Science – Page 3

NASA says it needs to haul the Artemis II rocket back to the hangar for repairs

Science, Space / Kelly Newman / February 22, 2026

The helium system on the SLS upper stage—officially known as the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS)—performed well during both of the Artemis II countdown rehearsals. “Last evening, the team was unable to get helium flow through the vehicle. This occurred during a routine operation to repressurize the system,” Isaacman wrote.

The Space Launch System rocket emerges from the Vehicle Assembly Building to begin the rollout to Launch Pad 39B last month. Credit: Stephen Clark/Ars Technica

Another molecule, another problem

Helium is used to purge the upper stage engine and pressurize its propellant tanks. The rocket is in a “safe configuration,” with a backup system providing purge air to the upper stage, NASA said in a statement.

NASA encountered a similar failure signature during preparations for launch of the first SLS rocket on the Artemis I mission in 2022. On Artemis I, engineers traced the problem to a failed check valve on the upper stage that needed replacement. NASA officials are not sure yet whether the helium issue Friday was caused by a similar valve failure, a problem with an umbilical interface between the rocket and the launch tower, or a fault with a filter, according to Isaacman.

In any case, technicians are unable to reach the problem area with the rocket at the launch pad. Inside the VAB, ground teams will extend work platforms around the rocket to provide physical access to the upper stage and its associated umbilical connections.

NASA said moving into preparations for rollback now will allow managers to potentially preserve the April launch window, “pending the outcome of data findings, repair efforts, and how the schedule comes to fruition in the coming days and weeks.”

It’s not clear if NASA will perform another fueling test on the SLS rocket after it returns to Launch Pad 39B, or whether technicians will do any more work on the delicate hydrogen umbilical near the bottom of the rocket responsible for recurring leaks during the Artemis I and Artemis II launch campaigns. Managers were pleased with the performance of newly-installed seals during Thursday’s countdown demonstration, but NASA officials have previously said vibrations from transporting the rocket to and from the pad could damage the seals.

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Dinosaur eggshells can reveal the age of other fossils

Biology, dinosaurs, evolution, paleontology, radioactive dating, Science / Shannon Garcia / February 21, 2026

When dinosaur fossils surface at a site, it is often not possible to tell how many millions of years ago their bones were buried. While the different strata of sedimentary rock represent periods of geologic history frozen in time, accurately dating them or the fossils trapped within them has frequently proven to be frustrating.

Fossilized bones and teeth have been dated with some success before, but that success is inconsistent and depends on the specimens. Both fossilization and the process of sediment turning to rock can alter the bone in ways that interfere with accuracy. While uranium-lead dating is among the most widely used methods for dating materials, it is just an emerging technology when applied to directly dating fossils.

Dinosaur eggshells might have finally cracked a way to date surrounding rocks and fossils. Led by paleontologist Ryan Tucker of Stellenbosch University, a team of researchers has devised a method of dating eggshells that reveals how long ago they were covered in what was once sand, mud, or other sediments. That information will give the burial time of any other fossils embedded in the same layer of rock.

“If validated, this approach could greatly expand the range of continental sedimentary successions amenable to radioisotopic dating,” Tucker said in a study recently published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

This goes way back

Vertebrates have been laying calcified eggs for hundreds of millions of years (although the first dinosaur eggs had soft shells). What makes fossil eggshells so useful for figuring out the age of other fossils is the unique microstructure of calcium carbonate found in them. The way its crystals are arranged capture a record of diagenetic changes, or physical and chemical changes that occurred during fossilization. These can include water damage, along with breaks and fissures caused by being compacted between layers of sediment. This makes it easier to screen for these signs when trying to determine how old they are.

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Have we leapt into commercial genetic testing without understanding it?

ethics, genetic testing, Genetics, Genomics, Science / DJ Henderson / February 21, 2026

A new book argues that tests might reshape human diversity even if they don’t work.

Daphne O. Martschenko and Sam Trejo both want to make the world a better, fairer, more equitable place. But they disagree on whether studying social genomics—elucidating any potential genetic contributions to behaviors ranging from mental illnesses to educational attainment to political affiliation—can help achieve this goal.

Martschenko’s argument is largely that genetic research and data have almost always been used thus far as a justification to further entrench extant social inequalities. But we know the solutions to many of the injustices in our world—trying to lift people out of poverty, for example—and we certainly don’t need more genetic research to implement them. Trejo’s point is largely that more information is generally better than less. We can’t foresee the benefits that could come from basic research, and this research is happening anyway, whether we like it or not, so we may as well try to harness it as best we can toward good and not ill.

Obviously, they’re both right. In What We Inherit: How New Technologies and Old Myths Are Shaping Our Genomic Future, we get to see how their collaboration can shed light on our rapidly advancing genetic capabilities.

An “adversarial collaboration”

Trejo is a (quantitative) sociologist at Princeton; Martschenko is a (qualitative) bioethicist at Stanford. He’s a he, and she’s a she; he looks white, she looks black; he’s East Coast, she’s West. On the surface, it seems clear that they would hold different opinions. But they still chose to spend 10 years writing this book in an “adversarial collaboration.” While they still disagree, by now at least they can really listen to and understand each other. In today’s world, that seems pretty worthwhile in and of itself.

The titular “What we inherit” refers to both actual DNA (Trejo’s field) and the myths surrounding it (Martschenko’s). There are two “genetic myths” that most concern them. One is the Destiny Myth: the notion, first promulgated by Francis Galton in his 1869 book Heredity Genius, that the effects of DNA can be separable from the effects of environment. He didn’t deny the effects of nurture; he just erroneously pitted it against nature, as if it were one versus the other instead of each impacting and working through the other. (The most powerful “genetic” determinant of educational attainment in his world was a Y chromosome.) His ideas reached their apotheosis in the forced sterilizations of the eugenics movement in the early 20th century in the US and, eventually, in the policies of Nazi Germany.

The other genetic myth the authors address is the Race Myth, “the false belief that DNA differences divide humans into discrete and biologically distinct racial groups.” (Humans can be genetically sorted by ancestry, but that’s not quite the same thing.) But they spend most of the book discussing polygenic scores, which sum up the impact of lots of small genetic influences. They cover what they are, their strengths and weaknesses, their past, present, and potential uses, and how and how much their use should be regulated. And of course, their ultimate question: Are they worth generating and studying at all?

One thing they agree on is that science education in this country is abysmal and needs to be improved immediately. Most people’s knowledge of genetics is stuck at Mendel and his green versus yellow, smooth versus wrinkled peas: dominant and recessive traits with manifestations that can be neatly traced in Punnet squares. Alas, most human traits are much more complicated than that, especially the interesting ones.

Polygenic scores: uses and abuses

Polygenic scores tally the contributions of many genes to particular traits to predict certain outcomes. There’s no single gene for height, depression, or heart disease; there are a bunch of genes that each make very small contributions to making an outcome more or less likely. Polygenic scores can’t tell you that someone will drop out of high school or get a PhD; they can just tell you that someone might be slightly more or less likely to do so. They are probabilistic, not deterministic, because people’s mental health and educational attainment and, yes, even height, are determined by environmental factors as well as genes.

Polygenic scores, besides only giving predictions, are (a) not that accurate by nature; (b) become less accurate for each trait if you select for more than one trait, like height and intelligence; and (c) are less accurate for those not of European descent, since most genetic studies have thus far been done only with Europeans. So right out of the gate, any potential benefits of the technology will be distributed unevenly.

Another thing that Martschenko and Trejo agree on is that the generation, sale, and use of polygenic scores must be regulated much more assiduously than they currently are to ensure that they are implemented responsibly and equitably. “While scientists and policymakers are guarding the front gate against gene editing, genetic embryo selection (using polygenic scores) is slipping in through the backdoor,” they write. Potential parents using IVF have long been able to choose which embryos to implant based on gender and the presence of very clearcut genetic markers for certain serious diseases. Now, they can choose which embryos they want to implant based on their polygenic scores.

In 2020, a company called Genomic Prediction started offering genomic scores for diabetes, skin cancer, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, intellectual disability, and “idiopathic short stature.” They’ve stopped advertising the last two “because it’s too controversial.” Not, mind you, because the effects are minor and the science is unreliable. The theoretical maximum polygenic score for height would make a difference of 2.5 inches, and that theoretical maximum has not been seen yet, even in studies of Europeans. Polygenic scores for most other traits lag far behind. (And that’s just one company; another called Herasight has since picked up the slack and claims to offer embryo selection based on intelligence.)

Remember, the more traits one selects for, the less accurate each prediction is. Moreover, many genes affect multiple biological processes, so a gene implicated in one undesirable trait may have as yet undefined impacts on other desirable ones.

And all of this is ignoring the potential impact of the child’s environment. The first couple who used genetic screening for their daughter opted for an embryo that had a reduced risk of developing heart disease; her risk was less than 1 percent lower than the three embryos they rejected. Feeding her vegetables and sticking her on a soccer team would have been cheaper and probably more impactful.

The risks of reduced genetic diversity

Almost every family I know has a kid who has taken growth hormones, and plenty of them get tutoring, too. These interventions are hardly equitably distributed. But if embryos are selected based on polygenic scores, the authors fear that a new form of social inequality can arise. While growth hormone injections affect only one individual, embryonic selection based on polygenic scores affects all of that embryo’s descendants going forward. So the chosen embryos’ progeny could eventually end up treated as a new class of optimized people whose status might be elevated simply because their parents could afford to comb through their embryonic genomes—regardless of whether their “genetic” capabilities are actually significantly different from everyone else’s.

While it is understandable that parents want to give their kids the best chance of success, eliminating traits that they find objectionable will make humanity as a whole more uniform and society as a whole poorer for the lack of heterogeneity. Everyone can benefit from exposure to people who are different from them; if everyone is bred to be tall, smart, and good-looking, how will we learn to tolerate otherness?

Polygenic embryo selection is currently illegal in the UK, Israel, and much of Europe. In 2024, the FDA made some noise about planning to regulate the market, but for now companies offering polygenic scores to the public fall under the same nonmedical category as nutritional supplements—i.e. not regulatable. These companies advertise scores for traits like musical ability and acrophobia, but only for “wellness” or “educational” purposes.

So Americans are largely at the mercy of corporations that want to profit off of them at least as much as they claim to want to help them. And because this is still in the private sector, people who have the most social and environmental advantages—wealthy people with European ancestry—are often the only ones who can afford to try to give their kids any genetic advantages that might be had, further entrenching those social inequalities and potentially creating genetic inequalities that didn’t exist before. Hopefully, these parents will just be funding the snake-oil phase of the process so that if we can ever generate enough data to make polygenic scores actually reliable at predicting anything meaningful, they will be inexpensive enough to be accessible to anyone who wants them.

Have we leapt into commercial genetic testing without understanding it? Read More »

Major government research lab appears to be squeezing out foreign scientists

NIST, Science, syndication, trump administration, War on science / 9u50fv / February 21, 2026

One of the US government’s top scientific research labs is taking steps that could drive away foreign scientists, a shift lawmakers and sources tell WIRED could cost the country valuable expertise and damage the agency’s credibility.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) helps determine the frameworks underpinning everything from cybersecurity to semiconductor manufacturing. Some of NIST’s recent work includes establishing guidelines for securing AI systems and identifying health concerns with air purifiers and firefighting gloves. Many of the agency’s thousands of employees, postdoctoral scientists, contractors, and guest researchers are brought in from around the world for their specialized expertise.

“For weeks now, rumors of draconian new measures have been spreading like wildfire, while my staff’s inquiries to NIST have gone unanswered,” Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, wrote in a letter sent to acting NIST Director Craig Burkhardt on Thursday. April McClain Delaney, a fellow Democrat on the committee, cosigned the message.

Lofgren wrote that while her staff has heard about multiple rumored changes, what they have confirmed through unnamed sources is that the Trump administration “has begun taking steps to limit the ability of foreign-born researchers to conduct their work at NIST.”

The congressional letter follows a Boulder Reporting Lab article on February 12 that said international graduate students and postdoctoral researchers would be limited to a maximum of three years at NIST going forward, despite many of them needing five to seven years to complete their work.

A NIST employee tells WIRED that some plans to bring on foreign workers through the agency’s Professional Research and Experience Program have recently been canceled because of uncertainty about whether they would make it through the new security protocols. The staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, says the agency has yet to widely communicate what the new hurdles will be or why it believes they are justified.

On Thursday, the Colorado Sun reported that “noncitizens” lost after-hours access to a NIST lab last month and could soon be banned from the facility entirely.

Jennifer Huergo, a spokesperson for NIST, tells WIRED that the proposed changes are aimed at protecting US science from theft and abuse, echoing a similar statement issued this week to other media outlets. Huergo declined to comment on who needs to approve the proposal for it to be finalized and when a decision will be made. She also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawmakers’ letter.

Preventing foreign adversaries from stealing valuable American intellectual property has been a bipartisan priority, with NIST among the agencies in recent years to receive congressional scrutiny about the adequacy of its background checks and security policies. Just last month, Republican lawmakers renewed calls to put restrictions in place preventing Chinese nationals from working at or with national labs run by the Department of Energy.

But Lofgren’s letter contends that the rumored restrictions on non-US scientists at NIST go beyond “what is reasonable and appropriate to protect research security.” The letter demands transparency about new policies by February 26 and a pause on them “until Congress can weigh in on whether these changes are necessary at all.”

The potential loss of research talent at NIST would add to a series of other Trump administration policies that some US tech industry leaders have warned will dismantle the lives of immigrant researchers already living in the US and hamper economic growth. Hiking fees on H-1B tech visas, revoking thousands of student visas, and carrying out legally dubious mass deportations all stand to push people eager to work on science and tech research in the US to go elsewhere instead. The Trump administration has also announced plans to limit post-graduation job training for international students.

Pat Gallagher, who served as the director of NIST from 2009 to 2013 under President Barack Obama, says the changes could erode trust in the agency, which has long provided the technical foundations that industry and governments around the world rely on. “What has made NIST special is it is scientifically credible,” he tells WIRED. “Industry, universities, and the global measurement community knew they could work with NIST.”

Like much of the federal government, NIST has been in turmoil for most of the past year. Parts of it were paralyzed for months as rumors of DOGE cuts spread. Ultimately, the agency lost hundreds of its thousands of workers to budget cuts, with further funding pressure to come.

As of a couple of years ago, NIST welcomed 800 researchers on average annually from outside the US to work in its offices and collaborate directly with staff.

Lofgren expressed fear that rumors may be enough to scare away researchers and undermine US competitiveness in vital research. “Our scientific excellence depends upon attracting the best and brightest from around the world,” she wrote in the letter.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

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Rocket Report: Chinese launch firm raises big money; Falcon 9 back to the Bahamas

artemis II, launch, NASA, rocket report, Science, Space, space launch system, spacex, starship / Beth Washington / February 21, 2026

The company that attempted China’s first orbital-class rocket landing says it will soon try again.

A Falcon 9 booster on its drone ship after landing in Bahamian territorial waters last year. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 8.30 of the Rocket Report! As I write this week’s edition, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is undergoing a second countdown rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The outcome of the test will determine whether NASA has a shot at launching the Artemis II mission around the Moon next month, or if the launch will be delayed until April or later. The finicky fueling line for the rocket’s core stage is the center of attention after a hydrogen leak cut short a practice countdown earlier this month.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Who is actually investing in sovereign launch? No one will supplant American and Chinese dominance in the space launch arena any time soon, but several longtime US allies now see sovereign access to space as a national security imperative, Ars reports. Taking advantage of private launch initiatives already underway within their own borders, several middle and regional powers have approved substantial government funding for commercial startups to help them reach the launch pad. Australia, Canada, Germany, and Spain are among the nations that currently lack the ability to independently put their own satellites into orbit, but they are now spending money to establish a domestic launch industry. Others talk a big game but haven’t committed the cash to back up their ambitions.

Ranking them... Ars examined how much international governments, specifically those without a present-day orbital launch capability, are investing in sovereign access to space. Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have committed the most government funding to homegrown launcher development. The fruits of the UK’s investment are in question after the failure of the Scottish rocket company Orbex, which we wrote about in last week’s Rocket Report. Other countries with real, although less credible, orbital launch programs include Brazil, Argentina, and Taiwan.

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s and Stephen Clark’s reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.

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An update on one of Germany’s launch startups. German rocket builder Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) is making significant progress toward once again attempting an inaugural flight of its RFA One rocket, European Spaceflight reports. The company is moving forward with commissioning its launch pad at SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland as it works toward a hot fire test of the rocket’s first stage. The RFA One rocket is a 30-meter (98-foot) tall two-stage rocket designed to deliver payloads of up to 1,300 kilograms (2,866 pounds) to low-Earth orbit. The company is also developing an optional kick stage called Redshift that can be configured for a wide range of applications.

They’ve been here before... In August 2024, as the company was preparing for the inaugural flight of its RFA One rocket, an anomaly during a first-stage hot fire test caused the vehicle to burst into flames, resulting in the total loss of the stage. Over the last 18 months, the company has been manufacturing a replacement for the destroyed first stage and upgrading the vehicle’s upper stage to resume preparations for launch from SaxaVord Spaceport. RFA’s chief executive told European Spaceflight that the rocket’s booster is being transported from its German factory to the launch site in Scotland. That will be followed by the upper stage. “We are taking the time to do it properly. We remain aggressive, fast, and flexible, but the wild times before August 2024 are over,” Indulis Kalnins, the company’s CEO, said.

UAE launches hybrid rocket. The first hybrid rocket domestically developed in the United Arab Emirates launched on February 13, marking a significant step in the country’s push to build sovereign space and propulsion capabilities, the Khaleej Times reports. The sounding rocket, developed by the Technology Innovation Institute, reached an altitude of 3 kilometers (1.6 miles) during a test flight over the UAE desert, validating a fully UAE-designed and operated propulsion system for the first time. At the core of the mission was a hybrid propulsion engine combining nitrous oxide with a solid polyethylene-based fuel—a system that blends elements of solid and liquid rocket technologies.

Room to grow... “This achievement is the result of years of disciplined research, engineering, and iteration,” said Elias Tsoutsanis, chief researcher at the institute’s Propulsion and Space Research Center. “That capability is the foundation for everything that follows—higher altitudes, heavier payloads, and more complex missions, all from the UAE.” The UAE has a growing space program, having already sent an orbiter to Mars. The nation has a long-term goal of developing an indigenous orbital launch capability. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

SpaceX restores full crew to ISS. A Crew Dragon spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on Saturday, and astronauts popped open the hatches a few hours later to bring the lab back to a full crew complement of seven astronauts and cosmonauts. The arrival of four new astronauts as part of the Crew-12 mission—Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway of NASA, Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency, and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos—came a day after their launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Recovering from something... One of the astronauts on the preceding SpaceX crew mission, Crew-11, experienced a health emergency on the ISS a few days into the new year. NASA made an unprecedented decision to bring them home early. NASA has not named the afflicted Crew-11 astronaut, but the flier is said to be recovering on Earth. The early departure of Crew-11 left just a single NASA astronaut, Chris Williams, aboard the space station. He had reached space on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in November, alongside two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev. The space station is a big place, and with much of the facility now more than two decades old, Williams had to spend most of his time on maintenance and monitoring activities. Because Crew-11 was brought home more than a month early, NASA and SpaceX scrambled to launch the Crew-12 vehicle a little sooner than expected to minimize the time Williams had to manage the large US segment of the station on his own. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

SpaceX resumes Bahamas landings. For just the second time, a Falcon 9 booster returned to Earth Thursday night on a drone ship stationed among the islands of the Bahamas during a mission to deploy 29 Starlink satellites for SpaceX’s satellite Internet service. The booster landed on the drone ship parked near The Exumas less than 10 minutes after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster in this location for the first time almost exactly one year ago, on February 18, 2025, without incident. But the Bahamian government raised environmental concerns after two Starships broke apart and dropped debris near the Bahamas last year, putting further Falcon 9 landings there on hold. The two entities have since come to an understanding, paving the way for this second booster to land near the island nation.

Back on station… SpaceX’s offshore rocket landings typically occur in international waters. The shift to territorial waters near the Bahamas allows SpaceX to launch into more types of orbits from Cape Canaveral. The Bahamian government hailed the original rocket landing agreement as an opportunity for the island nation to attract visitors and investment, with plans for a regular cadence of Falcon 9 booster returns near the Bahamas over the coming months. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

LandSpace lays out plans for 2026. Chinese commercial launch firm LandSpace is targeting the second quarter of this year for a second orbital launch and booster recovery attempt of its Zhuque-3 rocket, followed by a reuse test in the fourth quarter, Space News reports. A LandSpace official provided the update in a presentation earlier this month before the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. The first launch of the Zhuque-3 rocket in December successfully reached orbit, but the first stage booster crashed near its downrange landing zone instead of descending to a controlled touchdown.

So close… Still, LandSpace got tantalizingly close to nailing an on-target landing. Something went wrong moments after ignition of the rocket’s engines for a final landing burn to slow for touchdown. The stage impacted around 40 meters off the center of a dedicated landing area in Wuwei County, Gansu province, some 390 kilometers (240 miles) downrange from the launch pad at the Jiuquan spaceport in northwestern China. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Another Chinese launch company rakes in cash. Chinese launch firm iSpace has secured a record D++ funding round to accelerate its reusable rocket development efforts and expand its industrial footprint, Space News reports. The money will support test flights of the company’s Hyperbola-3 rocket, a medium-lift launcher powered by nine main engines. The first launch is scheduled later this year. Public statements suggest the two-stage Hyperbola-3 is 69 meters (226 feet) long with a payload capacity of 8,500 kilograms (18,700 pounds) to low-Earth orbit in reusable mode and 13,400 kilograms (29.500 pounds) to LEO in expendable mode.

A mixed record... iSpace has attracted the massive funding round despite strong competition from other launch startups. iSpace, officially known as Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd., became the first Chinese commercial company to put a rocket into orbit in 2019 with its smaller Hyperbola-1 rocket. But the Hyperbola-1 lacks a reliable track record, with just a 50 percent success rate over eight flights. The Hyperbola-1 is fueled by solid propellants, while the more powerful Hyperbola-3 will use new methane propulsion. iSpace’s latest fundraising round is the largest ever for a Chinese rocket company.

NASA vows to fix those pesky hydrogen leaks, eventually. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Saturday the agency is looking at ways to prevent the fueling problems plaguing the Space Launch System rocket before the Artemis III mission, Ars reports. Artemis III is slated to be the first crew mission to land on the Moon since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago. As for Artemis II, which remains on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida after missing a launch window earlier this month, NASA is putting the rocket through a second countdown rehearsal on Thursday to test whether technicians have resolved a hydrogen fuel leak that cut short a practice countdown run on February 2.

Moving the goalposts… Artemis II is the first crew flight for the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. The nearly 10-day mission will carry four astronauts around the far side of the Moon and return them to Earth. But none of this can happen until NASA can fix the hydrogen leaks. During the first Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) earlier this month, hydrogen gas concentrations in the area around the fueling connection exceeded 16 percent, NASA’s safety limit. This spike was higher than any of the leak rates observed during the Artemis I launch campaign in 2022. Since then, NASA reassessed its safety limit and raised it from 4 percent—a conservative rule NASA held over from the Space Shuttle program—to 16 percent.

Florida community braces for big, new rockets. Before SpaceX’s Starship mega-rockets arrive on Florida’s Space Coast, leaders in Cape Canaveral want to explore state and federal grants to mitigate potential infrastructure damage caused by vibrations and sonic booms, Florida Today reports. The first Florida Starship launch could occur as early as late summer or fall, with US Space Force Col. Brian Chatman calling 2026 “the year of the giants” in Brevard County during a January space conference in Orlando. Blue Origin officials also hope to ramp up launches of their 322-foot New Glenn heavy-lift rockets.

Taking precaution… “We need more data, as well. I think we suspect that we’re going to sustain potential vibration damages. And what does that look like for us? And will there be other sources of revenue available in the event that that happens?” Cape Canaveral City Manager Keith Touchberry asked during the Tuesday City Council meeting. Mayor Pro Tem Kay Jackson, who spearheaded Tuesday’s discussion, said the city should move expeditiously, noting that Blue Origin’s Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station lies closest to the city. That’s where New Glenn rockets launch, 5.7 miles from the closest city condominium and 7.2 miles from City Hall.

Next three launches

Feb. 21: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-25 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 08: 00 UTC

Feb. 22: Falcon 9 | Starlink 6-104 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 02: 04 UTC

Feb. 24: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-26 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 14: 00 UTC

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rocket Report: Chinese launch firm raises big money; Falcon 9 back to the Bahamas Read More »

“Million-year-old” fossil skulls from China are far older—and not Denisovans

anthropology, Archaeology, Denisovans, extinct hominins, hominin evolution, homo erectus, homo longi, out of africa, paleoanthropology, Science, skulls / Mike M. / February 20, 2026

careful with that, it’s an antique

The revised age may help make sense of 2-million-year-old stone tools elsewhere in China.

Two skulls from Yunxian, in northern China, aren’t ancestors of Denisovans after all; they’re actually the oldest known Homo erectus fossils in eastern Asia.

A recent study has re-dated the skulls to about 1.77 million years old, which makes them the oldest hominin remains found so far in East Asia. Their age means that Homo erectus (an extinct common ancestor of our species, Neanderthals, and Denisovans) must have spread across the continent much earlier and much faster than we’d previously given them credit for. It also sheds new light on who was making stone tools at some even older archaeological sites in China.

Homo erectus spread like wildfire

Yunxian is an important—and occasionally contentious—archaeological site on the banks of central China’s Han River. Along with hundreds of stone tools and animal bones, the layers of river sediment have yielded three nearly complete hominin skulls (only two of which have been described in a publication so far). Shantou University paleoanthropologist Hua Tu and his colleagues measured the ratio of two isotopes, aluminum-26 and beryllium-10, in grains of quartz from the sediment layer that once held the skulls. The results suggest that Homo erectus lived and died along the Han River 1.77 million years ago. That’s just 130,000 years after the species first appeared in Africa.

(Side note: This river has been depositing layers of silt and gravel on the same terraces for at least 2 million years, and that’s just extremely cool.)

The revised date suggests that Homo erectus spread across Asia much more quickly than anthropologists had realized. So far, the oldest hominin bones found anywhere outside Africa are five skulls, along with hundreds of other bones, from Dmanisi Cave in Georgia. The Dmanisi bones are between 1.85 million and 1.77 million years old, and they (probably—more on that below) also belong to Homo erectus.

Until recently, the next-oldest Homo erectus fossils outside Africa were the 1.63-million-year-old fossils from another Chinese site, Gongwangling, a short distance north of Yunxian. (That’s not counting a couple of teeth from a site in southern China with an age that is a little less certain.) Those dates had suggested Homo erectus seemed to have taken a leisurely 140,000 years to spread east into Asia. But it now looks like hominins were living in Georgia and central China at about the same time, which means they spread out very fast, started earlier than we knew, or both.

**The Homo longi and short of it**

All of this means that the Yunxian skulls are probably not—as a September 2025 study claimed—close ancestors of the enigmatic Denisovans. The authors of that paper had digitally reconstructed one of the skulls and concluded that it looked a lot like a 146,000-year-old skull from Harbin, China (which a recent DNA study identified as a Denisovan, also known as Homo longi).

The researchers had argued that the original owners of the Yunxian skulls had lived not long after the Denisovan/Homo longi branch of the hominin family tree split off from ours—in other words, that the Yunxian skulls weren’t mere Homo erectus but early Homo longi, close cousins of our own species. Using the original paleomagnetic dates for the Yunxian skulls, that study’s authors drew up a hominin family tree in which our species and Denisovans are more closely related to each other than either is to Neanderthals—one in which the branching happened much earlier than DNA evidence suggests.

There were many issues with those arguments, but the revised age for the Yunxian skulls sounds like a death knell for them. “1.77 million years is just too old to be a credible connection to the Denisovan group, which DNA tells us got started after around 700,000 years ago,” University of Wisconsin paleoanthropologist John Hawks, who was not involved in the study, told Ars in an email.

But the most interesting thing about these skulls being 1.77 million years old is that the date provides a reference point for understanding even older sites in China—sites that may suggest that Homo erectus wasn’t even the first hominin to make it this far.

Photograph of stone tools — Stone tools collected from Shangchen, China. Credit: Prof. Zhaoyu Zhu

Out of Africa: The prequel

Homo erectus first shows up in the fossil record around 1.9 million years ago in Africa, where it’s sometimes also called Homo ergaster because paleoanthropologists seem to enjoy naming things and then arguing about those names for several decades. A few hundred thousand years later, Homo erectus showed up everywhere: from South Africa northward to the Levant and from Dmanisi Cave in Georgia eastward to the islands of Indonesia.

We typically think of Homo erectus as the first of our hominin ancestors to expand beyond Africa, along routes that our own species would retread 1.5 million years later. More to the point, many paleoanthropologists think of them as the first hominin that could have adapted to so many different environments, each with its own challenges, along the way.

But we may need to give earlier members of our genus, like Homo habilis, a little more credit because stone tools from two other sites in China seem to be older than Homo erectus. At Shangchen, a site on the southern edge of China’s Loess Plateau, archaeologists unearthed stone tools from a 2.1-million-year-old layer of sediment. And at the Xihoudu site in northern China, stone tools date to 2.43 million years ago.

“If you have a site in China that’s 2.43 million years, and the origin of Homo erectus is 1.9 million years ago, either you need to push the origin of Homo erectus back to 2.5 or 2.6 million years or we need to accept that we need to be looking at other hominins that may have actually moved out of Africa,” University of Hawai’i at Manoa paleoanthropologist Christopher Bae, a coauthor of the new study, told Ars.

So who made those 2-million-year-old tools?

Archaeologists have unearthed stone tools but no hominin fossils at both sites, making it difficult to say for sure who the toolmakers were. But if they weren’t Homo erectus, the next most likely suspects would be older members of our genus, like Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis. That would mean hominin expansion “out of Africa” actually happened several times during the history of our genus: once with early Homo, again with Homo erectus, and yet again with our species.

“There could have been an earlier wave that died out or interbred, so there’s all kinds of possibilities open there,” Purdue University paleoanthropologist Darryl Granger, also a coauthor of the recent study, told Ars.

In fact, there’s some debate about whether the Dmanisi fossils actually belonged to Homo erectus proper. One thing the two dueling reconstructions of the Yunxian skulls agree on is that those hominins had flattish faces, more like ours—and like the 1.63-million-year-old Homo erectus skull from Gongwangling. But the Dmanisi hominins’ lower faces project dramatically forward, like those of older hominins.

Some paleoanthropologists classify the Dmanisi fossils as their own species, but others argue they’re more like early members of our genus, such as Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis. Those earlier hominins may have been more capable of migrating and adapting than we’ve realized.

It’s still very clear, from both fossil and genetic evidence, that our species evolved in Africa and spread from there to the rest of the world. But it’s also increasingly clear that there were several other species of hominins in other places, doing other things, at least off and on, for a very long time before we showed up. Yunxian, and its revised age, could help anthropologists better understand part of that story.

“Actually being able to anchor the Homo erectus sites with firm, solid dates helps us try to reconfigure this model,” said Bae. “This is where Yunxian really plays a major role in this. Now that we’ve got older dates to anchor the Yunxian Homo erectus fossils, I think we can really bring in this discussion with Xihoudu and Shangchen.”

Time to dig deeper

The answers may still lie buried—maybe just a few meters below the fossil skulls and stone tools at sites like Yunxian and Gongwangling, in older sediment layers. Archaeologists may not have seen a reason to explore these, since no one lived in China before 1.7 million years ago. The age of the Yunxian skulls, along with the even older stone tools at Shangchen and Xihoudu, may warrant deeper digging.

“People haven’t been looking for artifacts and fossils in two-plus million-year-old sediments in these locations in China,” said Granger. “I can think of places that I would like to go back and look if I had more time and money.”

At other sites, researchers have already unearthed fossil animal bones from the same age range as China’s oldest stone tools, but paleoanthropologists haven’t double-checked whether any of those bones might belong to early hominins rather than other mammals. Bae said, “It’s just that they haven’t been receiving any attention, or not enough attention.”

Science Advances, 2026. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ady2270 About DOIs).

Kiona is a freelance science journalist and resident archaeology nerd at Ars Technica.

“Million-year-old” fossil skulls from China are far older—and not Denisovans Read More »

From chickens to humans, animals think “bouba” sounds round

Behavioral science, Biology, evolution, language, neurobiology, perception, Science / Mike M. / February 19, 2026

Does “bouba” sound round to you? How about “maluma”? Neither are real words, but we’ve known for decades that people who hear them tend to associate them with round objects. There have been plenty of ideas put forward about why that would be the case, and most of them have turned out to be wrong. Now, in perhaps the weirdest bit of evidence to date, researchers have found that even newly hatched chickens seem to associate “bouba” with round shapes.

The initial finding dates all the way back to 1947, when someone discovered that people associated some word-like sounds with rounded shapes, and others with spiky ones. In the years since, that association got formalized as the bouba/kiki effect, received a fair bit of experimental attention, and ended up with an extensive Wikipedia entry.

One of the initial ideas to explain it was similarity to actual words (either phonetically or via the characters used to spell them), but then studies with speakers of different languages and alphabets showed that it is likely a general human tendency. The association also showed up in infants as young as 4 months old, well before they master speaking or spelling. Attempts to find the bouba/kiki effects in other primates, however, came up empty. That led to some speculation that it might be evidence of a strictly human processing ability that underlies our capacity to learn sophisticated languages.

A team of Italian researchers—Maria Loconsole, Silvia Benavides-Varela, and Lucia Regolin—now have evidence that that isn’t true either. They decided to look for the bouba/kiki effect well beyond primates, instead turning to newly hatched chickens, only one or three days old. That may sound a bit odd, but chickens have a key advantage beyond ready availability: unlike a 4-month-old human, newly hatched chicks are fully mobile and able to interact with the world.

From chickens to humans, animals think “bouba” sounds round Read More »

Rare gifted word-learner dogs like to share their toys

animal cognition, animals, Biology, gifted word learner dogs, Science / 9u50fv / February 19, 2026

This time around, the group recruited 10 GWL dogs and 21 non-GWL dogs, all border collies, since this is the most common breed to fall into the GWL category. They compiled a list of eight toys: two labeled, two unlabeled, and four that were new to each dog.

What’s their motivation?

There was a two-week period during which owners familiarized the dogs with the toys once a day for at least 10 minutes. Each toy was presented separately. For the labeled toys, owners moved the toy while crouched on the floor, repeatedly naming the toy (“Look at the [toy name]! Here is the [toy name]”). They did not name the unlabeled toys. Owners devoted an equal amount of time to all the toys. Novel toys were excluded from the familiarization phase.

After that period, each dog participated in two 90-second trials. The dogs were provided free access to the toys (washed with soap to control for odor cues). In the first trial, owners entered first and placed the labeled and unlabeled toys, plus two of the novel ones, on the floor and stood at a distance, passive and ignoring the dogs as the latter explored the toys. After a five-minute break, the test was repeated with the other two novel toys. All tests were recorded remotely and the footage subsequently analyzed.

Human babies are known to pay more attention to named objects, and the authors thought the GWL dogs would show a similar response, but that’s not what happened. All the dogs, whether they were GWL dogs or not, strongly preferred the new toys, and there were no significant differences between the two groups of dogs in terms of how much time they spent playing with labeled versus unlabeled. So just hearing toy names does not automatically increase a dog’s attention.

Rare gifted word-learner dogs like to share their toys Read More »

Microsoft’s new 10,000-year data storage medium: glass

archival storage, Computer science, Data, lasers, materials science, microsoft, Science / DJ Henderson / February 18, 2026

Femtosecond lasers etch data into a very stable medium.

Right now, Silica hardware isn’t quite ready for commercialization. Credit: Microsoft Research

Archival storage poses lots of challenges. We want media that is extremely dense and stable for centuries or more, and, ideally, doesn’t consume any energy when not being accessed. Lots of ideas have floated around—even DNA has been considered—but one of the simplest is to etch data into glass. Many forms of glass are very physically and chemically stable, and it’s relatively easy to etch things into it.

There’s been a lot of preliminary work demonstrating different aspects of a glass-based storage system. But in Wednesday’s issue of Nature, Microsoft Research announced Project Silica, a working demonstration of a system that can read and write data into small slabs of glass with a density of over a Gigabit per cubic millimeter.

Writing on glass

We tend to think of glass as fragile, prone to shattering, and capable of flowing downward over centuries, although the last claim is a myth. Glass is a category of material, and a variety of chemicals can form glasses. With the right starting chemical, it’s possible to make a glass that is, as the researchers put it, “thermally and chemically stable and is resistant to moisture ingress, temperature fluctuations and electromagnetic interference.” While it would still need to be handled in a way to minimize damage, glass provides the sort of stability we’d want for long-term storage.

Putting data into glass is as simple as etching it. But that’s been one of the challenges, as etching is typically a slow process. However, the development of femtosecond lasers—lasers that emit pulses that only last 10^-15 seconds and can emit millions of them per second—can significantly cut down write times and allow etching to be focused on a very small area, increasing potential data density.

To read the data back, there are several options. We’ve already had great success using lasers to read data from optical disks, albeit slowly. But anything that can pick up the small features etched into the glass could conceivably work.

With the above considerations in mind, everything was in place on a theoretical level for Project Silica. The big question is how to put them together into a functional system. Microsoft decided that, just to be cautious, it would answer that question twice.

A real-world system

The difference between these two answers comes down to how an individual unit of data (called a voxel) is written to the glass. One type of voxel they tried was based on birefringence, where refraction of photons depends on their polarization. It’s possible to etch voxels into glass to create birefringence using polarized laser light, producing features smaller than the diffraction limit. In practice, this involved using one laser pulse to create an oval-shaped void, followed by a second, polarized pulse to induce birefringence. The identity of a voxel is based on the orientation of the oval; since we can resolve multiple orientations, it’s possible to save more than one bit in each voxel.

The alternative approach involves changing the magnitude of refractive effects by varying the amount of energy in the laser pulse. Again, it’s possible to discern more than two states in these voxels, allowing multiple data bits to be stored in each voxel.

The map data from *Microsoft Flight Simulator* etched onto the Silica storage medium. Credit: Microsoft Research

Reading these in Silica involves using a microscope that can pick up differences in refractive index. (For microscopy geeks, this is a way of saying “they used phase contrast microscopy.”) The microscopy sets the limits on how many layers of voxels can be placed in a single piece of glass. During etching, the layers were separated by enough distance so only a single layer would be in the microscope’s plane of focus at a time. The etching process also incorporates symbols that allow the automated microscope system to position the lens above specific points on the glass. From there, the system slowly changes its focal plane, moving through the stack and capturing images that include different layers of voxels.

To interpret these microscope images, Microsoft used a convolutional neural network that combines data from images that are both in and near the plane of focus for a given layer of voxels. This is effective because the influence of nearby voxels changes how a given voxel appears in a subtle way that the AI system can pick up on if given enough training data.

The final piece of the puzzle is data encoding. The Silica system takes the raw bitstream of the data it’s storing and adds error correction using a low-density parity-check code (the same error correction used in 5G networks). Neighboring bits are then combined to create symbols that take advantage of the voxels’ ability to store more than one bit. Once a stream of symbols is made, it’s ready to be written to glass.

Performance

Writing remains a bottleneck in the system, so Microsoft developed hardware that can write a single glass slab with four lasers simultaneously without generating too much heat. That is enough to enable writing at 66 megabits per second, and the team behind the work thinks that it would be possible to add up to a dozen additional lasers. That may be needed, given that it’s possible to store up to 4.84TB in a single slab of glass (the slabs are 12 cm x 12 cm and 0.2 cm thick). That works out to be over 150 hours to fully write a slab.

The “up to” aspect of the storage system has to do with the density of data that’s possible with the two different ways of writing data. The method that relies on birefringence requires more optical hardware and only works in high-quality glasses, but can squeeze more voxels into the same volume, and so has a considerably higher data density. The alternative approach can only put a bit over two terabytes into the same slab of glass, but can be done with simpler hardware and can work on any sort of transparent material.

Borosilicate glass offers extreme stability; Microsoft’s accelerated aging experiments suggest the data would be stable for over 10,000 years at room temperature. That led Microsoft to declare, “Our results demonstrate that Silica could become the archival storage solution for the digital age.”

That may be overselling it just a bit. The Square Kilometer Array telescope, for example, is expected to need to archive 700 petabytes of data each year. That would mean over 140,000 glass slabs would be needed to store the data from this one telescope. Even assuming that the write speed could be boosted by adding significantly more lasers, you’d need over 600 Silica machines operating in parallel to keep up. And the Square Kilometer Array is far from the only project generating enormous amounts of data.

That said, there are some features that make Silica a great match for this sort of thing, most notably the complete absence of energy needed to preserve the data, and the fact that it can be retrieved rapidly if needed (a sharp contrast to the days needed to retrieve information from DNA, for example). Plus, I’m admittedly drawn to a system with a storage medium that looks like something right out of science fiction.

Nature, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-10042-w (About DOIs).

John is Ars Technica’s science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots.

Microsoft’s new 10,000-year data storage medium: glass Read More »

X-rays reveal kingfisher feather structure in unprecedented detail

animals, kingfishers, nanostructure, photonic crystals, scanning electron microscopy, Science, structural color / Mike M. / February 18, 2026

A spongy nanostructure

The Northwestern team started looking at kingfisher feathers in tian-tsui objects via postdoc Madeline Meier, who has a background in chemistry and nanostructures and was interested in combining that expertise with studies of cultural heritage. The first step was to identify the bird species whose feathers were used in Qing dynasty screens and panels, as well as other materials used. Researchers carefully scraped away the topmost layers and imaged the feathers with scanning electron microscopy to get a better look at the underlying nanostructure. Hyperspectral imaging revealed how different areas of the screens absorbed and reflected light.

The team also made use of the center’s partnership with Chicago’s Field Museum, comparing the screen feathers with the museum’s vast collection of taxidermied bird species. The screens and panels contained feathers from common kingfishers and black-capped kingfishers, as well as mallard ducks (used to add green hues). Finally, X-ray fluorescence and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy enabled them to create a map of the various chemicals used in the gilding, pigments, glues, and other materials.

Most recently, the lab has partnered with Argonne National Laboratory and used synchrotron radiation to get an ever-better look at the nanostructure of kingfisher feathers. Synchrotron radiation differs from conventional X-rays in that it’s a thin beam of very high-intensity X-rays generated within a particle accelerator. Electrons are fired into a linear accelerator (linac), get a speed boost in a small synchrotron, and are injected into a storage ring, where they zoom along at near-light speed. A series of magnets bends and focuses the electrons, and in the process, they give off X-rays, which can then be focused down beam lines.

That makes it ideal for noninvasive imaging, since, in general, the shorter the wavelength used (and the higher the light’s energy), the finer the details one can image and/or analyze. It has become a popular technique for imaging fragile archaeological artifacts without damaging them—like Qing dynasty headdresses with inlays of kingfisher feathers. In this case, the imaging revealed that the feathers’ microscopic ridges have an underlying semi-ordered, porous, sponge-like shape that reflect and scatter light, thereby giving the feathers their gloriously brilliant hues.

“Long admired in Chinese poetry and art, kingfisher feathers have amazing optical properties,” co-author Maria Kokkori said. “Our discoveries not only enhance our understanding of historical materials but also reshape how we think about artistic and scientific innovation, and the future of sustainable materials.”

X-rays reveal kingfisher feather structure in unprecedented detail Read More »

There’s a lot of big talk about sovereign launch—who is doing something about it?

Commercial space, launch, rockets, Science, Space, space policy / 9u50fv / February 17, 2026

As alliances fray, these are the nations investing in sovereign access to space.

PLD Space shows off a model of its Miura 1 suborbital rocket during a 2021 presentation on the esplanade of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid. Credit: Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto via Getty Images

No one will supplant American and Chinese dominance in the space launch arena anytime soon, but several longtime US allies now see sovereign access to space as a national security imperative.

Taking advantage of private launch initiatives already underway within their own borders, several middle and regional powers have approved substantial government funding for commercial startups to help them reach the launch pad. Australia, Canada, Germany, and Spain are among the nations that currently lack the ability to independently put their own satellites into orbit but which are now spending money to establish a domestic launch industry. Others talk a big game but haven’t committed the cash to back up their ambitions.

The moves are part of a wider trend among US allies to increase defense spending amid strained relations with the Trump administration. Tariffs, trade wars, and threats to invade the territory of a NATO ally have changed the tune of many foreign leaders. In Europe, there’s even talk of fielding a nuclear deterrent independent of the nuclear umbrella provided by the US military.

Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk, the head of the world’s leading space launch company, has further soured foreign appetite for using the United States for launch services. Today, that usually means choosing to pay Musk’s SpaceX.

Commercial satellite companies will still choose the cheapest, most reliable path to space, of course. This means SpaceX will win the overwhelming majority of commercial launch contracts put up for global competition. But there’s a captive market for many satellite projects, especially those with government backing. US government satellites typically launch on US rockets, just as Chinese satellites fly on Chinese rockets.

The picture is more opaque in Europe. The European Space Agency and the European Union prefer to launch their satellites on European rockets, but that’s not always possible. ESA and the EU launched several key satellite missions on SpaceX rockets while waiting on the debut of Europe’s long-delayed Ariane 6 rocket. The Ariane 6 is now launching reliably, ending Europe’s reliance on SpaceX.

Many European nations have their own satellite projects. Historically, their preference for launching on European rockets has not been as strong as it is for pan-European programs managed by ESA and the EU. So it has never been unusual to see a British, German, Spanish, or Italian satellite launching on a foreign rocket.

This posture is starting to change. All four of these nations have invested in homegrown rockets in recent years. Germany made the biggest splash last year when the government announced $41 billion (35 billion euros) in space spending over the next five years. “Satellite networks today are an Achilles’ heel of modern societies. Whoever attacks them paralyzes entire nations,” said Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister, during the announcement.

Every satellite network needs a launch pad and a rocket. In late 2024, the German federal government made more than $110 million (95 million euros) available to three German launch startups: Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and HyImpulse. All three are also backed by private funding, with Isar leading the pack with approximately $650 million (550 million euros) from investors. None have reached orbit yet. For comparison, Rocket Lab, the world’s most successful launch startup not founded by a billionaire, raised $148 million (approximately $200 million adjusted for inflation) before reaching orbit in 2018. Nearly all of it came from private sources.

Rocket Lab, which operates the Electron small satellite launcher seen in this image, is the most successful modern commercial launch startup not founded by a billionaire. Rocket Lab went public in 2021, three years after its first successful orbital launch. Credit: Rocket Lab

In 2023, the Italian government committed more than $300 million in support of Avio, the company that already builds and operates the Vega satellite launcher. Avio is based in Italy and is using the funds to develop methane propulsion, among other things.

With help from other ESA member states, Italy is one of the countries that already has a rocket made largely of domestic or European components. The United States, Russia, China, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, India, Israel, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, and New Zealand have also successfully launched satellites using their own rockets.

The UK no longer possesses such a capability, and France’s access to space is currently tied to the Ariane rocket, a pan-European program. France, like Italy, is pouring money into domestic launch startups to buttress the Ariane program.

Let’s look at the countries not among the list of active launching states that have committed substantial public funds to join (or rejoin) the club. To the best of our ability, we list these nations in the order of how much they are currently investing in sovereign launch programs.

Germany

Germany is probably closest to bringing a new commercial rocket into service. Isar Aerospace, Europe’s most well-funded launch startup, made its first orbital launch attempt last year from a spaceport in Norway. The company’s Spectrum rocket failed moments after liftoff, but Isar is readying a second rocket for another test flight as soon as next month. Rocket Factory Augsburg and HyImpulse, Germany’s other two launch startups with significant funding, currently trail Isar in the race to orbit.

In a space safety and security strategy released last year, Germany’s defense ministry included access to space among its lines of effort. The ministry said it aims to develop “sufficient responsive launch transport capacity to ensure national and European strategic independence in all payload classes and transport scenarios.”

In addition to the German government’s $110 million commitment to Isar, RFA, and HyImpulse, Germany is the leading contributor to ESA’s European Launcher Challenge program, which is designed to funnel money into multiple European rocket startups. Germany is the only European country with two companies—Isar and RFA—participating in the challenge. ESA member states approved nearly $1.1 billion (902 million euros) for the challenge last year. Germany is providing about 40 percent of the money and directing most of it to Isar and RFA.

Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket lifts off from Andøya Spaceport, Norway, on March 30, 2025. Credit: Isar Aerospace/Brady Kenniston/NASASpaceflight.com

Spain

The government of Spain is the second-largest contributor to ESA’s European Launcher Challenge, with $200 million (169 million euros) unlocked to support PLD Space, the country’s leading launch startup. PLD Space is developing a small satellite launcher named Miura 5, which the company says will begin demonstration flights later this year. PLD Space’s most recent private fundraising round was in 2024, when the company reported raising more than $140 million (120 million euros) in total investment. ESA’s European Launcher Challenge will more than double this figure. Apart from the ESA challenge, Spain’s government provided more than $47 million (40.5 million euros) to PLD Space in 2024 through the PERTE Aerospace initiative, established to support independent Spanish access to space.

The Spanish government called access to space “one of Spain’s key areas of focus.” In a statement from November, Spain’s science ministry wrote, “PLD Space has been supported by the Spanish government from the beginning with Miura 1, the first suborbital rocket.”

“We have supported PLD Space at the national level until now,” said Diana Morant, Spain’s science minister. “We will now also do so through ESA so that our launcher, a European and Spanish brand, is part of that family of launchers planned for the future.”

United Kingdom

The UK’s position on this list should carry an asterisk following the collapse of the Scottish launch company Orbex. More than a decade into its run, Orbex entered insolvency proceedings last week after “fundraising, merger and acquisition opportunities had all concluded unsuccessfully.” Orbex never made it far on the road to space, despite raising $175 million (£129 million) from private and public investors. Despite its failure, Orbex was by far the most well-capitalized UK launch company. Skyrora, another Scottish launch startup, has expressed interest in buying Orbex’s assets, including land for a privately developed spaceport.

Early last year, the UK government announced a direct investment of more than $27 million (£20 million) to support the development of Orbex’s small satellite launcher. That was followed in November with the UK government’s $170 million (144 million euro) contribution to ESA’s European Launcher Challenge program. UK officials likely saw Orbex’s pending collapse and left nearly 80 percent of the challenge funding unallocated. It remains to be seen how the UK will divide its remaining budget for the launcher challenge.

Orbex released images showing structural elements of its Prime small satellite launcher in “near-flight configuration” after entering insolvency proceedings earlier this month. Credit: Orbex

Canada

In November, Canada’s government announced an investment of approximately $130 million (182.6 million Canadian dollars) for sovereign launch capability. The initiative “seeks to accelerate the advancement of Canadian-designed space launch vehicles and supporting technologies,” the government said in the announcement. The goal is to develop the capability to launch Canadian payloads from Canadian soil with “light lift” rockets by 2028. More than half the funding will support a launch challenge in which the government will offer grants over three years to selected participants who must meet predetermined milestones to win prizes.

Several Canadian startups, such as Maritime Launch Services, Reaction Dynamics, and NordSpace, are working on commercial satellite launchers, but none appear close to making an orbital launch attempt. The Canadian government’s announcement last year came days after MDA Space, the largest established space company in Canada, announced its own multimillion-dollar investment in Maritime Launch Services. Eventually, Canada plans to launch a second challenge to foster the development of a larger medium-lift rocket.

Australia

There’s just one launch startup in Australia with any chance of putting a satellite into orbit anytime soon. This company, named Gilmour Space, launched its first test flight last July, but the rocket stalled moments after clearing the launch pad. Gilmour raised approximately $90 million, primarily from venture capital firms, before the first flight of its Eris rocket. The firm more than tripled this figure with a bountiful fundraising round amounting to more than $300 million last month, led by the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation, a public financing firm established by the Australian government.

The NRFC said it is investing more than $50 million (75 million Australian dollars) into Gilmour to further develop the company’s Eris rocket, scale its satellite and rocket manufacturing, and expand its spaceport in Queensland. “By building sovereign space capability that underpins our everyday life—from Earth observation and communications to national security—Gilmour’s efforts will secure Australia’s access to essential space services, strengthen the country’s advanced manufacturing base, and create highly-skilled jobs and opportunities in the region,” said David Gall, NRFC’s CEO.

Brazil

The most populous nation in Latin America has tried longer than any other to cultivate an independent space launch capability. The efforts date back to the 1980s, but they have repeatedly misfired, and in one case, the results were fatal. The country’s VLS-1 rocket exploded on the ground in 2003, killing 21 Brazilian technicians working at a launch pad on the country’s northern Atlantic coast. The tragedy led the Brazilian government to eventually cancel the VLS satellite launcher and set a new course with a less powerful rocket sized for launching microsatellites.

The new rocket, named VLM, is under development by the Brazilian Space Agency and the Brazilian Air Force in partnership with Germany, but there have been few signs of tangible progress since a test-firing of a solid-fueled rocket motor in 2021. The Brazilian aerospace company working with the government on the VLM rocket filed for bankruptcy in 2022, and its future remains uncertain amid court-ordered restructuring. At that time, Brazil’s government had reportedly committed between $30 million and $40 million to the VLM rocket project.

Given that situation, Brazil’s best bet to field a new orbital-class rocket appears to be through a public-private partnership. Through a public financing agency, the Brazilian government also agreed to provide $30 million to $40 million to a domestic industrial consortium for an indigenous microlauncher known as MLBR, according to the Brazilian financial newspaper Valor Econômico. The team leading the MLBR project has released regular updates on LinkedIn, unlike the VLM project, but progress on early-stage ground tests remains slow.

Brazil’s long-running effort to develop a domestic launch capability has been colored by tragedy. Here, a member of the Brazilian Air Force overlooks the rubble from the deadly explosion of the VLS-1 rocket on its launch pad in August 2003. Credit: Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images

Taiwan

Taiwan’s government is increasing funding for the country’s space program, but the Taiwan Space Agency’s annual budget remains modest at approximately $200 million per year. The nation’s efforts in the space sector have primarily focused on building satellites and instruments for Earth observation, weather monitoring, and scientific research. Last year, the Taiwan Space Agency announced a goal of launching a homegrown rocket into orbit by 2034, with more than $25 million in the agency’s 2026 budget to kick-start the program. The space agency says flight testing of the new rocket, designed to haul up to 440 pounds (200 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit, could begin by 2029.

Argentina

Argentina also has a long-running project aiming to onshore access to space. The centerpiece of this project is the Tronador II rocket, a two-stage, liquid-fueled vehicle designed to deliver small payloads to low-Earth orbit. Argentina’s economic woes have blocked any serious progress on the Tronador II. In a pair of announcements in late 2021 and late 2022, the government of Argentina pledged more than 14 billion pesos to develop a new orbital-class launch vehicle. At the time, this was equivalent to more than $100 million, but the subsequent devaluation of Argentine currency means the investment would be worth just $10 million today. The government of Argentine President Javier Milei has cut spending on research and technology programs, so Tronador is going nowhere fast.

Others

The United Arab Emirates is another up-and-coming space power with the resources to support the development of a commercial launch provider, though the government hasn’t yet revealed a budget to support such an effort. Several other countries, such as Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey, have said they aspire to develop an indigenous orbital launch capability, but with little in the way of firm, significant financial commitments or substantive progress.

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A fluid can store solar energy and then release it as heat months later

chemistry, green, heating, materials science, renewable energy, Science, solar / Kelly Newman / February 16, 2026

Sunlight can cause a molecule to change structure, and then release heat later.

The system works a bit like existing solar water heaters, but with chemical heat storage. Credit: Kypros

Heating accounts for nearly half of the global energy demand, and two-thirds of that is met by burning fossil fuels like natural gas, oil, and coal. Solar energy is a possible alternative, but while we have become reasonably good at storing solar electricity in lithium-ion batteries, we’re not nearly as good at storing heat.

To store heat for days, weeks, or months, you need to trap the energy in the bonds of a molecule that can later release heat on demand. The approach to this particular chemistry problem is called molecular solar thermal (MOST) energy storage. While it has been the next big thing for decades, it never really took off.

In a recent Science paper, a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and UCLA demonstrate a breakthrough that might finally make MOST energy storage effective.

The DNA connection

In the past, MOST energy storage solutions have been plagued by lackluster performance. The molecules either didn’t store enough energy, degraded too quickly, or required toxic solvents that made them impractical. To find a way around these issues, the team led by Han P. Nguyen, a chemist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, drew inspiration from the genetic damage caused by sunburn. The idea was to store energy using a reaction similar to the one that allows UV light to damage DNA.

When you stay out on the beach too long, high-energy ultraviolet light can cause adjacent bases in the DNA (thymine, the T in the genetic code) to link together. This forms a structure known as a (6-4) lesion. When that lesion is exposed to even more UV light, it twists into an even stranger shape called a “Dewar” isomer. In biology, this is rather bad news, as Dewar isomers cause kinks in the DNA’s double-helix spiral that disrupt copying the DNA and can lead to mutations or cancer.

To counter this effect, evolution shaped a specific enzyme called photolyase to hunt (6-4) lesions down and snap them back into their safe, stable forms.

The researchers realized that the Dewar isomer is essentially a molecular battery. This snap-back effect was exactly what Nguyen’s team was looking for, since it releases a lot of heat.

Rechargeable fuel

Molecular batteries, in principle, are extremely good at storing energy. Heating oil, arguably the most popular molecular battery we use for heating, is essentially ancient solar energy stored in chemical bonds. Its energy density stands at around 40 Megajoules per kilo. To put that in perspective, Li-ion batteries usually pack less than one MJ/kg. One of the problems with heating oil, though, is that it is single-use only—it gets burnt when you use it. What Nguyen and her colleagues aimed to achieve with their DNA-inspired substance is essentially a reusable fuel.

To do that, researchers synthesized a derivative of 2-pyrimidone, a chemical cousin of the thymine found in DNA. They engineered this molecule to reliably fold into a Dewar isomer under sunlight and then unfold on command. The result was a rechargeable fuel that could absorb the energy when exposed to sunlight, release it when needed, and return to a “relaxed” state where it’s ready to be charged up again.

Previous attempts at MOST systems have struggled to compete with Li-ion batteries. Norbornadiene, one of the best-studied candidates, tops out at around 0.97 MJ/kg. Another contender, azaborinine, manages only 0.65 MJ/kg. They may be scientifically interesting, but they are not going to heat your house.

Nguyen’s pyrimidone-based system blew those numbers out of the water. The researchers achieved an energy storage density of 1.65 MJ/kg—nearly double the capacity of Li-ion batteries and substantially higher than any previous MOST material.

Double rings

The reason for this jump in performance was what the team called compounded strain.

When the pyrimidone molecule absorbs light, it doesn’t just fold; it twists into a fused, bicyclic structure containing two different four-membered rings: 1,2-dihydroazete and diazetidine. Four-membered rings are under immense structural tension. By fusing them together, the researchers created a molecule that is desperate to snap back into its relaxed state.

Achieving high energy density on paper is one thing. Making it work in the real world is another. A major failing of previous MOST systems is that they are solids that need to be dissolved in solvents like toluene or acetonitrile to work. Solvents are the enemy of energy density—by diluting your fuel to 10 percent concentration, for example, you effectively cut your energy density by 90 percent. Any solvent used means less fuel.

Nguyen’s team tackled this by designing a version of their molecule that is a liquid at room temperature, so it doesn’t need a solvent. This simplified operations considerably, as the liquid fuel could be pumped through a solar collector to charge it up and store it in a tank.

Unlike many organic molecules that hate water, Nguyen’s system is compatible with aqueous environments. This means if a pipe leaks, you aren’t spewing toxic fluids like toluene around your house. The researchers even demonstrated that the molecule could work in water and that its energy release was intense enough to boil it.

The MOST-based heating system, the team says in their paper, would circulate this rechargeable fuel through panels on the roof to capture the sun’s light and then store it in the basement tank. The fuel from this tank would later be pumped to a reaction chamber with an acid catalyst that triggers the energy release. Then, through a heat exchanger, this energy would heat up the water in the standard central heating system.

But there’s a catch.

Looking for the leak

The first hurdle is the spectrum of light that puts energy in the Nguyen’s fuel. The Sun bathes us in a broad spectrum of light, from infrared to ultraviolet. Ideally, a solar collector should use as much of this as possible, but the pyrimidone molecules only absorb light in the UV-A and UV-B range, around 300-310 nm. That represents about five percent of the total solar spectrum. The vast majority of the Sun’s energy, the visible light and the infrared, passes right through Nguyen’s molecules without charging them.

The second problem is quantum yield. This is a fancy way of asking, “For every 100 photons that hit the molecule, how many actually make it switch to the Dewar isomer state?” For these pyrimidones, the answer is a rather underwhelming number, in the single digits. Low quantum yield means the fluid needs a longer exposure to sunlight to get a full charge.

The researchers hypothesize that the molecule has a fast leak, meaning a non-radiative decay path where the excited molecule shakes off the energy as heat immediately instead of twisting into the storage form. Plugging that leak is the next big challenge for the team.

Finally, the team in their experiments used an acid catalyst that was mixed directly into the storage material. The team admits that in a future closed-loop device, this would require a neutralization step—a reaction that eliminates the acidity after the heat is released. Unless the reaction products can be purified away, this will reduce the energy density of the system.

Still, despite the efficiency issues, the stability of the Nguyen’s system looks promising.

The MOST storage?

One of the biggest fears with chemical storage is thermal reversion—the fuel spontaneously discharges because it got a little too warm in the storage tank. But the Dewar isomers of the pyrimidones are incredibly stable. The researchers calculated a half-life of up to 481 days at room temperature for some derivatives. This means the fuel could be charged in the heat of July, and it would remain fully charged when you need to heat your home in January. The degradation figures also look decent for a MOST energy storage. The team ran the system through 20 charge-discharge cycles with negligible decay.

The problem with separating the acid from the fuel could be solved in a practical system by switching to a different catalyst. The scientists suggest in the paper that in this hypothetical setup, the fuel would flow through an acid-functionalized solid surface to release heat, thus eliminating the need for neutralization afterwards.

Still, we’re rather far away using MOST systems for heating actual homes. To get there, we’re going to need molecules that absorb far more of the light spectrum and convert to the activated state with a higher efficiency. We’re just not there yet.

Science, 2026. DOI: 10.1126/science.aec6413

Jacek Krywko is a freelance science and technology writer who covers space exploration, artificial intelligence research, computer science, and all sorts of engineering wizardry.

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