had been training for the next Starliner mission. But with Starliner grounded by thruster and other problems until 2026, the two switched to SpaceX.
Mr Platonov was bumped from the Soyuz launch line-up a couple of years ago because of an undisclosed illness.
Their arrival temporarily puts the space station population at 11. The astronauts greeting them had cold drinks and hot food waiting for them.
While their taxi flight was speedy by US standards, the Russians hold the record for the fastest trip to the space station – a lightning-fast three hours.
Advertisement
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
29 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Covid cases rising in US as officials plan to restrict booster vaccines
Covid is on the rise again in the US, as children begin returning to school and as officials plan to restrict booster shots. While cases are increasing less quickly than at the start of other surges, it is too soon to tell how big the current late-summer wave could get – and with highly varied immune responses from prior infections and vaccinations, it is difficult to know how severe illness could be, experts said. The risks of a wave are compounded by new vaccine restrictions from the Trump administration. 'If you're vaccinated against Covid-19, you're less likely to get infected,' said Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University. 'But we haven't gotten a lot of people vaccinated for the past few years, and with the current recommendations changing, it's even less likely.' Future waves could become more severe as vaccination lags and immunity drops, Pekosz said. Several key measurements – including wastewater data, test positivity and emergency room visits – indicate a new rise in infections. In the past, Covid has surged about twice a year, usually in the summer and the winter. But the pattern can change, as it does with other respiratory viruses – with late or early starts to the season and curveballs like double peaks. 'Each year has been different, so in some ways, this is more of the same,' said Sam Scarpino, a professor of health sciences at Northeastern University. Cases are increasing or likely increasing in 26 US states, especially in the south and midwest, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 'In the snapshot that we're seeing right now, increases are happening at a relatively low rate, and that would indicate that we probably aren't going to peak at a very high level. But again, this is early in this summer surge, so we really have to keep monitoring the data and paying attention to what it's telling us,' Pekosz said. The variants currently spreading around the globe have known immune-evasion properties, Scarpino said. 'You can look at the rise that we're seeing, the fact that we know it's an immune-escape variant, and I think we can be pretty confident that there's some kind of wave coming,' Scarpino said. 'Whether it's going to be large or small, I don't think we could really say one way or the other.' But 'the vaccines are still providing some protection,' he said. 'It's never too late to get the booster.' Yet officials softened the recommendation for children on Covid vaccines, and they removed the suggestion entirely for pregnant people, despite the clear benefits of the shot in reducing the risk of severe illness and death during pregnancy. A new, more effective Covid shot from Moderna and the Covid shot from Novavax were approved only for people over 65 or people over the age of 12 with health conditions. The independent advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that vaccine manufacturers once again update booster shots this fall to a more recent variant. Covid boosters are usually recommended for all adults. But this fall, the boosters may be limited to older people and those with health conditions, FDA officials wrote in May. 'So it's a big question mark, going into the fall, is who it's going to be approved for,' Scarpino said. 'If it's not approved, can you still pay out of pocket for it? How much is it going to cost? And then are there going to be supply chain issues?' Health officials have also called for placebo trials for the boosters to judge their benefit to people without pre-existing conditions – but such trials would be unethical and extremely difficult to conduct, experts say. 'Clearly, the guidelines right now are focused on the populations that are more prone to have severe disease and severe outcomes. It's always been good to vaccinate that population,' Pekosz said. But the Trump administration is moving away from the approach of immunizing broad swaths of the population – especially those most likely to get and pass the virus on, like children, he said. 'If you vaccinate broadly, you can reduce the spread of Covid-19 in the population,' Pekosz said. 'The benefit, to me, is very clearly on the side of getting vaccinated.' Some of the pre-existing conditions proposed by FDA officials include asthma, diabetes, depression and physical inactivity. According to that list, 'basically everybody's eligible for one of the vaccines,' Scarpino said. And doctors, including pediatricians, may also prescribe vaccines for off-label use. Yet the more restrictions are placed on vaccination, the harder it is to reach even the people who need it most, Pekosz noted. Antivirals like Paxlovid could also see wider use, the experts said. 'We shouldn't forget about the antivirals,' Pekosz said. 'Those don't seem to be the target of more restrictive use by the CDC or the FDA, so those will be available for people if they do get infected.' A program to make Paxlovid more affordable to those who need it is slated to end in December. 'The benefits of antiviral treatment are very clear with respect to hospitalization and mortality decreases,' Pekosz said. Paxlovid is still highly effective against current variants, Scarpino said. 'There's a whole bunch of good reasons to get it.' Rates of hospitalizations and deaths in recent waves have dropped among adults compared to earlier Covid waves, but the virus remains deadly. An estimated 35,000 to 54,000 people in the US have died of Covid since October. Children continue to see hospitalizations rates from Covid similar to previous years. Covid cases can be less severe because of immunity – from prior infection or from vaccination. 'It's not so much that the virus has become less dangerous, it's that we have immunity, so we fight off the virus more efficiently than we did early in the pandemic,' Pekosz said. That's why vaccinations remain a key part of controlling Covid, he said. Without boosters, people become more susceptible to severe illness and death. Some 23% of adults had received updated Covid boosters as of April. About 5.6% of children aged six months to four years are vaccinated against Covid, and about 15% of children aged five to 17 are vaccinated, according to the CDC. 'Children's cases are always surging, because children don't have much immunity to Covid,' Pekosz said. 'Covid cases are really occurring in children at a very high level right now. It's not nearly as dangerous in children as is in adults, but it still causes a lot of hospitalizations in children.' Hospitalizations and deaths are not the only ways to measure the damage and disruption wrought by Covid. While the Trump administration has not released updated data on long Covid, an estimated 5.3% of all adults in the US said they were currently experiencing long-term Covid symptoms as of September. Even in times of lower transmission, Covid still circulates, with 149 deaths in the week ending June 28, the last week for which the CDC shares full mortality data. 'It's still a little surprising that it's around all year,' said Pekosz. During lull times, 'we're not seeing it disappear completely, like we do with other respiratory viruses.' When it comes to keeping rates of Covid low, 'it's all the same stuff we usually go over,' Pekosz said – getting vaccinated, taking precautions like masking and using air purifiers, and staying home if you're sick. 'But it's just a very different environment these days. When the government doesn't use the science to drive their decision making, you can see the confusion that it puts into the general public.'
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Nasa to build nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030
US space agency Nasa will fast-track plans to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030, according to US is part of US ambitions to build a permanent base for humans to live on the lunar to Politico, the acting head of Nasa referred to similar plans by China and Russia and said those two countries "could potentially declare a keep-out zone" on the questions remain about how realistic the goal and timeframe are, given recent and steep Nasa budget cuts, and some scientists are concerned that the plans are driven by geopolitical goals. Nations including US, China, Russia, India and Japan are rushing to explore the Moon's surface, with some planning permanent human settlements."To properly advance this critical technology to be able to support a future lunar economy, high power energy generation on Mars, and to strengthen our national security in space, it is imperative the agency move quickly," US transport secretary Sean Duffy, who was appointed temporary head of Nasa by President Donald Trump, wrote to Nasa, according to the New York Duffy called for proposals from commercial companies to build a reactor that could generate at least 100 kilowatts of is relatively small. A typical on-shore wind turbine generates 2-3 idea of building a nuclear reactor as a power source on the Moon is not new. In 2022 Nasa issued three $5m contracts to companies to design a in May this year, China and Russia announced they plan to build an automated nuclear power station on the Moon by scientists agree that it would be the best or perhaps only way to provide continuous power on the lunar lunar day is equivalent to four weeks on Earth, made up of two weeks of continual sunshine and two weeks of darkness. That makes relying on solar power very challenging. "Building even a modest lunar habitat to accommodate a small crew would demand megawatt-scale power generation. Solar arrays and batteries alone cannot reliably meet those demands," suggests Dr Sungwoo Lim, senior lecturer in space applications, exploration and instrumentation at the university of Surrey"Nuclear energy is not just desirable, it is inevitable," he Wilson, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Lancaster University, believes it is technically possible to place the reactors on the Moon by 2030 "given the commitment of enough money", and he highlights that there are already designs for small reactors."It's just a matter of having enough Artemis launches to build the infrastructure on the Moon by then," he adds, referring to Nasa's Artemis spaceflight programme that aims to send people and equipment to the are also some questions around safety."Launching radioactive material through the Earth's atmosphere brings safety concerns. You have to have a special license to do that, but it is not insurmountable," says Dr Simeon Barber, planetary science specialist at the Open Duffy's directive came as a surprise following recent turmoil in Nasa after Mr Trump's administration announced cuts of 24% to Nasa's budgets in includes cuts to a significant number of science programmes such as the Mars Sample Return that aims to return samples from the planet's surface to Earth. Scientists are also concerned that this announcement is a politically-motivated move in the new international race to the Moon."It seems that we're going back into the old first space race days of competition, which, from a scientific perspective, is a little bit disappointing and concerning," says Dr Barber."Competition can create innovation, but if there's a narrower focus on national interest and on establishing ownership, then you can lose sight of the bigger picture which is exploring the solar system and beyond," he Duffy's comments about the potential for China and Russia to potentially "declare a keep-out zone" on the Moon appear to be referring to an agreement called the Artemis 2020 seven nations signed the agreement to establish principles on how countries should co-operate on the Moon's surface. The accords include so-called safety zones to be established around operations and assets that counties build on the Moon."If you build a nuclear reactor or or any kind of base on the moon, you can then start claiming that you have a safety zone around it, because you have equipment there," says Dr Barber."To some people, this is tantamount to, "we own this bit of the moon, we're going to operate here and and you can't come in"," he Barber points out that there are hurdles to overcome before placing a nuclear reactor on the Moon for humans to Artemis 3 aims to send humans to the lunar surface in 2027, but it has faced a series of set-backs and uncertainty around funding."If you've got nuclear power for a base, but you've got no way of getting people and equipment there, then it's not much use," he added."The plans don't appear very joined up at the moment," he said.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Study finds organised scientific fraud is now a booming industry
An organised underground network of individuals and groups is enabling fraudulent research and increasingly undermining the integrity of science, an alarming new study warns. Researchers from Northwestern University in the US conducted a large-scale data analysis of scientific literature and found that sophisticated global networks were systematically undermining the integrity of academic publishing. The study, published in the journal PNAS, says the publication of fraudulent research is outpacing the growth of legitimate scientific works. Researchers say the findings should be a wake-up call for the scientific community to act before the public loses confidence in the scientific process. "This study is probably the most depressing project I've been involved with in my entire life," Luís AN Amaral, a complex social systems researcher from Northwestern University and one of the study's authors, said. "Science must police itself better in order to preserve its integrity.' Scientific fraud typically involves fraudulent research practices such as falsification of data or plagiarism that may lead to retracted papers. These practices were generally believed to be isolated actions of individuals taking shortcuts to get ahead in an increasingly competitive field. But the latest study uncovered an underground network operating in the shadows 'to fake the process of science'. "Millions of dollars are involved in these processes,' Dr Amaral said. In the study, researchers analysed datasets of retracted publications, editorial records and instances of image duplication from major aggregators of scientific literature like Elsevier's Scopus and the National Library of Medicine's PubMed. They also combed through data from scholarly journals removed from databases for failing to meet quality or ethical standards and from articles highlighted by the popular science integrity blog Retraction Watch. They found a network of "paper mills", brokers and infiltrated journals that churned out large numbers of manuscripts and sold them to academics seeking to quickly publish new work. The manuscripts were usually of low quality, featuring fabricated data, manipulated or even stolen images, and plagiarised content. "Not only can they buy papers, but they can buy citations. Then, they can appear like well-reputed scientists when they have barely conducted their own research at all,' Dr Amaral said. Researchers said they had only now started to scratch the surface of this network. "Paper mills operate by a variety of different models," Reese Richardson, another author of the study, said. 'They often sell authorship slots for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. A person might pay more money for the first author position or less money for a fourth author position.' Academicians appear to push fraudulent research for publication using a number of strategies. In some cases, groups of researchers collude to publish papers in multiple journals. When their fraudulent activities are discovered, they quickly retract the papers. Some people pay to have their papers accepted for publication in journals through a 'sham peer-review process'. The latest research also underlines the role of brokers who enable mass publication of fraudulent papers in compromised journals. "Brokers connect all the different people behind the scenes," Dr Amaral explained. 'You need to find someone to write the paper. 'You need to find people willing to pay to be the authors. You need to find a journal where you can get it all published. And you need editors in that journal who will accept that paper.' These underground organisations sometimes go around established journals and instead look for defunct journals to hijack. When a legitimate journal stops publishing, some bad actors take over its name or website and surreptitiously assume its identity. "This happened to the journal HIV Nursing. It was formerly the journal of a professional nursing organisation in the UK, then it stopped publishing, and its online domain lapsed,' Dr Richardson said. 'An organisation bought the domain name and started publishing thousands of papers on subjects completely unrelated to nursing.' Researchers call for a multipronged approach to combat this network that undermines the integrity of science. They emphasise the need for enhanced scrutiny of editorial processes, improved methods for detecting fabricated research, and a radical restructuring of the system of incentives in science. Scientists also call for further research to understand the networks facilitating this misconduct. "If we're not prepared to deal with the fraud that's already occurring, then we're certainly not prepared to deal with what generative AI can do to scientific literature," Dr Richardson said. "We have no clue what's going to end up in the literature, what's going to be regarded as scientific fact and what's going to be used to train future AI models, which then will be used to write more papers.'
