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We’ve reached out to the DearMoon team to clarify the details.

Another SpaceX mission aims to send civilians to space very soon. Known as Inspiration4, it plans to send humans to orbit aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon, lifting off on top of a Falcon 9. It too is being bankrolled by a billionaire, Jared Isaacman, and it could fly before the end of the year.

Follow CNET’s 2,021 Space Calendar to stay up to date with all the latest space news this year. You can even add it to your own Google Calendar.

Watch developer Plus testing an autonomous truck on the highway without a driver behind the wheel.


Autonomous tech developer Plus has recently completed a real-world demonstration of its Level 4 autonomous truck technology on a traffic-filled highway. The company tested the truck without a driver behind the wheel, and also without any other remote operator who could take control of the truck if needed. The test took place on the Wufengshan highway in the business hub of the Yangtze Delta region, with Plus being the first company to be granted a special permit to test Level 4 vehicles in the country.

Laser mining would allow for a no explosive option and not need huge machines increasing output as well. Also lasers could make more precise cuts rather than blades which would never get dull.


The application of the “Graduated Optical Colimator” (GOC) for the mining industry consists of a one-kilowatt optical power fiber laser to selectively spall igneous geological formations containing narrow veins of precious metals.

Merger said the prototype addresses key issues like mining using less explosives, chemicals and waste.

Why an upcoming mission to Phobos may reveal something spectacular.


Both NASA and the European Space Agency are operating or planning major missions to — and back from — the Red Planet in a hunt for signs the once wet planet also hosted microbial life forms.

But it’s possible the best place to look for life on Mars isn’t on Mars at all.

In a new perspective published Thursday in the journal Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) scientists Ryuki Hyodo and Tomohiro Usui explain why JAXA believes the Martian moon Phobos could provide a unique opportunity to assess whether Mars ever contained life, and how the space agency’s upcoming Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission plans to test that hypothesis in 2024.

New algorithm could enable fast, nimble drones for time-critical operations such as search and rescue.

If you follow autonomous drone racing, you likely remember the crashes as much as the wins. In drone racing, teams compete to see which vehicle is better trained to fly fastest through an obstacle course. But the faster drones fly, the more unstable they become, and at high speeds their aerodynamics can be too complicated to predict. Crashes, therefore, are a common and often spectacular occurrence.

But if they can be pushed to be faster and more nimble, drones could be put to use in time-critical operations beyond the race course, for instance to search for survivors in a natural disaster.