The Vera Rubin Observatory began its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) with first light and a 3.2-gigapixel camera, aiming to image the southern sky every few days and catalog over 40 billion objects. Perseverance completed its 30th Martian rock analysis on a sample named Kenmore, using the gaseous Dust Removal Tool to study…
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Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet constellation, now has over 5 million customers in 125 countries, with rivals including Eutelsat OneWeb, Globalstar, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper and government-led IRIS2 and QianFan programs. Vodafone and AST SpaceMobile formed SatCo, a Luxembourg-based joint venture aiming to deliver direct-to-device satellite connectivity across Europe by 2026, integrating with 4G/5G networks. MTG-S1,…
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In 2022 Taiwan had about 6.55 million fixed broadband accounts, with 4.12 million (63%) fiber-based and 2.17 million (≈33%) cable modem subscribers, while ADSL subscriptions fell to around 260,000. As of 2024, the median fixed download speed is about 198 Mbps (mean ~137 Mbps), over 45% of fixed accounts enjoy 100–500 Mbps, and gigabit subscribers…
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Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images in Chile, capturing 10 million galaxies in a single frame and previewing the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) to map billions of galaxies. Curiosity rover on Mars captured a 360-degree panorama of boxwork ridges at Gale Crater using 291 Mastcam images. China’s Tianwen-3 Mars Sample…
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In June 2024, Australian astronomers traced a 30-nanosecond radio burst to NASA’s defunct Relay-2 satellite, offline since 1967, likely caused by a micrometeoroid hit or decades of charge buildup. The LES-1 Lincoln Experimental Satellite, silent since 1967, transmitted again in 2012 after 45 years of dormancy. The Pentagon plans a 500-satellite orbital defense net by…
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced GPT-5 is expected to launch in summer 2025 and is reportedly materially better than GPT-4. Midjourney unveiled its first text-to-video system, Model V1, producing 16-second videos with advanced motion and style control in June 2025. China’s MiniMax released the M1 large model as an open-source Apache 2.0-licensed challenger claiming cutting-edge…
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Xona’s Pulsar constellation plans to deploy 250–300 small LEO satellites at about 326 miles (525 km) altitude to deliver centimeter-level PNT. Pulsar signals are encrypted and authenticated, with satellites orbiting ~40× closer to Earth than GPS to produce about 100× stronger received signals. A ‘cloud architecture for atomic clocks’ coordinates timing from ground stations instead…
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China’s Zhongxing-9C satellite was launched on June 20, 2025, atop a Long March 3B from Xichang, marking the full localization of Chinese broadcast satellites in the 582nd Long March flight. SpaceX launched the Starlink 10-34 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, deploying 27 Starlink satellites and bringing the active constellation to nearly 8,000, with…
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Summary of Recent Developments (Mid-2025) SpaceX’s Starship vehicle lifting off on its ninth test flight from Starbase, Texas in May 2025. Starship is the company’s next-generation, fully-reusable rocket system under development. In summary, by mid-2025 SpaceX is breaking launch records, advancing Starship’s development amid regulatory hurdles, expanding its Starlink network, and securing a growing share…
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Gartner projects worldwide generative AI spending will reach $644 billion in 2025, up 76% from 2024. By mid-2025, over 72% of companies have adopted some form of AI, with about 65% of firms using generative AI in 2024. Deloitte predicts 25% of AI-using companies will pilot autonomous “agentic AI” systems in 2025, rising to 50%…
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