SpaceX set to launch 24 Amazon Project Kuiper satellites
Aug. 7 (UPI) -- SpaceX is scheduled to lift off on Thursday with more Project Kuiper satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for its 100th mission of the year.
This mission will be the fourth launch for Project Kuiper. The rocket will be carrying 24 satellites, bringing the total number of satellites in the constellation to 102. Once finished, it is planned to consist of more than 3,200 spacecraft.
The launch window begins at 10:01 a.m. EDT with a 27-minute window with an 80% chance of favorable weather for lift off. Although there is a concern with cumulus clouds, which are prevalent in the late morning hours.
"The combination of onshore flow, higher low-level moisture, and warm temperatures will support earlier formation of cumulus clouds. Isolated to scattered showers are expected to develop by late morning and persist into the early afternoon hours," a launch weather officer said.
The rocket will be equipped with a new first stage booster, B1091.
This will be the second out of the three Amazon-purchased Falcon 9 rockets to fly into orbit; the company hasn't announced when its third will launch.
The rockets will all be deployed about 56 minutes after liftoff over a span of 7.5 minutes.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists Just Found 41,000 Turtles Hiding in Plain Sight
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: A new scientific approach to counting wildlife discovered 41,000 nesting turtles hidden in one area of the Amazon. A University of Florida team believes they've developed a more accurate way to monitor wildlife using drones and statistical modeling. Wildlife counting is wildly inaccurate with current methods, according to the researchers' study. Researchers from the University of Florida have crafted a new process for counting animals. A new research method pairing drones with smart modeling has counted more than 41,000 endangered Giant South American River turtles nesting along the Amazon's Guaporé River, according to the researchers behind a recent study. It's the world's largest known aggregation of freshwater turtles. This process—revealed in the study, which was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology—involves taking thousands of images to track and study animal behavior in order to remove the errors produced by other methods, such as on-the-ground counting. Lead study author Ismael Brack—a post-doctoral researcher within the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences' School of Forestry, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences—called the method 'novel,' and clarified in a statement that the method can count many more creatures than just turtles. The team partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society in Brazil, Colombia, and Bolivia to test the method by essentially conduct a census of the endangered turtles. These elusive reptiles are exceptionally social animals, and the females congregate annually to nest in the sandbanks of the Guaporé River between Brazil and Bolivia during the summer months. In the past, scientist used drones and relied on what's known as the orthomosaic strategy (stitching together hundreds of overlapping aerial photographs) to count turtles, as it's a quicker and less-invasive approach than counting from the ground. While common, the study explains that the style is subject to detection errors that often get overlooked, and struggles to account for movement during observations. In the new research, the team used white paint to mark the shells of 1,187 turtles. A drone flew overhead via a planned path four times a day for 12 days to snap 1,500 photos on each pass. The scientists then stitched the photos together, recording the path of each marked turtle, showing where it nested and where it walked. That information allowed the researchers to create probability models to account for turtle movement, all based on seen behaviors. According to the study, traditional orthomosaic-based counts were shown to be wildly inaccurate, as were the counts taken only from the ground. The new behavior modeling revealed that only 45 percent of turtles using the sandbank were present during drone flights, and roughly 20 percent of those seen walking were counted multiple times (some were counted as many as seven times). The discrepancies led to observers on the ground estimating that the site contained 16,000 turtles, and observers using the the drone orthomosaic strategy (without modeling) counted 79,000 turtles. When applying the new modeling based on movement, the team estimated the presence of around 41,000 turtles. 'These number vary greatly, and that's a problem for conservationists,' Brack said. 'If scientists are unable to establish an accurate count of individuals of a species, how will they know if the population is in decline or whether efforts to protect it are successful?' For the plan to work, scientists must understand the movement patterns of animals, which could require clipping seals' fur, using high-visibility collars on elk, or marking mountain goats with paintball pellets, to name a few examples. The study stated that counting animals when populations are spatially aggregated—such as during breeding or nesting—enhances the accuracy and efficiency of surveying efforts. The team plans to refine the process, focusing on turtles in other South American countries. 'By combining information from multiple surveys,' Brack said, 'we can detect population trends, and the Wildlife Conservation Society will know where to invest in conservation actions.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
Gizmodo
3 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Private Spaceflight Enters the Wild West as Trump Slashes Regulations
President Donald Trump is calling for an ease of regulations for commercial spaceflight and streamlining licensing for rocket launches and reentries. The move highly favors companies like SpaceX but could have negative repercussions on environmental habitats surrounding launchpads. On Wednesday, August 13, Trump signed an executive order intended to bolster the spaceflight industry and increase the overall commercial launch cadence. In it, Trump calls on Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is also currently serving as the acting administrator for NASA, to 'eliminate or expedite…environmental reviews for, and other obstacles to the granting of, launch and reentry licenses and permits.' The order also directs Duffy to 'reevaluate, amend, or rescind' safety requirements and conditions for launch and reentry licenses that were written during Trump's first term as president in 2020. 'By slashing red tape tying up spaceport construction, streamlining launch licenses so they can occur at scale, and creating high-level space positions in government, we can unleash the next wave of innovation,' Duffy said in a statement. 'I look forward to leveraging my dual role at DOT and NASA to make this dream a reality.' The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for granting licenses for space launches and reentries while ensuring public safety and protection of property. For years, SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk has expressed dismay over regulatory bodies such as the FAA, complaining that bureaucratic red tape is holding his rocket company back. 'Starships need to fly. The more we fly safely, the faster we learn; the faster we learn, the sooner we realize full and rapid rocket reuse,' SpaceX wrote in a blog last year while awaiting a launch license for Starship's fifth test flight. 'Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware.' On the other hand, local environmental groups in Boca Chica, Texas, the site of SpaceX's Starbase launch facility, have criticized the FAA for regulatory oversight. Starship's inaugural liftoff in April 2023 sent chunks of concrete and metal thousands of feet away from the launchpad, prompting a review of environmental impacts and potential threats to endangered species in the Boca Chica region. Shortly after, conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the FAA for its approval of SpaceX's expanded launch operations in Boca Chica, Texas, without adequate environmental review. The lawsuit claims that the FAA didn't require an in-depth environmental impact statement before approving SpaceX's Starship plans. FAA officials claim that the new order will serve the space economy. 'The FAA strongly supports President Trump's Executive Order to make sure the U.S. leads the growing space economy and continues to lead the world in space transportation and innovation,' FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement. 'This order safely removes regulatory barriers so that U.S. companies can dominate commercial space activities.' Environmental experts, on the other hand, disagree. 'This reckless order puts people and wildlife at risk from private companies launching giant rockets that often explode and wreak devastation on surrounding areas,' Jared Margolis, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote in a statement. 'Bending the knee to powerful corporations by allowing federal agencies to ignore bedrock environmental laws is incredibly dangerous and puts all of us in harm's way.'
UPI
3 hours ago
- UPI
Combat sports athletes from poor neighborhoods face greater brain risk
Researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said participants in combat sports who grew up in poor neighborhoods might be more likely to suffer brain changes associated with degenerative brain disease than their counterparts who grew up in more affluent areas. File Photo by Ian Halperin/UPI | License Photo It's a time-honored and somewhat romantic tale: The young fighter who rises from poverty to make a name for themselves. But reality might take some shine off such stories, a new study says. Participants in combat sports like boxing or mixed martial arts who grew up in poor neighborhoods might be more likely to suffer brain changes associated with degenerative brain disease, compared to fighters who come from affluent backgrounds, researchers report. Specifically, they had smaller brain volumes in regions important for movement and memory, including the thalamus, cerebellum and hippocampus, according to findings published Aug. 13 in Neurology Open Access. "It is well-known that high-impact sports such as professional fighting are at a greater risk of repetitive head injuries," lead researcher Brooke Conway Kleven, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in a news release. "We found that socioeconomic status may influence how the brain responds to these repetitive impacts." For the study, researchers performed MRI brain scans on 100 professional combat sport athletes. All participants had a minimum of 10 professional fights and were currently active or recently retired from competition. During five years of follow-up, 20% of the fighters developed thinking and memory problems. Analysis revealed that athletes from impoverished neighborhoods had a thinner outer layer in certain brain areas, which can be a sign of early brain degeneration. They also had experienced greater shrinking in several key brain regions, including the thalamus and hippocampus, compared to fighters from well-off neighborhoods. This link remained even after accounting for factors like the fighters' race, ethnicity, income and overall number of fights. "Stressors related to income, employment, education and housing quality may compound the risks of repeated head trauma," Conway Kleven concluded. "Athletes from marginalized or under-resourced communities may face a heavier burden when it comes to brain health." However, researchers noted that because this was an observational study, it could not prove a direct cause-and-effect link between a fighter's economic background and their risk for brain disease, only an association. Further study is needed to validate the results and explore why upbringing might play a role in risk of brain damage, researchers said. "The findings support a broader understanding of brain health -- one that considers not just training or fight history, but also the social and economic context in which people live," Conway Kleven said. "Our study suggests that where someone grows up matters. Recognizing stressors can help inform more equitable approaches to protecting long-term brain health." More information The National Institutes of Health has more on traumatic brain injury. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
