Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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The valuation of Elon Musk’s SpaceX hit $180 billion based on an ongoing secondary share sale, CNBC confirmed Wednesday.

The company is discussing an agreement with investors to sell stock from insiders in a purchase offer at $97 a share, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The offer does not include raising new capital, as the purchase offer represents a secondary sale of existing shares and is expected to close in January.

SpaceX typically performs these secondary rounds about twice a year, to give employees and other company shareholders a chance to sell stock. The latest valuation represents a 20% increase from SpaceX’s previous high of $150 billion, which the company hit through a July secondary sale at $81 a share.

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Hours prior to the secretive spacecraft’s launch, SpaceX stood down from the 7th planned liftoff of the U.S. Space Force’s own X-37B reusable space plane, and even removed the Falcon Heavy rocket containing it from the Kennedy Space Center launch pad. The mission, known as USSF-52, was scrubbed on Wednesday (Dec. 13) to “perform additional system checkouts.” Exact reasons for this delay remain unknown, and a new date has yet to be set for launch.

Related: China’s mysterious space plane returns to Earth after 9-month orbital mission

Much like the X-37B, little is known about China’s reusable space plane, subbed Shenlong, or “Divine Dragon.” From what bits of information are available to the public, though, the spacecraft appears to be used for testing new payloads and orbital operations. It launches vertically atop a rocket, conducts its mission and then lands horizontally on a runway similar to NASA’s space shuttle.

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For the first time ever, wireless millirobots navigated a narrow blood vessel both along and against arterial flow. Researchers from the University of Twente and Radboudumc inserted the screw-shaped robots in a detached aorta with kidneys where they controlled them using a robotically controlled rotating magnet. The researchers plan to further develop the technology to be able to remove blood clots.

Each year worldwide, one in four people die from conditions caused by blood clots. A blood clot blocks a blood vessel preventing the blood from delivering oxygen to certain areas of the body. Surgeons can use flexible instruments to remove the blood clot therefore allowing the blood to flow again, but some regions in the body are difficult to reach. Millirobots can overcome these limitations and remove blood clots from difficult-to-reach blood vessels.

The researchers showed that these millirobots were able to travel through blood vessels. But to do so, the millirobots need power, to travel up-and downstream and to accurately be controlled and localized. Last but not least, they need to be biocompatible and leave no further damage to the inside of blood vessels.

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