A robot just played Tinkertoys in space, assembling the first satellite structure ever made without a human touching the controls.

The DARPA-funded project saw a robotic "truss builder" create a reflective antenna using Kapton film, composite fiber tubes and aluminum joints. The implications are huge for future missions, potentially opening up new possibilities to build — or fix — satellites in the final frontier.

"This is the first time that a structure has been autonomously constructed in space," Sergio Pellegrino, an aerospace and civil engineering professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), said in a statement on Nov. 5.

The need for such spacecraft will likely rise substantially in the future, as companies assemble giant megaconstellations for cell-phone communications, AI compute and other purposes. Indeed, the ball is already rolling on such ambitious projects, generating enough hype for space startups around the globe to raise a record $20.8 billion in the third quarter of 2026 alone.

Anything that launches aboard a rocket is limited by the size of that vehicle's fairing — the nose cone that protects payloads during their ride to space. In space, however, the ability to stretch out is practically infinite — after taking into account, of course, engineering and financing constraints.

Assembling structures robotically off Earth could therefore be revolutionary, advocates say. And the recent milestone was a step in that direction.

"This work could be useful not only for astronomy and astrophysics, but also for communications and other areas, such as building very large solar arrays for space solar power," said Pellegrino, who's team leader of the truss-building project, a Caltech demonstration mission called Autonomous In-Space Tensioned Reflector Assembly (ASTRA).

ASTRA built a 1.4-meter-wide (4.5-foot) structure in orbit. That's an impressive achievement, but it just scratches the surface of what DARPA wants to accomplish via a program it calls Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-efficient Design, or NOM4D for short.

"NOM4D's objective is to enable efficient, scalable construction of very large structures in space," NOM4D Program Manager Andrew Detor said in a Nov. 5 DARPA statement.

"By 'very large,' I mean hundreds of meters or kilometers in scale. Nothing approaching that scale can be achieved today," Detor added.

ASTRA was a demonstration, allowing researchers to check boxes and identify obstacles before shooting for a bigger goal. And the team did run into issues — specifically, time limitations, which prevented them from building additional sections of the antenna. Still, the researchers were able to prove out the third phase of a larger DARPA project.

Pellegrino's team completed the two previous phases — defining the mission and testing the hardware in a lab — before shipping the ASTRA payload to the spaceflight company Momentus, Inc. for integration into its Vigoride 7 space tug. Vigoride 7 launched on March 30, along with many other payloads, aboard SpaceX's Transporter-16 rideshare mission.

ASTRA flew with two prebuilt sections of a truss, a robotic "manipulator" and parts to make the rest of the truss in space. In brief communication windows totaling 15 minutes a day, engineers sent up commands and checked in on the robot's progress as it picked up things, readied them in the right spot, and performed construction on an assembly plate.

The team overcame many "little surprises" on the way but were not able to finish the entire truss in time. Still, Pellegrino framed the effort as a success.

"Developing a payload of this complexity on such a short timeline was an enormous undertaking for our small team," he said.

Looking into the future, he is hopeful that robots will be able to build larger telescope mirrors for observatories to peer deeper into space, as well as more advanced structures for radio telescopes to listen for distant signals.

NOM4D is also supporting a project from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, but that one will take place at the International Space Station, focusing on how to harden carbon tubes in orbit.

A futuristic single-person aircraft takes to the skies at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the upper stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket providing a dramatic backdrop.

The unusual scene was captured during the MAX POWER event, which brought together innovators and emerging technologies at the iconic spaceflight facility.

What is it?

The photograph shows a single-person electric aircraft called Jetson ONE, developed by Jetson, a US-based company working to bring personal flight to the skies.

The compact rotorcraft uses multiple propellers to climb into the air, allowing it to take off and vertically without the need for a runway.

The aircraft was performing flight demonstrations during the UP.Summit gathering, which formed part of the larger MAX POWER event at the Kennedy Space Center.

During the demonstrations, the Jetson ONE demonstrated its ability to maneuver through the air and hover in place, giving spectators a close-up look at the technology in action.

Why is it amazing?

The photograph offers a fascinating glimpse at two very different approaches to flight.

While Jetson is developing small electric aircraft designed for personal transportation, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket is built to carry payloads far beyond Earth's atmosphere.

NASA has revealed a glimpse of its next X-plane, known as the X-70 Fractal.

Or at least what it thinks the X-70 will look like once built. The agency released a short statement on Wednesday (Nov. 4) announcing the X-plane, or experimental plane, declaring it to be a highly maneuverable test bed with a "rapidly reconfigurable flight-control technology," allowing NASA to swap both external and internal components on-the-fly. This modular architecture will allow NASA to "explore aircraft maneuverability in ways never before demonstrated in crewed flight," according to the agency's statement.

The announcement was made alongside an AI-generated image showing two canted vertical tail fins emerging from swirling smoke. Little can be gleaned from the image about what final form the X-70 might take, but the tail fins are somewhat reminiscent of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor or Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet.

"The X-70 Fractal gives NASA a crewed, high-performance platform to test advanced flight-control, maneuverability, and other cutting-edge technologies in real flight," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in the statement. The NASA chief called the aircraft "just one part of this new beginning for aeronautics" and said that the agency expects the X-70 to make its first flight within two years.

"This is why people come to NASA: to build, to learn, and most importantly, to fly," Isaacman added.

NASA's statement fleshes out a few details about the X-70's capabilities. According to the agency, Fractal will fly at a cruise speed of Mach .75, about the same as a Boeing 737 Classic. The X-70 will be able to reach altitudes of up to 45,000 feet (13.7 kilometers), and will have a range exceeding 1,726 miles (2,777 kilometers, or 1,500 nautical miles).

The X-70 Fractal will also be able to carry around 2,000 pounds (900 kg) of experimental payloads both internally and externally, which will allow for a "wide range of research and flight-testing opportunities," NASA said in the statement.

NASA adds it will have a takeoff weight of 10,000 pounds (4,535 kilograms), around the same weight as the Scaled Composites- and Northrop Grumman-developed Model 437 Vanguard experimental aircraft. In fact, the two aircraft share a similar silhouette — at least in the AI image of the X-70 Fractal NASA has released so far.

The agency's most recent X-plane, the X-59, has been flying for over a year. That jet features a radical long-nosed geometry without a forward windscreen; pilots fly by way of an augmented reality screen that combines views from sensors and a forward-facing camera.

That geometry dampens the shockwaves coming off of the X-59 when it flies faster than the sound barrier, allowing it to fly at speeds over Mach 1 without the thunderous sonic booms that typically accompany supersonic flight.

There are numerous experimental aircraft being developed by private companies, such as Boom Supersonic's X-1 jet, which, like the X-59, aims to develop technologies that lessen the auditory impact of sonic booms on the ground.

In terms of other government X-plane projects, Boeing is working on the F-47, a next-generation stealth fighter for use by the U.S. military, and DARPA, the Pentagon's research agency, has an X-plane project of its own known as CRANE.

Well, that was a memorable debut.

Tesla unveiled its highly anticipated new Roadster last night (Oct. 16) with a spectacular stunt, using SpaceX thrusters to make the vehicle "fly."

"This is not necessarily a safety-optimized car, OK?" Elon Musk, who runs both companies, said during the livestreamed reveal, which was held at SpaceX's rocket-testing facility in McGregor, Texas. "But it takes the the fun meter to 11 out of 10."

Tesla first announced the next-gen Roadster in 2017, saying at the time that it would be released in 2020. In 2018, Musk announced that the new car would incorporate some SpaceX tech.

"SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car. These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering. Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly…" he wrote on Twitter in June of that year. (In 2022, Musk bought Twitter, which he subsequently renamed X.)

So last night's demonstration didn't come entirely out of left field — but it was still eye-popping. The show began with the Roadster driving up a ramp that quickly became a vertical wall and then an overhanging ledge. The Roadster clung to the surface, hanging upside-down from the ledge like a gecko on a ceiling thanks to a special fan suction system on its chassis.

"I mean, this car really sucks, OK?" Musk said, channeling his inner stand-up comedian. "This car could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. It could suck a tennis ball through a hose pipe."

The suction feature is not just a novelty, he added: It will help the Roadster stay connected to the ground during high-speed turns, allowing drivers to corner incredibly well.

And the sucking was just an opening act. The Tesla soon launched itself from its position beneath the ramp's nearly horizontal ledge, executed a barrel roll in midair, and landed softly, all thanks to its SpaceX cold-gas thrusters.

"A friend of mine, Peter Thiel, once said that the future promised us flying cars, but instead we got 140 characters," Musk said after the Roadster touched down. "Well, not anymore."

The car has main thrusters in the rear, he explained, as well as attitude-control thrusters that control its orientation.

"So it can basically fly like a rocket, and it could do rolls," Musk said. "It could do, like, crazy gymnastics — whatever you want, really."

The Roadster has a total of 10 thrusters, which are fed by 600 liters — about 250 kilograms (550 pounds) — of compressed air, Tesla Engineering Vice President Lars Moravy said during last night's event. That air is housed in carbon fiber overwrapped pressure vessels, which fill "every usable void in the car," Tesla said via X last night.

The Tesla team put those thrusters to work multiple times during the presentation, at one point launching the Roadster over a line of six vehicles, including a Tesla semi-truck cab.

Nobody was behind the wheel during these stunts — nobody with a pulse, anyway. The driver's seat was occupied by a mannequin clad in a black-and-white SpaceX spacesuit.

This was a nod to "Starman," the dummy behind the wheel of Musk's cherry-red first-gen Roadster, which launched into orbit around the sun in February 2018 on the first-ever flight of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket.

Starman and his Roadster are still in space, by the way, and will be for a while. Modeling work suggests the duo will keep orbiting our star for millions of years before ultimately slamming into either Earth or Venus.

Last night's Roadster demo was something of a tease, for the car is not yet in showrooms. Musk said Tesla aims to begin producing it in 2028.

And don't expect to see the "flying" version on the road then, or anytime; it's hard to imagine regulators certifying that vehicle for everyday use. It will likely be a status symbol for a few wealthy and connected folks, locked away in spacious and well-appointed garages.

Indeed, you can't put down on a deposit for the "Rocket" version of the new Roadster on Tesla's website; purchase of that vehicle is by invite only.

Two other Roadster versions are for sale — "Performance" and "Thrust." Tesla's website describes the Performance variant as "road ready," with "active aero and a multi-mode suction system." Thrust, by contrast, is "race ready." It has active aero and suction "plus acceleration thrusters."

It costs $50,000 to reserve a Performance vehicle and $250,000 to reserve a Thrust. Tesla has not yet revealed the total cost of any of the new Roadster variants.

NASA has begun replacing references to artificial intelligence with "super intelligence" following an executive order from President Donald Trump, which directs government agencies not to acknowledge the terminology change in their external communications.

An internal NASA document obtained by Space.com lays out plans to update the agency's websites, publications, organizational titles and digital infrastructure with a four-phase "super intelligence" implementation schedule extending into December. And the changes go beyond NASA's public-facing communications, with at least one planned technical update described as "a breaking change" expected to disrupt existing software integrations.

The terminology shift arrives as NASA continues expanding its use of AI across missions and research programs, from autonomous Mars rover navigation to models capable of analyzing enormous amounts of scientific data. The technologies themselves aren't changing, but NASA's effort to implement the nomenclature introduces new obstacles for scientific communication and the agency's digital infrastructure.

Trump's executive order (EO), called "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence," was signed on Sept. 29. It directs federal agencies to replace any mention of "artificial intelligence" and "AI" with "super intelligence" and "SI" in all official government communications. The White House argues that AI has advanced beyond simple automation or imitations of human intelligence, and that language befitting "a new era of Super Intelligence" is needed to better reflect the technology's emerging capabilities.

Despite introducing the new name, the order retains the federal government's existing definition of artificial intelligence, which broadly covers machine-based learning systems capable of making predictions, recommendations or decisions. That means technologies already classified as AI can now be designated "super intelligence" without demonstrating any additional capabilities.

To follow suit, NASA's Office of Communications (OCOMM) and Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) distributed an internal implementation schedule that outlines the span of work that the agency's multiple comms teams now have ahead of them.

"Effective immediately, we must use "super intelligence" and "SI" in all in-scope content/publications," the document says, bolding the key terms.

It covers both internal and external communications and instructs NASA employees to use "super intelligence" and "SI" in all new "presentations, exhibits, printed materials, media interviews, or other collateral or content for external audiences."

Internally, the policy applies to all official employee communications, NASA style guides, intra-agency websites and IT systems referenced in public-facing communications or official materials. And NASA's instructions echo Trump's directive forgoing any kind of transitional language.

"NASA is … adopting the terminology ‘Super Intelligence’ as the agency continues to expand the use of these rapidly advancing technologies across its missions," agency officials told Space.com in an emailed statement. "NASA is already applying SI to advance mission planning, autonomous systems, scientific research, and the analysis of complex datasets."

Orders from the top

Agency leadership has generally been aligned with the current administration's agenda, adjusting NASA's priorities to meet the president's goals when needed. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has helped lead that charge since his appointment to the position in December 2025; he has been a champion of Trump's human spaceflight-heavy vision for the agency since his first day. That should come as no surprise; NASA is, after all, part of the executive branch, and the agency is obliged to abide by executive orders.

But Isaacman's relationship with Trump is, perhaps, more visible than that of past NASA chiefs. The duo have shared several jovial public interactions, including an unexpected phone call from Trump during a press conference celebrating the launch of NASA's Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30. One month later, Isaacman attended a White House luncheon with more than a dozen AI tech executives, on the same day that Trump signed his super intelligence EO.

While he's not an AI company executive, Isaacman is a member of the tech-billionaire community. Before beginning his tenure at NASA, Isaacman founded and served as CEO for Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company. He used some of that fortune to charter a pair of private astronaut launches with SpaceX — Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn, which were the first-ever all-civilian orbital spaceflight and the flight that featured the first-ever private spacewalk, respectively.

"I was honored to have an opportunity to join that luncheon," Isaacman said when asked his opinion of AI during a post-launch press conference for the SpaceX Crew-13 astronaut mission on Oct. 1. By that point, he had already added the SI nomenclature to his lexicon. "I made clear when it was my turn to speak … I am the space guy here [not an 'AI' guy]," he added as a caveat, before saying that the "potential super intelligence has … [can] change the course of civilizations."

Isaacman's embrace of the new lingo may be partially behind NASA's own accelerated efforts to bring the agency's comms in line with the administration's. One NASA employee told Space.com, "We are getting a lot of pressure from the administrator himself to act on this."

Internal difficulties

Beyond just substituting one term for the other, NASA personnel have been told not to acknowledge the previous nomenclature at all, including short-term phrases such as "SI, also/formerly known as AI."

The changes extend to related terms such as "generative AI" becoming "generative SI," with NASA's guidance directing agency messaging away from "automation." They'll now put an emphasis on how today's technologies "amplify human ingenuity and unlock new forms of creativity," the NASA document says, quoting Trump's order.

The use of the term "SI," and the direction not to use "AI," applies across all NASA's centers and mission directorates, including contractors and personnel at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, which is run by Caltech.

Specific technical citations, like "machine learning," "large language models" and "chatbot," remain acceptable, but the new terminology may run the risk of carrying different meanings in different contexts.

Technical exceptions aside, some at NASA responsible for implementing the changes think it may present more obstacles than expected. "There's concern that there's going to be a lot of confusion in the scientific community and in the general population," a NASA employee knowledgeable of the plan told Space.com, under the condition of anonymity.

In recordings of an internal NASA communications meeting obtained by Space.com, employees echoed the same concerns to their direct management and voiced some frustration over their inability to relay to the public that the changes are being made in the first place.

"We're not even supposed to use AI as a term ... it's being talked about like Voldemort or Macbeth, with people calling it 'the technology that must not be named,'" the NASA employee said.

"Super intelligence and artificial intelligence — they have two different meanings. They both are already separate things," one meeting participant said. "As a science communicator … I feel like it's our responsibility to raise our hand and say, 'Hey, this is going to confuse people. This doesn't make sense.'"

To Isaacman's credit, those worries may have a chance of being heard by him and NASA's top brass, thanks to a management culture that seems to encourage concerns at any level being brought up the ladder without reprisal.

One meeting leader references "the idea box," an anonymous online system that allows employees to submit feedback directly to agency leadership, and reminded participants that "using the tools that we have at our disposal to make those concerns heard at the top level will not hurt."

In contrast, during the transition at the start of Trump's second term last year, before Isaacman was appointed to NASA's top seat, things at some NASA centers did not always feel as open when it came to voicing concerns to management. At the time, NASA was operating under interim leadership, first by former Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro, from January to July 2025, then by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy from July to December.

In a statement to Space.com, NASA officials said the agency "is taking a coordinated approach to incorporating this direction across agency communications and digital resources while maintaining the functionality and accessibility of its systems and services."

"The agency will continue to communicate its research, findings, and technological advancements accurately and transparently,” the statement said.

NASA already ahead of the game

While artificial intelligence encompasses a broad range of technologies, super intelligence has traditionally referred to a far more advanced, and often hypothetical (and sometimes sci-fi-level), capability that surpasses the limits of human cognition.

Beyond NASA, AI has entered into the space industry's ongoing realm of conversation in recent years, with several companies exploring the possibility of data centers in low Earth orbit (LEO). SpaceX is already operating the world's largest satellite network — there are currently more than 11,000 of the company's Starlink satellites in LEO, providing internet connectivity around the globe — and has proposed a constellation of up to 1 million satellites functioning as "orbital compute" for CEO Elon Musk's AI endeavors.

NASA began integrating AI into a number of its missions, both current and upcoming, well before conversations about SI stepped into the picture. One of the first to try on that hat was the agency's Perseverance rover on Mars, which used machine learning to plan and complete its first drive on the Red Planet using routes mapped out by generative AI in December 2025.

NASA has also put AI to work analyzing massive amounts of data. Surya, an AI-powered foundation model introduced by NASA and IBM last year, was trained on nine years of NASA heliophysics data to help improve space weather and solar activity forecasting. A more recent lunar collaboration between NASA and IBM was introduced last month to help researchers investigate the surface of the moon for potential deposits of water ice, and AI is central to NASA's plan for processing the massive amounts of data expected once Roman is operational.

"Foundation models" like Surya fall under the acceptable precise-language usage that NASA still considers best practice when communicating with scientific audiences, according to the agency's internal guidance. However, separate instructions for scientific publications and research documents are still being developed internally, leaving some uncertainty over how NASA researchers will reconcile the new terminology with established language used by universities, international space agencies and other scientific institutions that may not adhere to Trump's EO.

According to the agency's internal plan, a determination for scientific publications and research documents will be issued by NASA's Scientific and Technical Information, Science Mission Directorate and Chief Science Data Officer teams, along with separate guidance for official agency policy documents, both of which are listed on a page titled "Forthcoming Guidance."

Implementation

Retroactively, certain already published web pages, including applicable evergreen content in active use, will be marked for update or given an added disclaimer with an archival notice. Titles, descriptions and other metadata for older videos and podcasts may also be revised to reflect the new terminology, while the original recordings, transcripts and captions will remain unchanged. NASA's page for Perseverance's AI-guided trek across Mars' surface, for instance, is now titled, "Mapping Perseverance’s Route With SI," but "AI" is still present in the page's URL — for the time being, at least.

Soon, that URL will redirect to a new one, with "SI" in its place. NASA's internal plan divides its implementation into four phases, with proposed deadlines stretching from Oct. 9 through Dec. 23.

"Every agency is doing it at their own pace," one NASA employee told Space.com. "You'll see some places have not implemented the change yet, and others, like NASA, are pushing it forward sooner rather than later."

Phase One, which went into effect Oct. 9, included NASA's primary AI-related websites and agency personnel titles, such as that of Kevin Murphy. He is now "acting chief data and super intelligence officer," not "acting chief data and artificial intelligence officer."

Phase Two will expand the overhaul to heavily visited pages on nasa.gov and science.nasa.gov, and rename the website for JPL's Artificial Intelligence Group, ai.jpl.nasa.gov, to redirect visitors to an address reflecting the new SI terminology. The second phase's completion was initially set for implementation by Oct. 30. Sources familiar with the agency's progress, however, said that timeline was accelerated and the changes made ready to go live starting today (Oct. 16), two weeks ahead of schedule, according to a NASA employee.

Phase Three is marked for implementation by Nov. 30. It includes additional high-traffic NASA websites and the renaming of its URL for Ask Sage, a generative AI platform used by federal agencies. NASA's internal plan describes the change as a "breaking change for APIs and other integrations," meaning existing software connections may need to be updated.

According to NASA officials, "any necessary technical changes will be evaluated and implemented through established agency processes."

Finally, Phase Four, targeted for Dec. 23, will scoop up NASA's remaining, lower-traffic websites, as well as internal IT systems and tools. NASA's guidance notes that Trump's EO doesn't designate a deadline for affected agencies, and that, without accompanying direction from the Office of Personnel Management, its framework ultimately represents the authors' recommendations "in light of competing OMB (Office of Management and Budget) and agency leadership priorities."

Editors note: This story was updated at 10:10 a.m. EDT (1410 GMT) on Oct. 16 to include Statments from NASA sent after publication.

Are you looking to get into drone flying but don't want to spend a fortune? This DJI Neo Fly More Combo bundle is $100 off during Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days sale. Aside from being beginner-friendly, its three batteries will let you fly for nearly an hour.

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Product launched: Sept 2024

Price history: The DJI Neo was briefly $3 cheaper in September but this is otherwise the lowest it's been all year. Walmart has also matched this price.

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Reviews consensus: Our expert gave this drone four stars in our DJI Neo review. They praised it for being so easy to use, and appreciated its beginner-friendly autonomous modes. The Amazon reviews for this bundle are every bit as positive.

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Featured in guides: Best DJI drones, best beginner drones

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AstroForge plans to make spaceflight history next year.

The California-based asteroid-mining company has booked its Autonomy-1 mission on the first-ever flight of Stoke Space's Nova Pathfinder rocket, which is scheduled to launch in early 2027. As its name suggests, Autonomy-1 will operate independently, thanks to AstroForge's newly developed Solo spacecraft intelligence model.

"Autonomy-1 will be the first space mission to complete its entire mission after separation without a single command from the ground," AstroForge CEO and co-founder Matt Gialich wrote in a Tuesday (Sept. 22) blog post announcing the mission. "Using Solo, we will remove the human operator from the loop."

AstroForge was founded in January 2022 with an ambitious goal in mind, which the blog post states: "to unlock the resources of the solar system."

AstroForge will go after metals, which it plans to extract using a fleet of spacecraft spread throughout the final frontier. Manually controlling a large number of such probes would be a taxing and expensive enterprise, which explains why the startup developed Solo.

The intelligence model is "designed to autonomously coordinate a spacecraft's onboard functions," Gialich wrote in the blog post. "Solo works on top of AstroForge's existing deterministic, physics-based flight software, allowing the spacecraft to make decisions in real time during flight."

Achieving full mission autonomy is the "holy grail of spacecraft engineering," he added. And AstroForge will tackle it in a stepwise fashion.

Solo will first fly on the DeepSpace-2 mission, which will launch on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket slated to send Intuitive Machines' third robotic lunar lander toward the moon later this year.

DeepSpace-2 aims to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid, but Solo won't coordinate any of those operations. Rather, the intelligence model will act in "shadow mode," meaning it will process spacecraft data and make decisions, but those decisions will not be implemented.

Things will change on Autonomy-1, which will be a full-scale demonstration of Solo in Earth orbit.

"The mission objective is deliberately straightforward: after Autonomy-1 separates from its launch vehicle, we do not intend to send the spacecraft a single command," Gialich wrote.

"Autonomy-1 will transmit telemetry and science data back to Earth so that we can observe what the spacecraft is doing, understand the decisions Solo makes and collect science," he added. "But that information will only flow one way — from the spacecraft to the ground."

Solo will also have to support the activities of a scientific payload — those of COMPASS (Compact Multi-Spectral Photometer for Space Science), a NASA heliophysics instrument that's flying on the mission.

AstroForge already has two space missions under its belt. The company sent a prototype cubesat called Brokkr-1 to Earth orbit in April 2023, but was unable to activate its refinery tech.

Then, in February 2025, AstroForge's Odin spacecraft launched to deep space along with Intuitive Machine's IM-2 moon-landing mission. Odin was supposed to fly by and study a near-Earth asteroid, but AstroForge had trouble establishing communications with the spacecraft, which ended up being lost.

Autonomy-1's launch will be closely watched, and not just by people who care about asteroid mining. It will be the first-ever orbital launch for Stoke Space, a company developing fully reusable rockets — tech that experts say could revolutionize spaceflight. One such believer is SpaceX, which is developing a fully reusable vehicle of its own — the Starship megarocket.

Nikon's optical gear features in our guides to the best cameras, lenses and binoculars. Are you looking to upgrade from a basic pair binoculars but aren't in the market for a four figure pair? These Nikon Monarch M7 10x42 are an absolute steal at $105 off from Amazon.

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The Monarch M7 10x42s are well up to their usual standard, they're impressively well-built and they offer impressively sharp views (fog-proofing included.) In our Nikon Monarch M7 8x42 review, our expert awarded them five stars, calling them "a mid-level binocular ideal for any stargazer." At just $445, this is virtually the cheapest they've been all year.

• We've got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

These binoculars are excellent for enthusiasts looking to upgrade from a basic pair, but don't want to spend $1000+ on a top-tier model. We awarded the Nikon Monarch M7 8x42 (pictured above) five stars in our review, so we expect the same high quality views from the 10x42 model, just with an extra boost in magnification.

With 42mm object lenses, these binoculars admit plenty of light and are suitable for basic stargazing. You may not be able to pick out individual rings but you'll still be able to spot Saturn at opposition on October 4. They offer clear, sharp views throughout the entire image circle which, our expert noted, means you can use your peripheral vision to scan for stars. And at 1.5 lbs (680 g) you will be able to hold them steadily without the need for one of the best tripods.

These binoculars are excellent for nature-watching too and are easy to grip with their textured rubberized covering. Aside from being well-built, they are also water and fogproof. The latter means no internal fogging, so harsh weather and temperature shifts should be no obstacle when moving from a warm interior into the cold outside.

Key features: 10x magnification, 42mm objective lens diameter, 6.9 degree angular field of view, Bk-4 glass, fully multi-coated optics, 16.5mm eye relief, 24.0 oz (680 g) weight

Price history: It's generally lower than the advertised RRP but, barring a couple of one-day drops, this is the cheapest these binoculars have been all year.

Price comparison: Amazon: $445 | Adorama: $497 | Nikon: $500

Reviews consensus: In our Nikon Monarch M7 8x42 review we gave them our maximum rating, praising their sharpness, build and value for money. These M7 10x42 binoculars offer the same quality, with higher magnification, and their Amazon reviews are near universally positive.

✅ Buy it if: You want a powerful but budget-friendly pair of binoculars, as a step up from your current model.

❌ Don't buy it if: You're an absolute beginner on a very tight budget. Consider the Nikon Action 7x50 binoculars instead.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, Lego and much more.

Jello molds aren't just for dinner parties — when humans start building habitats on Mars, the structures could be made partly of gelatin and yeast.

A team of engineers devised a recipe for concrete that uses yeast and gelatin to bind together sand into a light, porous material. Theoretically, this should work with Mars material, or regolith, as well. In the lab, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology environmental engineer Ning Liu and colleagues already built tiny versions of future Martian habitats using the substance.

And in fact, the researchers say this biology-based concrete could be easier to use on Mars than some other options that have been proposed. Still, there's a long way to go and a lot of technological hurdles to overcome before we're ready to build a Mars base out of yeast.

Welcome to Mars; don't eat the habitat

Like regular concrete, Liu and colleagues' version uses sand or crushed rock as an aggregate: the solid stuff that's held together by material called binder (usually something like Portland cement, a powder of heated limestone and clay mixed with a little gypsum). Water turns the binder into a gel-like glue, and as it dries, the whole binder-and-aggregate mixture hardens into something solid and reasonably strong. But instead of good old Portland cement, Liu and colleagues use a mix of pork gelatin (the same stuff that makes jello) and genetically engineered yeast.

The researchers swapped a couple of key genes in their special strain of the yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. One gene makes the cells bind more tightly to each other, and the other produces what are called "mussel foot proteins," or the adhesives that help mussels latch onto rocks.

In the lab, Liu and colleagues 3D-printed their concrete creation in cold, low-pressure conditions meant to mimic the surface of Mars; they also tried a version that involved casting the yeast-based material in a mold, the classic way to manipulate gelatin.

As the yeasty mixture cures — over about 48 hours at -67 degrees Fahrenheit, or -55 degrees Celsius, and 0.000 atmospheres of air pressure, if you're looking for the recipe — the water in it freezes and then sublimates. This leaves behind a light and porous, but remarkably strong, scaffolding of gelatin, crushed regolith and yeast proteins. Those proteins act as very strong anchors between the gelatin binder and the rocky aggregate, "creating a bond that is stronger than the bulk material," Liu and colleagues write in their recent paper.

How strong is the substance? Well, the 1.77-inch-tall and 1.18-inch-wide (4.5-centimeter-tall, 3-centimeter-wide) domes Liu and colleagues built have a compressive strength of about 12 megapascals, which is roughly on par with low-grade concrete. It can also withstand bending forces of up to about 6 megapascals.

"This is actually strong enough to build a one- or two-story building on Earth, whose gravity is three times that of Mars. So you can probably easily build a multistory building on Mars with the material," Hong Kong University engineer Jishen Qiu, the study's senior author, said in a statement. "We are confident in scaling it up."

Mars habitats are going to need more than just study walls, though; they also need to shield astronauts from radiation, keep breathable air inside and maintain air pressure against a near-vacuum outside. A concrete dome, no matter how strong, can't do all of that on its own.

The yeast-and-gelatin-based concrete is "best regarded as a printable and recyclable in situ structural component," as Liu and colleagues put it, "not as a complete airtight, pressure-retaining, or radiation-shielding habitat envelope by itself." A real Mars habitat dome would probably need a structure with several layers: inflatable or pre-fabricated pressure modules, airtight liners or coatings and seals, a water-filled radiation-shielding layer — and possibly a concrete structure bound together by genetically engineered yeast.

A long way to go

It's going to take more research before engineers can be sure that yeast will even survive well enough on Mars to help assemble anything with it at all.

Mars is bitterly cold, and its thin atmosphere and long-dead magnetic field leave the surface open to deadly radiation (both from the sun and from deep space). But just as Liu and colleagues modified parts of P. cerevisiae's genome to make it a better concrete binder, other researchers may be able to tweak the yeast to withstand higher doses of radiation and colder temperatures.

"In principle, this platform can be engineered for stress tolerance traits, including resistance to cold, vacuum, and even radiation," the researchers wrote in their paper.

Of course, a yeast that can survive on Mars is … well, a yeast that can survive on Mars, which could actually risk contaminating the planet with hardy and fast-multiplying Earth microbes. Liu and colleagues mentioned in their paper that planetary protection strategies would be an important part of future research, along with testing the material's long-term durability and how well it retains heat.

But the gelatin-and-yeast concrete could offer some advantages over some of the other leading ideas for making building materials on Mars, most of which rely on heating and melting regolith to form bricks and support beams. Those methods get around the challenges of shipping materials from home, but they still require tremendous amounts of energy to use, not to mention industrial equipment that is, in the researchers' words, "difficult to scale with rocket-transportable systems."

Liu and colleagues' approach uses an order of magnitude less energy than traditional regolith-melting methods, they estimate. But building anything substantial on would still require shipping tons of materials from Earth, Qiu estimates.

When it comes to building a home for humanity on Mars, there are never going to be any easy answers. On the other hand, the yeast could be a renewable and re-usable resource that only needs to be delivered once. When astronauts are finished with one building, they can recycle the concrete and put the yeast into a bioreactor to grow a fresh batch.

"It would surprise me if materials for future Martian engineering will not be as diverse as those used in Earth engineering — and biology will certainly contribute," said Qiu.

Liu and colleagues published their work in the journal Chem Circularity.

The U.S. military must be ready to engage the enemy farther from home than ever before, according to its highest-ranking officer.

"Today's modern battlefield operates from the seabed to cislunar space," Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday (Sept. 16) during a keynote address at the Air & Space Forces Association's Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

Cislunar space extends from Earth all the way out to the orbit of the moon and includes the lunar surface. For several years now, military officials have been stressing the strategic importance of this huge region, which could get quite a bit busier in the next decade or so.

For example, both the United States and China plan to build bases near the moon's south pole, which is thought to harbor large amounts of water ice. Winning this new moon race is critical, U.S. officials have stressed, because whoever does so will be able to establish norms of behavior on and around Earth's nearest neighbor.

China has already demonstrated impressive capabilities in the lunar sphere. In 2019, the nation's robotic Chang'e 4 mission pulled off the first-ever soft landing on the moon's mysterious far side. In 2024, Chang'e 6 returned far-side samples to Earth — another first.

Caine didn't cite such missions or even mention China by name. And he provided no details about what conflict on the cislunar battlefield might look like (though presumably it would be entirely robotic, with satellites seeking to take out adversary craft via jamming or blinding).

But he invoked the cislunar battlefield twice and noted that U.S. military branches cannot assume continued dominance of their various domains.

"Future conflicts will demand that we operate without the assumptions of uncontested access, secure rare areas or uninterrupted or uncontested sustainment," Caine said. "Our task, my friends, is to adapt right now, so the joint force is prepared to fight, endure and win in global contested environments, from the seabed to cislunar space."

The United States' long-held advantage in the final frontier will be key to securing such victories, he added.

"We must continue to ensure that the United States of America can strike anywhere on the globe at the time and place of our choosing, and sustain that force," Caine said. "Our United States Space Force must provide unrivaled space superiority and sustain the associated networks, domain awareness [and] data advantage that the joint force needs to win in space, both now and in the future."

We now know that part of the Space Force's strategy for maintaining that crucial superiority is the operation of weapons in Earth orbit. The branch's chief, Gen. Douglas Schiess, admitted as much during an address at the same conference on Tuesday (Sept. 15).

"Let me be crystal clear: Today, guardians operate on-orbit weapons that can defend the joint force against space-enabled attacks,” Schiess said during his speech. ("Guardian" is the official name for a member of the Space Force, just as members of the U.S. Navy are called sailors and members of the Army are soldiers.)

Schiess provided few details about these weapons but, later in the speech, implied that they are electromagnetic rather than kinetic in nature. That is, they're probably designed to knock out key systems of adversary satellites rather than destroy the entire spacecraft (which would create a cloud of potentially troublesome debris).

It's no surprise the U.S. possesses and employs such technology; the newsworthy bit is that a top official said it so openly. The nation's chief rivals in the space domain, China and Russia, possess advanced counterspace technologies as well. For example, both have destroyed defunct satellites with missiles and conducted close approaches of spacecraft with "inspector" vehicles.

Nearby Earth, an iconic series of orbiting U.S. government satellites called Landsat have collectively been charting minerals and climate change for more than 50 years.

What if we can do the same thing in space? A new NASA early-stage project, whimsically named "Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys", aims to bring "Landsat-style mineral intelligence" to other worlds, including the moon. NASA is aiming to put a moon base on the lunar surface in the 2030s that would be staffed by astronauts, as the U.S. tries to secure access to helium-3 and other minerals on the surface ahead of China. Being able to scout for minerals ahead of landing and setting up a base would be a huge boon for the United States' lunar ambitions.

The newly funded concept — which doesn't appear to have an official nickname or acronym, so we will call it "Slingshot" for short — isn't meant to address that big task all at once, but to be a Phase 1 study for a far-future Discovery-class (large) mission. The spacecraft could fly from world to world, scanning destinations such as the moon, an asteroid near Earth, or a target like the Mars moon Phobos, said principal investigator Pablo Sobron, a research scientist at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, in a statement.

"The thing most likely to stop space mining may be that we cannot afford to prove there is anything worth mining," Sobron said. "Land in the wrong place and you can lose an entire exploration program or a company, and nobody has enough money to keep sending spacecraft and hoping for the best."

The overall aim is to not only prove a spacecraft could make it that far, but also to see if Raman spectroscopy — which is commonly used close up to look for minerals or water by NASA's Perseverance mission on Mars, for example — could work from orbit or a flyby. The technique uses reflected light from a laser popped at a target to see the molecular structure of a mineral, which in turn reveals the mineral's composition.

"The main challenge for Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys is the distance involved," SETI stated. "Raman scattering is very faint and hard to detect. The project team says that only about one photon in 10 trillion is Raman-scattered. Sobron's earlier long-distance Raman tests reached about 120 meters [393 feet]. This study is looking at whether useful measurements can be made from much farther away, around 30 to 50 kilometers [19 to 31 miles]."

Slingshot received a Phase 1 grant from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which aims to prove out conceptual ideas into something that could be nudged into further development.

NIAC has funded dozens of grants over the years, but illustrating the difficulty of and long development cycles to bring things into space, not much has made it out of the atmosphere yet. A notable NIAC success story was SNAPPY, the Solar Neutrino Astro-Particle Physics CubeSat, which reached space earlier this year aboard SpaceX.

Slingshot will use the Phase 1 funding to study photons (particles of light) to be used and detected by the spectrometer, along with lasers, pointing, and spacecraft propulsion and orbits. The concept received up to $175,000 over nine months and next in line would be trying to receive more lucrative Phase 2 NIAC funding over two years.

When it comes to the best VPN services, there are plenty to choose from. Our tech-savvy colleagues at TechRadar and T3 have tried and tested the majority of the leading providers, and both these trusted sites awarded Proton VPN an impressive 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Right now you can save 70% on a 2-year subscription to Proton VPN.

TechRadar crowned Proton VPN as its 'best VPN service for privacy,' while T3 praised it as a 'feature-packed all-rounder VPN.' You can choose from 1-month, 1-year, or 2-year subscriptions, but the 2-year plan offers the absolute best value at just $2.99 a month.

Proton VPN safeguards your privacy, blocks intrusive ads and secures your online activity. It also allows you to stream your favorite sci-fi and space series, including VisionQuest, which premieres October 14, 2026, also on Apple TV+.

Paul Bettany reprises his role as Vision in Marvel Television’s eight-episode sci-fi thriller, starring alongside James Spader, Ruaridh Mollica and James D'Arcy. Picking up after the events of WandaVision, the series follows the rogue android living in hiding as he interacts with embedded AI personas in his programming to rediscover his identity.

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There is a load of exciting sci-fi series currently available to enjoy, and plenty coming in the next few months, including Silo season 3 (Apple TV+) and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, which premiered globally on Paramount+ on July 23, 2026.

A VPN is a brilliant solution to geo-blocking when it comes to viewing your streaming services. Assuming it complies with your broadcaster’s T&Cs, you can use a VPN to unblock the streaming services you're subscribed to and allow for uninterrupted viewing from any location.

Proton not only unlocks streaming geo-restrictions but also comes with added security benefits, which are particularly useful when overseas and connecting to unknown Wi-Fi connections. It offers ad blockers, anti-malware protection, a password manager and identity theft insurance. It means you can download content, work and generally be online anywhere in the world with confidence.

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Price history: Proton VPN has been as low as $2.49 per month, and that was for Black Friday last year. This current deal at $2.99 is the lowest it's hit since then, and therefore one of the best value VPN offers we've seen this year.

TechRadar: ★★★★½ | T3: ★★★★½

✅ Buy it if: You're looking for maximum online security, want to stream all your favorite shows anywhere in the world and want a VPN service that's rated as one of the best around, at a heavily discounted price.

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Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Sometimes, to accomplish your mission, you have to start a few fires.

What is it?

At the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (VKI) in Belgium, researchers put a heat shield to the test, blasting it with scorching-hot flames to see how it would handle the intense temperatures it would experience when reentering Earth's atmosphere.

The heat shield is for Draco, a European Space Agency mission that is literally designed to go up in flames. Draco stands for the Destructive Reentry Assessment Container Object. The mission will send a satellite to space and back to collect data on the scorching experience of reentering Earth's atmosphere.

"Our biggest design challenge lies in meeting two contrasting requirements: having Draco disintegrate normally during reentry just like any average satellite, yet also recording the event and storing its data in a capsule that stays intact throughout, until the data can be transmitted safely," Draco project manager Stijn Lemmens said in a statement.

Why is it incredible?

For decades, we have sent satellites, telescopes, landers, rovers and even humans to space. And we know that the missions that return to Earth are in for a rough ride home.

When reentering through Earth's atmosphere, a spacecraft will experience extreme temperatures. And while some are designed to withstand the heat, others are meant to burn up.

But there has yet to be a spacecraft whose purpose is to be destroyed by Earth's atmosphere so we can study it. That's where Draco comes in. The mission will collect valuable data to help us better understand exactly how satellites burn up in our atmosphere.

While sending a satellite into orbit around Earth was once a novelty, today there are so many objects in orbit that companies are working to ensure that their probes can successfully burn up in our atmosphere so that they do not become dangerous space junk, orbiting until they collide with another object.

With Draco, researchers hope to better understand the process so that, when we want to send a satellite to its doom, we know what to expect.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' fourth season is well underway, and if you're determined not to miss an episode, this Surfshark VPN deal is for you. At just $2.39 a month with this deal, Surfshark One will let you view it and other sci-fi shows and movies wherever you are.

Save an astonishing $464 on 28 months of Surfshark VPN, making it just $2.39 a month

Aside from letting you watch and rewatch Strange New Worlds' puppet episode from anywhere in the world, Surfshark One effectively guarantees your safety online. It's your shield against the Orion pirates of the internet.

On top of protecting you from hackers (who have no idea where you really are), Surfshark One squashes adverts, pop-ups and viruses, and will alert you to credit card and personal data leaks. If you value your online security (and who doesn't), this is an absolute steal.

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Have you ever been traveling and sat down to watch your favorite show, only to discover it's geo-blocked because you're away from home? That's where Surfshark VPN's Surfshark One service comes in.

Whatever streaming service you're with, it enables you to alter your apparent location, letting you watch Star Trek, Silo, For All Mankind and a host of other sci-fi series anywhere. And, since this is a high-speed VPN, you don't have to worry about your show turning into a blocky mess.

Aside from unlocking geo-blocks, Surfshark One offers a raft of safety measures to keep you safe online, whether you're streaming, browsing, chatting or so on.

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Key features: Stream anywhere, advert and pop-up blocking, malware and virus protection, credit card and personal data breach alerts.

Price history: Even factoring in previous Surfshark offers, this is the biggest Surfshark One discount we've seen in a couple of years.

✅ Buy it if: You want to stream your favorite shows wherever you are, and browse the internet safely, without viruses, adverts, or and pop-ups.

❌ Don't buy it if: You already have a VPN service, though if you can switch this is a superb offer.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

NASA is giving a financial boost to nearly 20 technology investigations to help fuel the incubation of tomorrow's spaceflight research capabilities.

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program has selected 18 projects for this year's Phase I awards, which will each split a total of $3.2 million in development funding. NIAC is designed to bolster technology breakthroughs that NASA could use on future space missions.

This year's awards include an array of mission concepts and research proposals NASA views as having "transformative potential," according to a July 29 announcement of winners. Among them are ideas for hardening spacecraft to explore and withstand the harsh conditions of Venus, radioisotope-heated lunar spacesuits and using space dust to partially block out the sun to reduce solar radiation.

The selected projects aren't actual NASA missions, but serve as a sampling of technologies the agency sees as potentially contributing to projects like establishing a moon base as part of the Artemis program.

"Achieving that will require more than incremental technological advancement. It means we need great leaps," Greg Stover, director of the Advanced Research and Technology division in NASA's Research and Technology Mission Directorate, said in the awards announcement. "These awards are the kinds of innovation the world needs NASA to help foster."

Each of the 18 award winners will receive up to $175,000 to complete a nine-month investigation of their proposals to determine their feasibility and determine the next steps in maturing their technologies.

As NASA's plans for long-term lunar habitation evolve, underground dwellings that are naturally shielded from the harsh solar radiation are a serious consideration for habitation spaces. One of the NIAC winning ideas includes the Lunar Underground eXplorer (LUX), from Gilly Elor, at Texas-based Stone Aerospace, Inc. LUX would send hovering robots to map the potentially miles-long lava tubes beneath the moon's Mare Tranquilitatitis. These drones, obscured from sunlight in the depths of these lunar labyrinths, would each be tethered by an extra lightweight fiber-optic cable spooled out from a lander or rover on the moon's surface, which would shoot the line with a laser to supply the cave-diving probe's power and communications link.

Another NIAC winner aims to map the continents of Earth-like exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. Today, we can determine the size and makeup of exoplanets, but discerning their physical features isn't something that's been attempted on a large scale.

Paul Stankus, from Brookhaven Science Associates in New York, proposes designing a new type of "nulling interferometer," which uses data from different telescopes to cancel out a star's light, via a technique called "dynamic hierarchical nulling." His idea would merge data from a pair of "nuller" space telescopes positioned about 60 miles (100 kilometers) apart to achieve a resolution fine enough to detect the contrast of surface features on exoplanets 10 billion times dimmer than their star.

Another award-winning concept comes from Michael Rubenstein and Northwestern University. They propose exploring Saturn's rings by throwing thousands of "femtosats" (small satellite probes weighing less than 100 grams) into the gas giant's orbit.

According to the project's page on NASA's website, "Conducting in-situ surveys of Saturn's rings with a single flagship mission, such as Cassini, would carry an unacceptably high risk of mission failure due to particle collisions." Instead, the femtosat fleet proposal suggests flying 10,000 spacecraft into Saturn's rings, knowing a significant portion could be lost. "The distributed nature of the proposed mission means it can accept a risk that could destroy many of [the] femtosats in the constellation, making in-situ survey of the ring possible."

"Every innovation, every leap in technology, starts with a seed of an idea," Phillip Williams, NIAC's acting program executive, said in NASA's statement. "The NIAC program allows NASA to germinate those seeds and determine if there's something that could be grown to benefit future space missions and our nation's aerospace economy."

Is it a rocket car? Tearing across the Utah desert at over 400 mph (644 kph), a hydrogen-powered car has set a new land speed record.

Wing Commander Andy Green, a retired British Royal Air Force fighter pilot, just set a new world land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the JCB Hydromax vehicle. On two different runs on Aug. 11, the car went 400.623 mph (644.740 kph) and then 412.135 mph (663.267 kph), which averages out to 406.320 mph (653.909 kph).

That's the fastest that any car with a hydrogen internal combustion engine has traveled. "It was an amazing experience," Green told Space.com on Aug. 12 about his record-breaking drives.

"Anything above about 350 miles an hour [563 kph], we'd have gone away really pleased," he added. "It is performing better. It was more reliable than we expected, and it has blown away the hydrogen record. It's in every way a real thrill for all of us yesterday to see that happen."

Green is no stranger to breaking records. In 1997, he drove a jet-powered car 763.035 mph (1,227.985 kph, or Mach 1.02), setting a new land speed record while also becoming the first person to break the sound barrier on land.

About 20 years ago, Green also set the land speed record for a diesel-powered vehicle, going over 350 mph (563 kph). Until now, the fastest hydrogen-powered vehicle didn't come close to that, topping out at 303 mph (488 kph). But this new record shows the promising capability of hydrogen-powered engines on land.

The hydrogen engine doesn't produce carbon dioxide like a traditional gasoline or diesel engine does. And while it's not the most traditional car engine on Earth, hydrogen has powered some rocket engines for decades. For example, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) launcher, which has two successful Artemis moon mission liftoffs under its belt, burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. (The SLS core stage employs RS-25 engines, which also powered NASA's now-retired space shuttle.)

The JCB Hydromax isn't exactly a rocket on wheels, but it does demonstrate an incredible technological feat. And the "rocket car" probably has more in common with an actual rocket than we might think. For example, while it's not as fast as a rocket, pushing a vehicle to its limits requires many of the same preparations.

"There is a countdown and a checklist," Green told Space.com. "And several times we've had to stop the countdown, reheat something, adjust something, restart the countdown and launch it off the start line."

However, despite its speed, hydrogen-powered engine and countdown clock, this "rocket car" isn't going to space anytime soon.

"These are built for the construction industry," Green said about the engines. "They normally kick out 74 horsepower," he added, so they put "two of them in a race car to show how tough, how adaptable [and] how capable they are."

We've seen drone deals come and go, but this Ruko F11 Pro 2 really is something else. Equipped with a 6K camera and built to last, this drone is 54% off at Amazon, saving you $280!

Save $280 on this Ruko F11 Pro 2 drone at Amazon.

In our Ruko F11 Pro 2 review we called it "The best designed and built Ruko drone to date," and that still stands. It can capture 30FPS 4K video, or snap 6K stills and comes with 2 batteries for a 70-minute flight time.

$280 off is a serious saving, though there is one catch. Sold by Ruko and shipped by Amazon, this deal is only available for a day and the clock's already ticking, so you'll have to move fast.

Looking for a different flyer? We've rounded up the best drones and the best beginner drones.

• We're constantly checking the best prices on our pages for big discounts on the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

This Ruko F11 PRO 2 drone bundle has everything you need to take to the air, including two batteries which offer over an hour of flight time. It's easy to use and its stability is bolstered by its three-gimbal system.

It offers video capture in in 4K at 30 FPS, 2.7K at 30/50 FPS and 2K at 50 FPS, and 6K image capture. Flight modes include subject tracking modes, GPS positioning and Return to Home (RTH). While it doesn't sport collision avoidance, it's well-built enough that it should withstand a few minor bumps and scrapes.

It is worth bearing in mind that as it weighs above 250g, drone regulations say you'll have to register it with the FAA. So if you're gifting this to a beginner, be sure to remind them.

At less than half price, the Ruko F11 PRO 2 is an absolute steal for just $240. But you'll have to hurry because this is a limited-time offer.

Key features: 12.6 oz / 357 g weight, up to 70 minutes flight per battery, USB-C charger, 4K, 2.7K, 2K, 720p video resolutions, up to 30FPS at 4K, 6K still images.

Product launched: November 2024

Price history: The lowest this drone has been is $290, it tends to stay in the region of $350-400.

Price comparison: Amazon: $240 | Walmart: $300

Space: ★★★

Review consensus: This is a well-built, easy-to-fly drone, though its camera could offer more in the way of options.

✅ Buy it if: You want a beginner-friendly drone that offers extended flight time and excellent flight stability.

❌ Don't buy it if: You want to fine control over your images; the camera is fully automatic. Instead, consider one of the best camera drones.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

Spherical "Aerobots" may one day swarm the caves of Titan — a moon of Saturn that NASA says is one of the most Earthlike in our solar system.

Titan is covered in rivers, lakes and seas of hydrocarbons, like methane and ethane, as well as a strange "karst" terrain including underground sinkholes and caves. No rover could easily traverse this surface, but flying vehicles may have more success.

So a new grant, under the early-stage NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, aims to create small, flying vehicles that could explore those caves. It's unclear if the aerobots — called SPARK, or Solid-state Propulsion for Autonomous Reconnaissance of Karst — would be ready in time for NASA's Dragonfly mission to Titan, project lead Daniel Drew, an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, told Space.com.

That's because SPARK is beginning a nine-month Phase 1 grant and would need to at least get through the up-to-two-year Phase 2 before things look "more realistic" for a liftoff, he noted. Dragonfly, meanwhile, is targeted for a 2028 launch but if the mission is delayed, that provides more possibilities for late-mission additions.

"Where does that line up with the current Titan mission timeline, assuming we've missed the window for Dragonfly? I don't know," Drew said of SPARK. But whenever the mission lifts off, Drew said SPARK has a good chance of doing well on Titan with its novel ion (electric) thrusters.

Drew said his design could "provide persistence, maneuverability, robustness to the challenging near-cryogenic [icy] conditions, and minimize downwash disturbance of scientifically-important hydrocarbon layering." He hopes that SPARK, he added, could be a cave-exploration forerunner at Titan similar to the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars that made 72 flights — more than tenfold what the Red Planet demo mission was supposed to do.

Drew has been working on a particular type of ion thrusters, called electrohydrodynamic (EHD) propulsion, since he did graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. Thanks in part to a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship, Drew explored several designs for flying and became interested in creating robots that flap their wings in a way similar to real-life creatures.

While exploring, he stumbled on the hobbyist "lifter" community "pretty much by chance," he said. "These [prototypes] are triangular balsa wood, magnet wire, and aluminum foil prototypes. You connect them to 40,000 volts from a flyback transformer that you rip out of a microwave or CRT monitor or whatever, and they can float above the table. There are plenty of examples of people making these on YouTube," he said.

More plumbing the archives revealed early experiments and studies at NASA and the Air Force similar to what the hobbyists were using. And by coincidence, NIAC awarded funding to another research group, led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that was interested in using EHD propulsion for Earthborne aircraft. As such, Drew sensed a fruitful direction for research.

"Long story short, I ran with that idea," Drew said, "and wrote a bunch of papers where I created microfabricated centimeter-scale flying robots propelled by atmospheric ion thrusters." His accomplishments prior to the NIAC grant included what he says is the first demonstration of microfabricated EHD actuators (mechanical devices), and other firsts such as a centimeter-scale "ionocraft" taking off and subsequently, carrying a payload.

"We recently published the design and takeoff of the first ion-propelled micro-hovercraft," he added, referring to a paper on preprint server arXiv. "That may seem like a pretty decent list of significant milestones, but it's really not a crowded space of people working on this topic. I'm mostly racing against myself here."

Now with the NIAC support, Drew said he hopes to dive deeper into the benefits of EHD propulsion, such as its scalability, the fact that it's virtually silent, and its simplicity (being solid state, there are fewer parts to worry about).

More applications could come outside of Titan, he noted: all-electric aircraft, indoor drones, and mini-flying swarms are just some ideas, but he said the utility will be limited. "The huge weakness is that it just isn't very efficient," he said of EHD propulsion. "Barring a major breakthrough, it will be impossible to really compete with more conventional propulsion techniques, like rotors and jet engines, for the vast majority of terrestrial applications."

As Phase 1 only encompasses about nine months, Drew and his collaborators—including Ethan Schaler and Jacob Izraelevitz from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as Michael Malaska from the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science—plan to quickly design experiments, perform a "trade study" of which subsystems are best to prioritize for aspects like power, and model matters like the thermal effects on the power system.

"I think the idea of 'standing on the shoulders of giants' is very much ingrained into the NIAC culture," Drew noted. "Our major contribution at the end of this process is a comprehensive, public report. Leveraging past related reports, and other open research in the field, is critical for doing a good job with this."

A cutting-edge hypersonic vehicle just hit a big flight milestone.

Stratolaunch's reusable, autonomous Talon-A craft now has more than 10 successful flights under its belt, the California-based company announced late last month.

"Reaching more than 10 successful hypersonic flights with Talon-A is a testament to our team's dedication and the robustness of our technology," Stratolaunch President and CEO Zachary Krevor said in a July 22 statement. "We are transforming hypersonic testing from a rare event into a routine service, empowering our customers to innovate at unprecedented speed."

Stratolaunch has two Talon-A vehicles, each of which is about 28 feet (8.5 meters) long with a wingspan of 11.3 feet (3.4 m). The craft can travel through Earth's atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) — the definition of hypersonic flight.

Talon-A missions start beneath the belly of a carrier plane, which hauls the robotic vehicle into the sky and drops it down. Stratolaunch has two such carriers — a modified Boeing 747 called Spirit of Mojave and Roc, a custom-built vehicle that measures a whopping 385 feet (117 m) from wingtip to wingtip, the biggest wingspan in aviation history.

Roc and Spirit of Mojave lift off from Mojave Air and Space Port in southeastern California and tend to drop Talon-A over the Pacific Ocean. After completing its hypersonic flight, the vehicle comes back for a runway landing in California, generally at Vandenberg Space Force Base, on the state's scenic central coast.

These jaunts test sensors and advanced new materials in the hypersonic flight environment, among other tasks. Details about Talon-A's payloads tend to be sparse, likely because many Stratolaunch customers — the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, for example — are tight-lipped by nature.

Indeed, military agencies around the world are increasingly interested in hypersonic tech. Superfast, maneuverable vehicles like Talon-A are tougher to track and intercept than ballistic missiles, which follow predictable trajectories despite moving fast. (To be clear: Talon-A itself is not a weapon or weapon-delivery system; it's a technology testbed.)

Stratolaunch isn't the only company that gives customer payloads hypersonic rides. Rocket Lab provides this service with HASTE, a suborbital version of its workhorse Electron rocket.

HASTE debuted in June 2023 and now has nine flights under its belt. But the vehicle's cadence will likely increase soon; in March, Rocket Lab signed a $190 million contract to conduct 20 HASTE missions for the U.S. military.

The sub-250 g drone market shows no signs of reducing competition, with manufacturers racing to offer advanced features at increasingly affordable prices. While DJI maintains its dominance as the market leader, brands such as Holy Stone have been steadily improving their offerings to compete in this popular segment of the drone market.

The Holy Stone HS900 Pro is being sold as the company's most capable consumer drone to date, and is aimed at beginners and enthusiasts looking for premium features without the premium price tag.

In reality, this is much more difficult than it sounds because the beginner market is so competitive that even DJI beginner models are impressively affordable. We’ll have to wait and see if the HS900 Pro is good enough to be one of the best beginner drones.

The HS900 Pro includes a range of intelligent flight modes designed to simplify aerial photography and videography. Features such as Follow Me, Point of Interest, Waypoint Flight and various automated shooting modes make it easy to capture dynamic footage with minimal experience.

At the heart of the drone is a 48MP camera capable of capturing 4K video. While it lacks obstacle avoidance technology found on some competitor models, the HS900 Pro delivers a reasonable blend of performance, image quality and flight features, but it undoubtedly has a handful of shortcomings that will hopefully be ironed out with firmware updates.

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Holy Stone HS900 Pro: Design

• Folding design
• Sub-250 g drone
• Folding controller

The Holy Stone HS900 Pro looks like most other sub-250 g drones with its compact folding design and light gray finish. This type of design is great for beginners and more experienced pilots because the folding element makes these drones easy to carry all day on trips out or in a camera bag with other kit.

The drone is just 5.63x3.26x2.44 in / 143x82.8x62 mm when folded, and 6.59x8.57x2.44 in / 167.4x217.8x62 mm unfolded. Most sub-250 g drones are around these dimensions, so there’s nothing out of the ordinary here, and build quality is fantastic - no complaints either. The airframe is made of a lightweight yet strong plastic, which is, once again, in keeping with similar drones.

The controller that comes with the HS900 Pro is the same as that which came with the HS900, but is light rather than dark gray to match the drone.

This is a folding controller where the phone attaches to handles that fold out at the bottom of the controller in a similar way to the old DJI Mavic 2 controller and accommodate smartphones of all sizes. This is nice and compact at 6.0x1.85 x3.23 in / 152.5x47x82 mm when folded. Detachable control sticks that can be stowed away at the bottom of the controller.

The HS900 Pro controller provides all of the controls you need and more for operating the drone and the camera; you have the control sticks, a power button, a Return to Home button (RTH), a speed control button, a gimbal dial, a customisable Fn button with dual functionality, a small joystick for adjusting camera settings and photo and video capture buttons.

The 2250 mAh batteries are claimed to provide up to 30 minutes of flight time, and during testing, flight times were typically coming in around 23 minutes in what you might call normal wind conditions. Return to Home is initiated at 20% battery charge, so at this point the drone will either automatically Return to Home or you can take over and fly it back manually.

Holy Stone HS900 Pro: Functionality

• Stable flight
• Decent subject tracking
• Level 5 wind resistance

Flight performance is impressive, with smooth, responsive controls that make it easy to capture stable video and execute precise manoeuvres. Despite its lightweight design, the HS900 Pro offers Level 5 wind resistance, allowing it to cope with winds of up to 24 mph.

Stable, Normal and Sport modes provide maximum speeds of 11 mph, 22 mph and 31 mph respectively, while safety features include Smart Return-to-Home, Low Battery Return-to-Home and Signal Loss Return-to-Home.

Automated flight patterns include Follow Me, Point of Interest (Orbit), Waypoint Flight, Gesture Control, Spiral Flight and Cruise Control. These features work reasonably well, and subject tracking is more effective than with the older HS900.

The HS900 Pro's AI Subject Tracking keeps the subject centred in the frame. Whether you're capturing a person walking, cycling or taking part in outdoor activities, the drone can follow their movement smoothly without constant manual input. This is a feature that’s becoming much more popular and often makes subject tracking more effective.

There are two tracking modes available: AI Following keeps the drone behind the subject at a set distance and height, making it ideal for recording movement naturally and steadily, while AI Parallel flies alongside the subject, providing a more cinematic side-on perspective. Following works well, but when Parallel was tested, the HS900 Pro vibrated heavily during flight. This is a glitch that will need to be ironed out with a firmware update.

The time-lapse feature is easy to use and automatically creates finished videos based on your chosen interval and duration. Unlike DJI drones, however, flight control remains separate from the feature, making it harder to judge the speed and distance needed for hyperlapse shots. Wind can also affect results because the drone may drift in gusty conditions.

As a result, time-lapses are generally smooth but can appear slightly uneven in gusty conditions. Cruise Control, another feature, allows the drone to continue flying after you release the control sticks, making it useful for maintaining a constant speed and direction during long video sequences.

Compared to the original HS900, the HS900 Pro is an extremely similar drone, and the camera quality and functionality appear to be similar, potentially identical. The main differences are in the improvements to subject tracking and the automated flight patterns. This makes the drone feel like more of an incremental update rather than a more significant upgrade.

This isn’t a drone that offers obstacle avoidance either, so there are no sensors for this purpose, although it does have TOF ranging which can help to achieve more stable flight, including improved position holding when GPS is weak.

There is also optical flow positioning that aids positioning indoors. These are useful, but when other beginner drones are beginning to offer obstacle avoidance, the bar has been raised somewhat.

Holy Stone HS900 Pro: Performance

• 1/2.3-inch 48MP CMOS sensor
• Up to 4K 30 FPS video
• Poor RAW photo quality

The Holy Stone HS900 Pro produces reasonable image quality in both photos and videos that will more than meet the needs of beginners and enthusiasts. At launch, this does come with a caveat we’ll discuss in a moment, but first let’s take a look at the camera specs.

The HS900 Pro camera features a 48MP 1/2.3-inch Sony CMOS sensor with an 83-degree field of view, which roughly equates to the equivalent of 24mm in full-frame/35mm terms, with a fixed f/2.6 aperture. Video can be captured in 4K at 30 FPS and FHD up to 60 FPS, which is adequate but not outstanding.

Video quality is good and comparable to the original HS900 with a maximum bitrate of up to 100 Mbps. Photo shooting modes include Single Shot, Burst Shot, Timer Shot, Time-Lapse, Slow Motion, Camera Filter and Panorama. Then there’s Dolly Zoom for video, which works well despite using the camera’s digital zoom.

Photo quality is inconsistent and something of a paradox, but not in the way you might normally expect. The HS900 Pro can capture up to 48MP photos and RAW and JPEG formats, and the JPEGs look good – no major criticisms here. Where things quickly go downhill, however, is when capturing RAW photos in DNG format.

RAW photos have terrible color casts that are so bad that you can’t color correct them using white balance controls in software such as Adobe Lightroom. It’s basically impossible to neutralize the color cast, which makes the RAW files unusable. This is one area where Holy Stone seriously needs to issue a firmware update to resolve the issue.

Please note the footage below was shot in 4K, but our video player only plays in HD.

The camera controls available allow you to take as much control as you need, alongside auto shooting if you prefer. Two features that are still, unfortunately, missing after the HS900 are a histogram to assist with setting exposure correctly and Automatic Exposure Bracketing. These are essential for the drone to compete more effectively in a highly competitive market.

Holy Stone HS900 Pro: Price

In the past, Holy Stone was initially released in the US, with availability expanding to other regions afterwards. The kit includes the drone, a controller, two batteries, cables, spare propellers and a carry bag. This is everything you need to get started in terms of the drone itself.

The kit costs around $389.99 / £369.99, which would have once been attractive for a drone with the features of the HS900 Pro, but you can get a lot more in terms of features and image quality around this price point. This is illustrative of just how the competitiveness of the sub-250 g drone market shows no signs of slowing. In fact, it’s still heating up.

Should you buy the Holy Stone HS900 Pro?

If you're looking for an affordable camera drone that offers more than the basics, the Holy Stone HS900 Pro is a reasonable option, but certainly not the best available. It combines a lightweight sub-250 g design with features often found on more expensive models, while flight performance is impressive, with accurate GPS positioning, stable hovering and dependable Return to Home functionality.

There is no obstacle avoidance, which is a feature we’re now seeing in beginner models and puts the HS900 Pro at a distinct disadvantage in terms of both price and functionality. But the main issue with the drone is that some of the features and functionality feel incomplete. Not in terms of the hardware, but rather that they’re in need of refinement from a firmware update. Whether this will happen is impossible to say, but Holy Stone will probably improve these weaker areas.

If this drone isn't for you

The DJI Mini 5 Pro is the most advanced sub-250 g drone available, offering unrivalled features, functionality and professional image quality in a small and lightweight form factor.

The DJI Lito 1 is DJI’s least expensive drone to feature obstacle avoidance. It offers subject tracking functionality and up to 4K at up to 100 FPS, all in a beginner model. This model is currently unavailable in the USA

The Potensic Atom 2 is one of the best value sub-250 g propositions available. Image quality is great for photos and videos, while flight performance is solid alongside reasonably quiet flight.

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The drone market is hotter than ever, with newbie and slightly more experienced drone pilots now able to enjoy some seriously impressive features on low-cost drones. The new DJI Lito series replaces the older Mini series, with the exception of the DJI Mini 5 Pro, which is DJI’s flagship sub-250 g drone. There are two models available and in this review, we are going to take a look at the DJI Lito 1.

The Lito 1 may be the entry-level Lito model, but it still comes with a feature we’ve been waiting to see on a beginner drone for ages - 5-lux omnidirectional obstacle sensing, otherwise known as collision avoidance. This is a feature that, up until now, has only been available on more advanced and expensive drones, despite being a feature that beginners can truly benefit from.

There are also intelligent flight modes, including ActiveTrack, QuickShots, MasterShots, Hyperlapse, and Panorama, that help you to capture professional-looking photos and videos at the touch of a button. The subject tracking modes are particularly impressive, especially for an entry-level drone, thanks to the omnidirectional obstacle sensing.

The Lito 1 features a 48MP 1/2-inch CMOS sensor with video capture available up to 4K at 100 FPS and photos in JPEG and Raw format. Video can only be captured in the normal profile, which is perfect for beginners because it can be used straight out of camera with no need for color grading.

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DJI Lito 1: Design

• Sub-250 g drone
• Compact folding design
• Respectable battery life

The Lito 1 is a small, lightweight camera drone that looks much like other DJI ‘mini’ drones, with a folding design that makes it even more compact for travel and storage. At 8.78 oz / 249 g, this regulator-friendly drone is just 5.67 x 3.70 x 2.44 in / 144 x 94 x 62 mm when folded, and 7.20 x 9.88 x 3.11 in / 183 x 251 x 79 mm unfolded.

In terms of overall design, it won’t win any innovation awards with its typically DJI light gray build, but it’s undoubtedly a functional drone with great build quality. One of the main visual differences between the Lito 1 and the DJI Mini 4K, for example, is that the Lito 1 has one 5-Lux omnidirectional obstacle sensor on the top of the drone, and another on the bottom.

These two sensors provide highly effective 360-degree obstacle avoidance that will give beginner drone pilots confidence, but you can never fully rely on them to avoid obstacles. Omnidirectional obstacle sensing is fantastic, but it’s no substitute for flying with care and attention. You can also change the way it behaves to suit different situations.

The Lito 1 comes with the DJI RC-N3 controller in the Fly More Combo. This is the most basic DJI controller, where you attach your phone to a telescopic phone holder at the top to give you a camera view and access to settings.

It’s not as convenient as a smart controller but it does its job well and helps to keep costs down. The DJI RC-N3 has a decent battery life and is comfortable to hold, with detachable control sticks that stow away at the bottom of the controller when not in use.

Battery life of the drone itself is great but the claimed 36 minutes of flight time doesn’t quite translate to reality. Flight times came in at around 24 minutes before the battery reached around 16% and 'Return to Home' was initiated. This is still great for small 2590 mAh batteries and plenty of time if you have three batteries from the 'Fly More Bundle' to offer over an hour of flight time.

DJI Lito 1: Functionality

• Quick takeoff
• No internal storage
• Non-GPS RTH

The Lito 1 is a nimble drone capable of some respectable flight speeds, with a maximum speed of 40.27 mph in sport mode and 26.84 mph in normal mode and when tracking subjects. Cine mode is also available with reduced speed and less sensitive controls to assist pilots when capturing cinematic footage. Wind resistance is also great at 23.94 mph, so it will only be on the most windy days when you can’t fly.

Controls are responsive, and you undoubtedly enjoy a robust DJI flight experience with the drone. Plus, video transmission is faultless, and there were no issues whatsoever during testing. Then there are the intelligent flight modes, which include ActiveTrack, QuickShots, MasterShots, Hyperlapse, and Panorama; these all help beginners and experienced pilots alike to capture professional-looking photos and videos at the touch of a button.

The jewel in the crown feature has to be the Omnidirectional Obstacle Sensing because this is the first time it’s been available on a beginner drone model, not to mention one that is so competitively priced. There are several modes available, including Brake and Bypass, so you can select the option that suits the flying situation, and despite having only two sensors – one on the top and one on the bottom of the drone – it does a fantastic job. The subject-tracking modes are impressive, thanks to omnidirectional obstacle sensing and selecting a subject to track is incredibly easy.

Other useful features include Quick Takeoff and Return to Home (RTH). The former allows you to take off before satellite signals have been fixed for GPS, which is useful in more built-up locations.

RTH is the feature pilots know and appreciate, but where it differs slightly from the Lito 1 is that during the latter stages of the RTH process, the drone tracks its take-off route, so a strong GPS connection isn’t essential. This wasn't tested because there were always strong signals, but on paper, it sounds great.

One missing feature is internal storage, so you’ll have to rely on using a microSD card to save your photos and videos. It’s certainly not a dealbreaker and is typical of beginner models. It does, however, offer Wi‑Fi 6 QuickTransfer at up to 50 MB/s, so you can transfer imagery to your smartphone using the DJI Fly app quickly.

DJI Lito 1: Performance

• 1/2-inch 48MP CMOS sensor
• Up to 4K 100 FPS video
• Raw & JPEG photos

The Lito 1 is the absolute beginner model in the new Lito line-up, and as such it has the smaller sensor of the two available models. The camera features a 1/2-inch 48MP CMOS sensor and the lens offers an equivalent focal length of 26.2mm. The aperture is fixed at f/1.8 while focus is available from 4m to infinity.

Image quality is impressive overall, despite the small sensor, and much better than many drones at a similar price point with a small sensor. So, despite this being a beginner model, there’s no doubt that the Lito 1 will keep most beginner pilots happy for years to come before the desire to upgrade to a more advanced model takes hold.

Photos are typically sharpest in the central area of the frame with some fall-off towards the edges of the frame. Video quality is better, as is usually the case, but this is due to using fewer sensor pixels and the centre of the lens. Not to mention, video is much more forgiving than photos because the image is moving.

Photos can be captured in Raw and/or JPEG using shooting modes including Single Shot, Burst Shooting, Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) and Timed shots with delays between two and 60 seconds. This is exactly what you need for shooting photos with a drone.

Please note the footage below was shot in 4K, but our video player only plays in HD.

Video can be captured at up to 4K 100 FPS, 2.7K vertical up to 60 FPS and FHD up to 100 FPS. Video can only be captured in the Normal color profile for straight out of camera footage, so there’s no need for color grading.

The main downside for more advanced users is that the Lito 1 doesn’t capture video in the 10-bit D-Log M color profile, but if you need this, the slightly higher-spec Lito X1 is the model for you.

DJI Lito 1: Price

The DJI Lito 1 is competitively priced at just £429 for the Fly More Combo, or £299 for the drone and a battery if you already own a DJI RC-N3 controller. The Fly More Combo includes three batteries, a charging hub, a carry case, and accessories, along with the drone and the controller. At the time of writing, the drone is unfortunately unavailable in the United States.

This is a great price for an entry-level drone in a Fly More Combo with all those useful accessories. It’s slightly more expensive than some other entry-level drones, but the main advantage of the Lito 1 is that it has Obstacle Sensing.

Should you buy the DJI Lito 1?

If you’re an absolute beginner looking for a solid drone that will meet your needs for some time to come, the DJI Lito 1 is one of the most attractive drones available. If you’d like the same drone but with some additional features, the DJI Lito X1 is a more advanced version.

Flight performance is excellent, and the omnidirectional obstacle sensing is incredibly useful for beginners because it can seriously reduce the risk of crashing. Image quality is also impressive considering the size of the camera sensor, although it’s not a drone that you’d choose to use professionally.

Alongside the omnidirectional obstacle sensing, another impressive and indeed useful feature is subject tracking, which performs incredibly well. This is a feature you don’t often see in entry-level drones, and when you do, it doesn’t work well, but with the Lito 1, the performance can’t be faulted.

If this drone isn't for you

The DJI Lito X1 is the higher spec model of the two new Lito models and features a larger sensor alongside forward-facing LiDAR for improved obstacle sensing. It can also capture video in the flat D-Log M color profile.

If you’d like the most advanced sub-250 g drone available, the DJI Mini 5 Pro offers the best image quality, features and functionality of any compact and lightweight drone.

If you’d like a sub-250 g drone at a competitive price but don’t need obstacle avoidance, the Potensic Atom 2 is a fantastic sub-250 g drone capable of capturing 4K video and photos in Raw and JPEG.

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Drones are more accessible than ever before, and DJI shows no signs of slowing down in its aggressive drive to take over the beginner drone market. The DJI Neo 2 is both affordable and impressive as a selfie, camera and FPV drone, but with the new DJI Lito X1, high-end features and functionality have finally made it to a beginner model.

The Lito X1 features a 48MP 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor with video capture available up to 4K at 100 FPS and photos in JPEG and Raw format. The drone features a 5-lux omnidirectional obstacle sensing and forward-facing LiDAR for safer flights in complex environments. Obstacle sensing is a no-brainer for beginner drones, and it’s finally here.

Then there are intelligent flight modes, including ActiveTrack, QuickShots, MasterShots, Hyperlapse, and Panorama, which make it incredibly easy to capture professional-looking imagery. The subject tracking modes are great performers thanks to the omnidirectional obstacle sensing, where you can be confident that the chances of the drone crashing are greatly reduced.

The Lito X1 is priced competitively and is arguably excellent value for money, with the DJI Lito X1 Fly More Combo (DJI RC 2) costing just £599; this is the bundle that features a smart controller with a built-in screen. It’s safe to say that this could be both one of the best beginner drones and possibly even one of the best camera drones available.

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DJI Lito X1: Design

• Compact folding design
• Sub-250 g model
• Two controller options

With its standard DJI folding design, build quality and light gray color, the DJI Lito X1 is a solid yet unremarkable drone from a design point of view.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with this at all, and the Lito X1 is undoubtedly an impressive performer. The drone is just 5.67 x 3.70 x 2.44 in / 144 x 94 x 62 mm folded and 7.20 x 9.88 x 3.11 in / 183 x 251 x 79 mm unfolded, with a regulator-friendly weight of 8.78 oz / 249 g.

The Lito X1 looks like most other drones in the sub-250 g class, but one standout feature is the 5-Lux Omnidirectional obstacle sensors – one on the top of the drone and the second one on the bottom.

These provide up, down, left, right, forward and backward obstacle avoidance, and despite there being just two sensors, the system performs incredibly well. There’s also forward-facing LiDAR for increased precision. The inclusion of these features is a first for a beginner drone.

With the Fly More Combos, you can opt for either the DJI RC-N3 controller, which requires a phone to be used with the DJI Fly app, or the DJI RC 2 smart controller with a built-in 5.5 in FHD touchscreen. This more advanced controller isn’t much more expensive and is significantly more convenient than the standard controller, so it’s well worth consideration.

In terms of battery life, the standard batteries are claimed to last up to 36 minutes, but during testing, flights were coming in at around 24 minutes before Return to Home was initiated when the battery reached around 16%. This is still pretty good, although the higher capacity Prlus batteries will extend flight times further to a claimed 52 minutes.

One point to make is that the Plus batteries take the weight of the drone over 250 g, so you have to be aware of this and its regulatory implications. For most people, the standard batteries offering flight times around 24 minutes will be more than sufficient and keep things simple by maintaining the X1’s sub-250 g weight.

DJI Lito X1: Functionality

• Quick takeoff
• 42GB of internal storage
• Non-GPS RTH

Despite its small size and light weight, the Lito X1 is still a fairly fast and powerful drone with a maximum speed of 40.27 mph in Sport Mode and 26.84 mph in Normal Mode and when tracking. Wind resistance comes in at a respectable 23.94 mph. There’s also Cine Mode, which reduces speed further and reduces the sensitivity of controls to help you to capture more cinematic footage.

Video transmission is solid, and there was no image breakup or stuttering during testing. The maximum range goes far beyond the legal flight distance limits, so they’re impossible to test, but with such robust transmission, you’re pretty much guaranteed a great connection within the legal range.

The X1 flies as well as you’d expect for a DJI drone, so no complaints here. Plus, ActiveTrack, QuickShots and MasterShots all perform particularly well. Subject tracking is excellent thanks to the collision avoidance system, which provides confidence with the drone flying autonomously. Other useful shooting modes include Hyperlapse and Panorama, which make capturing these types of photos and videos incredibly easy.

Another standout set of features is Quick Takeoff and Smart RTH. The former allows you to take off before stallites have been fixed, instead using vision positioning until satellites are connected.

For the latter, the Lito X1 memorizes flight routes in well-lit environments, which helps to provide a safe Return to Home without satellite connection for GPS. This is unlikely, but still useful, and the system aids RTH in all situations.

While the Lito X1 has a microSD slot for removable storage, there’s also 42GB of internal storage that can be used independently or as a backup when using a memory card.

Then there’s QuickTransfer, where files can be transferred to your smart device at up to 50 MB/s via Wi-Fi 6. You can also plug the drone into a computer when it’s switched off and connect to its storage to download photos and videos without switching the drone on.

DJI Lito X1: Performance

• 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor
• Raw & JPEG photos
• 10-Bit D-Log M

The Lito X1 is an advanced beginner drone, and despite the small sensor size, image quality is surprisingly good. It’s not on par with more expensive drones such as the DJI Mini 5 Pro, DJI Air 3S or DJI Mavic 4 Pro, unsurprisingly, but you could produce both photos and videos to a professional level with the drone.

The camera features a 48MP 1/1.3-inch CMOS sensor that can be set to shoot 12MP and 48MP photos. The lens has a full-frame equivalent focal length of 24mm, while the fixed aperture is f/1.7.

Photos can be captured in Raw and/or JPEG using Single Shot, Burst Shooting, Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) or Timed shots with delays ranging from two to 60 seconds.

Like most drones, photos are sharpest in the central area of the frame with a small amount of fall-off towards the edges. Plus, as usual, results are typically better in brighter conditions.

Video quality is sharper across the frame because shooting at up to 4K uses a crop of the full sensor, and the moving image is much more forgiving.

Please note the footage below was shot in 4K, but our video player only plays in HD.

Video can be captured at up to 4K 100 FPS, 2.7K vertical up to 60 FPS and FHD up to 200 FPS. Video can be captured in the Normal color profile at 8-bit or 10-bit for straight out-of-camera footage.

if you’d like to capture more professional video that needs to be color graded, you can shoot in the 10-bit D-Log M color profile with a maximum bitrate of 130 Mbps. Log footage is generally not available with beginner drone models, so this is impressive.

DJI Lito X1: Price

The DJI Lito X1 comes in at a beginner-friendly price considering the impressive features and functionality on offer. At the time of writing, the drone is unavailable in the United States.

For UK residents, the X1 costs £369 for just the drone and a battery, which is ideal if you already own a compatible DJI controller. The DJI Lito X1 Fly More Combo (DJI RC-N3) costs £509, while the DJI Lito X1 Fly More Combo (DJI RC 2) costs £599. A DJI Lito X1 Fly More Combo Plus (DJI RC 2), which includes higher capacity batteries for longer flight times, costs £669.

The Fly More combos include three batteries, a charging hub, a carry case, and accessories, along with the drone and the relevant controller. For just an extra £90, the DJI RC 2 smart controller Fly More Combo is extremely attractive and offers a much more convenient experience than the DJI RC-N3 controller.

Should you buy the DJI Lito X1?

If you’re looking for a highly capable sub-250 g drone, but one that’s less expensive than the DJI mini 5 Pro, the DJI Lito X1 is one of the most impressive beginner drones we’ve ever tested.

Flight performance is excellent, while image quality for photo and video capture certainly won’t disappoint; capture photos in Raw and JPEG, while you can capture up to 4K 100 FPS video in Standard and D-Log M color profiles.

What makes this drone stand out from the competition, besides this, is the omnidirectional obstacle sensing and forward-facing LiDAR that make flights even safer.

This is a first for beginner drones and a most welcome pair of features that set a new bar for beginner drones. If you’re on a budget but would still like a drone with professional features and functionality, the Lito X1 is a fantastic option.

If this drone isn't for you

The DJI Neo 2 is a highly affordable selfie drone featuring autonomous flight modes and subject tracking. It can also be flown as a camera drone or an FPV drone when paired with different controllers.

The DJI Mini 5 Pro is the most advanced sub-250 g drone available with excellent features, functionality and image quality, making it ideal for professionals and enthusiasts alike.

If you’re on a tight budget and don’t need obstacle sensing, the Potensic Atom 2 is one of the best budget sub-250 g drones available. It shoots Raw and JPEG photos, alongside video up to 4K.

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A miniature X-ray machine is set to transform astronauts' health prospects following a successful test in orbit. As a bonus, as well as checking for broken bones on the moon, the technology could also be distributed to small towns and villages in rural areas to provide enhanced medical care far from major hospitals.

For much of the Space Age, astronauts have only had access to ultrasound machines as tools to diagnose injuries. Unlike ultrasound, which requires a medium through which sound waves can pass, X-rays can be used in a vacuum. The problem with X-ray machines is that traditionally they have been big and bulky, they use a lot of power, they have difficulty imaging something that isn't perfectly stationary (resulting in blurred images), and they tend to get damaged when jostled about during launch and atmospheric re-entry. Yet, as human spaceflight and voyages beyond Earth-orbit come to prominence once more, with proposals for an outpost on the moon, there is a greater chance of an astronaut being injured and therefore a greater need for medical X-rays in space.

Technology has now reached the stage where small-scale, portable X-ray devices are commonplace on Earth.

"Portable X-ray machines are in use everywhere — at the Kentucky Derby, on the sidelines of the Super Bowl and around the globe in low-resource areas — because they can run on solar power and can be operated by individuals with no medical expertise," Sheyna Gifford, who is a medical doctor and assistant professor of aerospace medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said in a statement.

Gifford wanted to put one of these portable X-ray devices to the test in space. The first chance her team got to simulate taking an X-ray in space conditions was during a parabolic flight in 2022 (when an aircraft simulates microgravity by climbing high on a parabolic trajectory, as in the famous "Vomit Comet") when members of the flight crew used a portable X-ray machine to produce an X-ray image of someone's hand.

The real test, though, came on March 31, 2025, with the launch of the private Fram2 mission, which took four first-time astronauts on a 3.5-day mission around Earth on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon. The astronauts, none of whom were medical experts, received four hours training on the portable X-ray device before launch, and then while in orbit they were tasked with taking X-rays of a smartwatch, a hand, an abdomen, a pelvis and a chest. These X-ray images were recorded digitally, enabling the astronauts to review them straight away without having to develop film.

Back on Earth, three independent medical experts compared the Fram2 X-rays with similar X-rays taken prior to launch. They found that while the ground-based X-rays were better quality, the space-based ones were good enough to be used to diagnose injuries such as broken bones.

Furthermore, the X-ray device made it back to Earth on board the Crew Dragon with only minimal damage to its exterior after being buffeted around. The Fram2 crew members all reported that the X-ray machine was easy to use, and they recommended that in future it be designed to be easier to clamp securely into place inside the crew cabin.

"We believed an off-the-shelf portable system would stand a very good chance of surviving pre-launch testing and be operational in space by crew members with minimal training," said Gifford. "By acquiring the first human and equipment X-rays in space, our study demonstrates the feasibility of in-orbit radiography and expanded diagnostic capabilities for crew health and hardware evaluation."

The usefulness of X-ray machines in space extends beyond just applying them to human health. X-rays can be used to inspect potential damage to electronics and spacesuits, to diagnose problems with malfunctioning satellites, and even be strapped to lunar rovers for analyzing the surface of the moon.

The next step, says Gifford, is to make the portable systems even smaller.

"It is my hope that we can further reduce the size of portable imaging systems and improve their ruggedness and usability so they can be included in future missions," she said.

The technology can also prove its value here on Earth. Easy to use and highly portable X-ray devices that can produce digital images that can be scrutinized on a tablet or even a smartphone would be invaluable to rescue teams in remote areas or tight spaces. It would also transform medical care in rural towns and villages that are far from large hospitals — reducing the burden on those large hospitals in the process.

"Disseminating autonomous miniature X-ray systems around the globe could also change the game in public health," said Gifford. "The sky is not the limit when it comes to X-rays in space and here on Earth."

The findings from the X-ray tests were reported on July 14 in the journal Radiology.

A company just produced kidney and liver tissue in space for the first time, using a method called bioprinting, which 3D-prints living tissue.

The announcement comes from California-based Auxilium Biotechnologies, whose AMP-1 orbital bioprinter made the breakthrough. The bioprinter used cell and tissue designs from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina.

"The ability to manufacture multiple tissue types alongside clinically relevant medical products highlights both the versatility and scalability of our technology," Auxilium CEO Jacob Koffler said in a statement today (July 9).

The experiments took place aboard the International Space Station in June. In addition to bioprinting kidney, liver, and cartilage tissues, the AMP-1 machine also created 28 nerve repair implants. The bioprinted materials returned to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule that splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on June 17.

"Successfully bioprinting living liver and kidney tissue aboard the International Space Station marks an important step forward for regenerative medicine," WFIRM director Anthony Atala said in a statement today (July 9). "The uniform cell distribution achieved aboard the space station points to real possibilities for manufacturing medical devices and tissues in space."

This wasn't the first bioprinting experiment to be conducted on the ISS. For example, in 2018, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko tested a machine called the "Bioprinter Organ.Aut," which successfully assembled cartilage cells using a magnetic field.

However, Auxilium’s AMP-1 bioprinter is the first tool that has produced multiple types of tissue in space, as well as the first to make kidney and liver tissue in the final frontier. Auxilium says this flexibility will be important as commercial interests expand manufacturing hubs in space for biotech, healthcare and advanced materials development.

"This mission marks an exciting step forward for in-space biomanufacturing and demonstrates what can be achieved when innovative technology is paired with strong collaboration," Isac Lazarovits, Auxilium's engineering vice president, said in the same statement.

"Demonstrating multiple product classes and meaningful production volume within a single mission is an important milestone as we continue advancing toward routine manufacturing operations in orbit," Lazarovits continued.

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There are also exciting new additions, including Season 2 of The Undeclared War, and Season 3 of The Ark, scheduled to premiere on July 30, 2026.

• We've got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

Danger: Spoiler Alert Ahead!

Fans are eagerly anticipating the third season of The Ark following season 2’s thrilling cliffhanger finale, where the crew of Ark One discovered a habitable, human-friendly planet. However, evidence of an ancient alien civilization and a frantic distress call from deep space instantly cut those celebrations short.

Season 3 begins with Captain Garnet (Christie Burke) splitting her crew to answer that urgent distress call, leaving the remaining members behind to defend Homebase 1 from the new planet's unknown secrets.

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Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Houston-based company Venus Aerospace announced today (June 8) the closing of its "Series B" financing round, which raised $91 million to evolve its rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) from functioning prototype to a scalable propulsion system with multiple applications.

Venus completed a demonstration launch with its test vehicle in May 2025, accomplishing the first such flight from U.S. soil powered by an RDRE. At scale, the company envisions a wide variety of uses for the design, including powering aircraft up to Mach 6 straight off the runway, orbital transfer vehicles for satellites in space, and as the engine for future spacecraft capable of landing on extraterrestrial worlds like the moon.

The newest financing round was anchored by Houston-based venture capital firm Mercury Fund, with contributions from a handful of other investors, including Lockheed Martin Ventures. Venus co-founder and CEO Sassie Duggleby called the funding "an important step" toward maturing the RDRE for production.

"Our customers need propulsion systems that go farther, can be produced reliably and are built on supply chains they can trust," she said in a statement. "We are advancing that capability with American engineering and manufacturing talent to strengthen U.S. defense, expand space access and support the future of high-speed flight."

RDREs differ from conventional rocket engines in the way they ignite and expel their propellants. Typical engines burn fuel as part of a controlled process inside a combustion chamber, which is directed through the engine nozzle and bell. RDREs use a ring-shaped combustion chamber and feature a continuously circulating detonation wave, which produces higher pressure and increased thrust while burning less fuel, in theory.

RDREs aren't a new concept, but designing a functional model had more or less evaded all attempts outside science fiction — until Venus' demonstration launch last year. That flight also caught the attention of former NASA deputy administrator and space shuttle astronaut Pam Melroy, who joined the company's board of directors four months later.

"What differentiates our RDRE is not just that it works, but that it has flown at high thrust and was designed with scale, manufacturability and mission integration in mind," Venus co-founder and CTO Andrew Duggleby said in the same statement. "Our propulsion architecture combines efficiency, throttling, reusability and manufacturability in a way that customers need for real defense and space missions. We are focused on translating technical progress into reliable systems for operational use."

New Zealand company Zenno Astronautics has tested a first-of-its-kind torquer based on superconducting magnets to maintain the position of a satellite in space.

Superconducting magnets can convert solar energy directly into momentum in space and provide a source of acceleration that needs no fuel, but until recently, the technology was too large and complex to fit on a satellite. That's no longer the case.

Zenno Astronautics, a spin-off from the University of Auckland, has flown its new "Supertorquer" system on the Mira satellite built by California-based start-up Impulse Space. The tests began shortly after Mira's launch in November last year aboard the SpaceX Transporter 12 mission and saw the shoebox-size device perform with flying colors, Zenno Astronautics CEO and founder Max Arshavsky, told Space.com.

"It's a technology that allows a spacecraft to not tumble violently in space and point in the right direction," Arshavsky said. "The unit has multiple super-conducting magnets that are positioned in different axes. When we power up the magnets, they generate a magnetic field, which interacts with Earth's magnetic field, and because we can control the magnetic field on the satellite, we can control the way in which it turns with respect to Earth."

Superconducting magnets are made of coils of superconducting wire that have zero electrical resistance and can therefore conduct much larger currents than normal wires. That larger current translates into a greater magnetic force. There is, however, a catch: Superconducting materials need to be cooled to extremely low temperatures to gain their wonder properties.

In labs on Earth, the cooling requires tanks of cryogenic liquids like liquid helium or liquid nitrogen. Those cannot be used aboard a satellite. Instead the system must expel all heat from its surroundings into outer space.

"The magnets need to operate at minus 200 degrees Celsius [minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit]," Arshavsky said. "But even though space is cold, the satellite is actually not. It's about 20 degrees C, pretty warm, because we are pointing at the sun."

The unit housing the superconducting magnets is wrapped in layers of insulation and fitted with a heat pump that removes all the excess heat from the system. Every time the satellite needs a push, the superconducting coils power up, drawing energy from a battery charged by the satellite's solar panels.

"It's converting solar energy straight into useful work," Arshavsky said. "Energy is the one thing that is abundant in space, and you can use it to energize the magnet to create a magnetic acceleration device. It gives you acceleration without fuel."

In the future, Zenno Astronautics plans to launch larger systems that could enable spacecraft to dock in space or conduct close proximity operations using just the power of their solar-powered superconducting magnets. Arshavsky envisions powerful magnets that could someday propel spacecraft on missions to the moon and Mars using only solar power.

"Once you have super-conducting technology available in space, you can then create very strong magnetic fields, and you can use them for various use cases," he said. "You can accelerate things in space very fast or change the trajectory of a satellite completely without fuel."

"We are essentially looking to remove all reliance on Earth's resources so that we can build a sustainable industry in space," Arshavsky said.

Powerful superconducting magnets could also provide a solution to the problem of cancer-causing cosmic radiation that explorers will encounter during stays on the moon or trips deeper into space.

"When we go to space, we get hurt by radiation, and these superconducting magnets can create umbrellas of magnetic fields around the spacecraft to protect the interior," said Arshavsky. "So we can shield people in space from that radiation."

Zenno Astronautics company plans to fly a larger demonstrator on an undisclosed mission later this year.

Editor's note: The original version of this story referred to the newly tested device as a thruster. That wording is not technically correct and, at 11 a.m. ET on July 10, was therefore changed to "torquer."

The past 250 years of optical telescopes have seen revolutionary discoveries and technology that the telescope's inventor, a seventeenth century spectacle-maker by the name of Hans Lippershey, maybe wouldn't have believed possible.

When we look back through the annals of telescope history, we find that a significant turning point came, coincidentally, just five years after the United States' Declaration of Independence was christened.

It was back in England, in 1781. William Herschel had just made what was possibly the greatest astronomical discovery the world had seen up to that point: a new planet, Uranus. The fact that Herschel had found a seventh planet from the sun was revolutionary in itself. All the other planets, from Mercury to Saturn, had been known since antiquity, obvious in the night sky to the naked eye.

Uranus, on the other hand, isn't really visible without optical aid, and its discovery illustrated the power of the telescope to dramatically widen our vistas. Moreover, Herschel found the new planet using a 6.2-inch (157-millimeter) reflecting telescope that he had constructed himself. He was looking through it from the back garden of his home in the Somerset city of Bath.

Herschel was a prolific builder of telescopes, polishing and shaping their speculum mirrors. The 6.2-inch telescope was a midget compared to some of his other beasts, including the famous discovery machine that was the 20-foot, or -meter, in focal length telescope with its 18-inch (457-mm) aperture, and the less successful 40-foot (12-meter) telescope.

Herschel proved that telescopes could do serious science. "As a self-taught astronomer, William Herschel transformed the reflecting telescope from what had generally been thought of as a scientific toy into a serious scientific tool," British science historian Robert Smith of the University of Alberta in Canada told Space.com. "At the root of all Herschel's efforts is his telescope building, because he had to build these big telescopes himself."

Refractors and reflectors

Telescopes come in two main forms: the reflector and the refractor.

Reflectors use mirrors to reflect light to a focal point where the eyepiece is located; refractors use lenses to focus light. In the 18th and 19th centuries, British reflectors like Herschel's were the dominant telescope category, as exemplified by those constructed by the likes of Liverpool's William Lassell and Ireland's Third Earl of Rosse, William Parsons. However, across the English Channel in mainland Europe, refractors, which at the time were optically higher quality, were dominant instead.

"You have to distinguish what's going on in Britain with what's going on elsewhere," said Smith.

Lassell built reflectors with apertures of 24 and 48 inches (61 and 122 centimeters). And the great Leviathan of Parsonstown in Ireland is Lord Rosse's own behemoth, still standing today as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While the likes of Lassell and Lord Rosse were wealthy, self-taught "grand amateur" scientists, in Europe refracting telescopes were used by academics at universities to make precise measurements of the cosmos, from the orbits of double stars to the distance to stars using parallax.

"On the European continent, refractors were used by professional astronomers whose focus was on precision, whereas for Lassell and Rosse the focus was on collecting more light to see fainter objects," said Smith.

In comes the U.S.

Building large refracting telescopes had its challenges and led to a period referred to as the "Telescope Race," where prestige was equally a motivation alongside science. The "race" was won by the 40-inch (one-meter) refractor at Yerkes Observatory in Chicago in 1897, which cost $500,000 at the time (about $20 million in today's money) and was provided by financier Charles Yerkes who made his money developing Chicago's public transport system, often resorting to bribery in order to win franchises.

Businessmen building telescopes was nothing new, of course: William Lassell made fortunes from brewing, but he also used his own telescopes. What was different now was that men wealthy beyond anyone's dreams saw observatories as vanity projects rather than as scientific instruments to use themselves. The introduction of substantial sums of American money provided by wealthy businessmen was a sea change in both the building of telescopes and the fortunes of astronomy in the U.S.

"I have argued that in the 1880s, America was a bit of an astronomical backwater compared to Europe, but by the 1920s the United States had become the leading nation, certainly in terms of observational astronomy," said Smith.

It wasn't just Yerkes. In California, wealthy landowner James Lick founded the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton after being dissuaded from his original plan to build a giant pyramid as a monument to himself in downtown San Francisco. Percival Lowell, obsessed with his delusions about canals on Mars, founded the Lowell Observatory in Arizona in 1894. And on Mount Wilson in California, something big was stirring in part thanks to benefactor John Hooker.

Reflectors come of age

Size has always been a driving force, a challenge and a problem for telescope builders. Even today, the Yerkes refractor is still the champion refractor, only rivaled by the one-meter Swedish Solar Telescope on La Palma, but even this is stepped down from 42 inches to 39 inches (107 cm to 99 cm). The issue is twofold: the thicker the lens, the more the incoming light is attenuated and hence the greater the light loss, so you lose any benefits a large lens might provide. Plus, the heavier a lens is, the more it will sag and deform, destroying its ability to focus properly.

This glass ceiling, if you'll pardon the pun, was circumvented by reflecting telescopes following a vital development in the mid-1800s. Herschel and his peers had been using mirrors made from speculum, which is a reflective and slightly toxic (thanks to the small quantities of arsenic added to the copper and tin mix) metal that is prone to tarnishing easily. Herschel had to polish his telescope mirrors frequently to keep them spick and span.

Then in the 1850s scientists Léon Foucault and Carl August von Steinheil figured out a way to add a thin layer of silver to glass, creating mirrors that were much more reflective than speculum, that weighed less and which didn't tarnish. This paved the way for building bigger and better reflectors, fulfilling the promise of the work started by William Herschel.

One key figure in the resurgence of the reflecting telescope around the turn of the 20th century was the astronomical optician George Ritchey, most famous today for being one half of the duo who invented the Ritchey–Chrétien telescope design that is popular with amateur astronomers, particularly planetary imagers, and which is also employed on dozens of professional telescopes including the largest ground-based telescopes currently in operation.

Ritchey had built a 0.6-meter (24-inch) reflector at Yerkes before he was hired by George Ellery Hale, who was the director of Mount Wilson Observatory. On Mount Wilson Ritchey designed a 1.5-meter (60-inch) reflector in 1908 and then what would be the largest telescope in the world at that time, the 2.5-meter (100-inch) Hooker Telescope, made possible thanks to a generous financial gift from John Hooker. The Hooker Telescope saw its first light in 1917.

"If I had to pick one key optician around about 1900, I would pick George Ritchey," said Smith. "Though Ritchey's innovative approach sometimes became too innovative for Hale. Maybe 'firing' is too strong a term, but Ritchey left Mount Wilson because he just didn't get on with Hale."

A revolution in cosmology

Despite the parting of ways, Ritchey's legacy was secure because the Hooker Telescope transformed astronomy and cosmology, thanks to the work of Mount Wilson staff astronomer Edwin Hubble and his colleague and assistant, Milton Humason. Thanks to the sheer resolving power of the Hooker Telescope, Hubble was able to resolve the mysterious spiral nebulae as galaxies in their own right, proving that galaxies other than our Milky Way exist.

He was able to confirm their distance by using the Hooker Telescope to identify individual stars in those galaxies, stars we call Cepheid variables, which have a particular relationship between their period of variation and their peak brightness. The work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt tells us that the longer a Cepheid's period of variability, the brighter they become, and knowing how luminous they should be, Hubble could compare that to how bright they appeared in the night sky through the Hooker Telescope and then deduce how far away they and their galaxies must be. Hubble and Humason later measured the redshifts of these galaxies, finding they are almost all moving away from us and that the cosmos is expanding.

The Hooker Telescope was superseded by the Hale Telescope, named after the Mount Wilson director and which has a 5.1-meter (200-inch) mirror and came into operation on Mount Palomar in 1949. The Hale Telescope remained the largest optical telescope in the world until 1975 and the Soviet Union's six-meter BTA-6 telescope, and this wasn't beaten until 1993 and the construction of the first of the twin 10-meter telescopes of the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. At this size, mirrors have to be composed of multiple individual segments rather than being cast as one solid mirror because gravity would otherwise cause the mirror to deform.

During the second half of the twentieth century, astronomers began to identify the best locations for giant optical telescopes, away from the smog and light pollution of cities whose urban sprawl was growing so great that not even Californian mountaintops could escape them. Today, the best telescopes in the world cluster atop Mauna Kea, on numerous peaks in Chile's Atacama Desert, and in the Canary Islands.

How the Hubble Space Telescope democratized astronomy

For the most exceptional views, you can't beat space itself. In orbit above our obscuring atmosphere, or stationed 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away at the L2 Lagrange point, space telescopes enjoy unprecedentedly clear views of the cosmos. The most recent space telescopes include the James Webb Space Telescope and, launching in September, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, but the most famous of all is of course the Hubble Space Telescope.

Launched in 1990, Hubble continues against all the odds to push the frontiers of science.

"Its output is staggering," said Smith. It has made over 1.7 million individual observations in the past 36 years, and 23,000 research papers based on those observations have been published by a total of nearly 29,000 astronomers.

"This is the democratization of astronomy," said Smith, and it completes a transformation in astronomy over 250 years in the making. Back when the United States was being founded, astronomers were generally lone wolves, self-taught and self-motivated like William Herschel. Then, throughout the nineteenth century astronomy increasingly became the purview of wealthy men, and even moving into the twentieth century, astronomical discovery was confined to a small group.

"For example, in the early 20th century, the only people who had access to the Mount Wilson telescopes were the staff at the Mount Wilson Observatory, and if you were not on staff then you just couldn't use the largest telescopes in the world, so as an observational astronomer you would be at a disadvantage," said Smith.

While this began to change in the latter half of the twentieth century, with organizations such as the European Southern Observatory and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (now NOIRLab) giving access to telescopes to a wider swathe of people, the Hubble Space Telescope has really spearheaded this democratization.

"People all over the world can use Hubble," said Smith. "It opens up so many possibilities for astronomical research, with thousands of people using it."

From well-heeled enthusiasts to businessmen looking for a legacy, astronomical research has now truly become accessible to people worldwide thanks to the largest telescopes in space and on Earth. Perhaps that is the ultimate achievement of the past 250 years of telescopes.

Engineers looking for safe water and recycled air for astronauts should look no further than nature, according to one team of researchers.

Oysters and other forms of "biogenerative" life support systems, which use living beings for food, water recycling and air regeneration, are under study at Pennsylvania's Harrisburg University with Monolith Space, a small company featured on the This Week in Space weekly podcast with Space.com's Tariq Malik and author Rod Pyle in March.

The shelled creatures aren't the only ones Harrisburg researchers are looking at: students and researchers are also examining algae, mollusks and even finfish. Hydroponics, or growing plants in water, is another approach. Monolith founder Jacob Scoccimerra, who is based in D.C., said the research is not only crucial for future astronaut living, but also unique among food projects in space. To the best of his knowledge, oysters have not yet flown in space, he told Space.com in an e-mail.

"There are no dedicated facilities on the ISS capable of studying this, currently, that being a dedicated aquarium-like facility with environmental control," he noted. The ISS previously did have an aquatic habitat until 2012, he said, but he described it as small (less than 3 liters or 0.8 gallons) and studying "primarily small finfish."

"Other aquatic organisms have been studied in a variety of non-specialized hardware," he said of space research more generally, but noted there is "no facility that is large enough to host organisms like oysters."

That's where a new prototype is coming in; Harrisburg and Monolith are together creating a closed-loop aquaculture system for marine organisms, which Scoccimerra said is roughly one-third of the way through NASA's technology readiness levels describing readiness for spaceflight.

Specific applications of the research for astronaut missions are still being determined, but the university described the system as an "automated, closed-loop aquaculture system to grow and study marine organisms that may be beneficial candidates for space nutrition and research." That said, the university also notes that oysters "provide natural water filtration", suggesting a possible use during long-duration missions.

Harrisburg's Rachel Fogle (an associate professor) and Glenn Williams (an instructor), provided guidance on the prototype, which uses oyster spat (baby oysters) and then helps the oysters grow into adulthood. The prototype was demonstrated publicly April 8.

"The project has essentially closed since we presented the results on campus," Scoccimerra said. "Since closure, the oyster habitat has been set up at Monolith's office in D.C., where the oysters are continuing to be fed and monitored."

NASA subject matter experts also gave insight on the system design, which will continue to be refined for the agency's payload interface requirements that govern ISS launch requirements, as well as those for newer commercial space stations when they are ready. (This does not guarantee a future space-station launch, but gives the oyster project more potential for that in the future.)

"Our pathway is to launch a smaller experiment first to ISS or similar platform, and then build from there," Scoccimerra said. "It is less a technical feasibility, and more of a need to study them. Historically aquatic biology has not been studied significantly in space compared to microbial, human, and plant biology."

The research is taking place as NASA pushes hard to return astronauts to the surface of the moon as a part of the agency's Artemis program, for a more permanent presence around the end of the decade. In January, the agency also identified "food and nutrition for Mars and sustained lunar" as one of the priority items in its civil space shortfall ranking, which targets areas for tech development.

While oysters in space appear to be a newer research opportunity, Harrisburg states that humans have been eating these creatures for 100,000 years, based on archaeology findings. An example from this era, using shellfish, has been found in South Africa, according to Archaeology Magazine.

NASA is hoping to use drones to speed up organ delivery for transplant patients.

A flight test earlier this month at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia saw a drone pick up a kidney and fly it for the first time beyond "line of sight", or the distance from which a drone is visible by an operator. Keeping a line of sight on a drone is a typical requirement for flight safety, but NASA is developing tools that may allow these machines to fly further away from operators in populated environments more regularly.

The kidney on the June 5 flight test was not viable for organ transplantation, which is why the agency and partner United Network for Organ Sharing were able to use it, according to WTKR. If all goes to plan with future tests conducted with NASA Langley, however, UNOS aims to fly organ-bearing drones as far as 15 miles (24 km), in between hospitals for example, to allow for swift and safe delivery to waiting patients. The drone collaboration was created to "explore faster, more reliable ways to transport donor organs using advanced aviation technologies", according to space agency materials published in April.

Drones may have a better ability than larger aircraft to navigate ground logistics or maneuver in dense or hard-to-reach delivery areas. What's more, drones might be able to do so faster than aircraft, which is crucial: organs can only last so long during transportation.

The test used additional radios on the drones intended to allow pilots to keep an eye on the drones even while out of sight. "What that means, more or less, is we're going to have the pilot in command be about a mile away inside of a control room," Kyle Smalling, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley, told WAVY.com.

Smalling added that this test met Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements and took place on a NASA Langley flight range known as the City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation or CERTAIN, presumably for additional safety.

The flown kidney will eventually be assessed for "factors such as temperature stability and potential tissue damage caused by a lack of blood flow," NASA officials wrote in April about the June 5 flight test.

Beyond that, agency officials said they are hoping to explore "operational feasibility and scalability" for flying drones to patients as a "last-mile service" from a long-distance delivery, sort of in a similar way to how Amazon may be bringing packages to doors after initial shipment by truck.

"This is a chance to apply NASA Langley technology to a real-world problem that can save people's lives who are waiting for transplants," John Koelling, director of Langley's aeronautics research directorate, said in the statement.

"There's nothing more rewarding than seeing your technical work have a positive impact on people's lives."

If you've been looking for a good time to take the leap into the drone world, the 30% discount on this sub-250 g beginner drone might be enough to tempt you.

Before the release of the DJI Neo 2, we ranked the DJI Neo as the best DJI drone for simplicity. Our drone expert, James Abbott, gave it four out of five stars in his hands-on DJI Neo review, noting that not only is it a lot of fun to operate, but it also makes drone flight as simple or as complicated as you would like, thanks to the multiple control options.

Get the DJI Neo drone on sale for one more day at Amazon for $139.

Because the DJI Neo is sub-250g, you don't have to worry about registering it under the current drone regulations. At this price, you can't go wrong, even if you're a seasoned drone pilot looking for a backup or just something that tracks you and your adventures autonomously.

• Check out our Amazon Prime Day hub, where we bring you the best deals of Prime Day 2026, including early Prime Day deals.
• We've also got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

For $140, you get nearly everything you need to get flying: a charger, a screwdriver and spare propellers.

You fly the drone using the DJI Fly app on your mobile phone, but, luckily for beginners (or anxious pilots), you don't worry about losing it. On top of its return-to-home capability, you can instruct it to fly in pre-programmed patterns or even track you autonomously as you go about your business for a fairly generous 18-minute flight time.

You can capture 4K video in 30FPS of your adventures, and a 12MP 1/2-inch sensor will capture snaps of whatever you see from above.

You will see from our best drone guide that DJI is one of the leading names in the drone industry. $139 from Amazon is a really good price considering its capabilities and overall ease of use.

This deal is still live for Amazon Prime Day 2026. Prime Day ends June 26, and we're not sure if this discount will last beyond that. We expect it to increase back to $170, if not to full price.

We have all the best deals on drones, technology, and skywatching gear in our Prime Day hub, which will be regularly updated by our deal-hunting experts through this evening.

Key features: Up to 18 minutes flight time, 4.76 oz / 135 g weight, video capture up to 4K 30FPS / FHD 60FPS, 117.6-degree FOV

Product launched: September 2024

Price history: $139 is the cheapest we have seen this drone for. before deopping to $139, it was on offer. Given that the Neo 2 is out now, when the DJI Neo is gone, it's gone.

Price comparison: Amazon: $139

Reviews consensus: In our DJI Neo review, our expert awarded it four stars, singling out its simplicity as a highlight. Its 4000+ Amazon reviews are even more positive, with purchasers praising its sheer ease of use, value for money and video quality.

TechRadar: ★★★★ | Space: ★★★★ | Toms Guide: ★★★★½

Featured in guides: Best DJI drones

✅ Buy it if: You're new to flying drones and want something that is quick to get to grips with.

❌ Don't buy it if: You want to record hours of video, since it doesn't have a MicroSD slot. For that, consider the DJI Mini 4K.

DJI and Amazon really are knocking it out of the park with their Prime Day Deals. The DJI Neo is superb value right now, but for just $256 you can net the superior DJI Mini 4K, which our expert said "Offers everything you could possibly need in a drone while providing ease of use and reliability."

Get the DJI Mini 4K on sale right now at Amazon for $256.

DJI is one of the most trusted and acclaimed, drone manufacturers, and the DJI Mini 4K is another gem, appearing in our best drones, best beginner drones, and best camera drones guides. It's so beginner friendly, handling well in high winds, and captures 12MP photos in RAW and JPEG formats and 4K video in 30FPS. This bundle includes an additional battery and case, adding extra value to already great deal. There's also a Fly More Combo bundle which includes a three batteries and a battery charger.

• Check out our Amazon Prime Day hub, where we bring you the best deals of Prime Day 2026, including early Prime Day deals.
• We've also got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

This DJI Mini 4K is an amazing deal if you're new to drone flying or are just looking for a hobby drone to complement a top-tier model. In his review of the DJI Mini 4K, expert James Abbott awarded it a fantastic five stars, praising virtually every aspect of this drone.

With a 1/2.3-inch 12MP CMOS sensor and support for 4K/30fps (or 60fps at 1080p) video capture, you'll get brilliant birds-eye views of the world, and you can even use pre-programmed flight patterns for hands-free video capture.

Of course, you can also assume direct control and, by clipping your phone to the included remote, you'll see exactly what the drone sees. While there is no collision avoidance or follow-me subject tracking, it handles wind well and its return to home feature means it won't just plummet to earth when its battery gets low.

With two batteries included, you can fly for up to an hour and you also get a case for extra portability. This drone punches above its price tag at full price, but at $256, this is an unmissable deal.

Key features: 8.7 oz / 249 g weight, 7 x 5.55 x 5.47 inches / 178 x 141 x 139 mm size unfolded, 62 min flight time total (2 batteries), video up to 4K at 30FPS, photos up to 48MP

Product launched: April 2024

Price history: This is the absolute lowest we've seen this drone at, and with an extra battery included, it's a complete steal.

Price comparison: Amazon: $256 | Best Buy: $445 | Walmart: $499

Reviews consensus: Reviewing the DJI Mini 4K, our expert gave it an amazing five stars, praising its performance, ease of use and value for money. He remarked that, for beginners, it "offers everything you could possibly need in a drone while providing ease of use and reliability." Its Amazon reviews are similarly effusive.

TechRadar: ★★★★½ | Space: ★★★★★ | Digital Camera World: ★★★★★

Featured in guides: Best drones, best beginner drones, best camera drones, best DJI drones

✅ Buy it if: You're a beginner (or buying for one) and want to make the most of your money.

❌ Don't buy it if: You need a drone with follow-me subject tracking. Instead, consider the DJI Neo, which is also on sale for Prime Day.

Looking for a superb Prime Day Deal?
This DJI Neo drone was a good deal at $30 off, but now you can now save $60 on this beginner-friendly drone. That's double the discount!

Get the DJI Neo drone on sale right now at Amazon for $139.

It's easy to transport and, thanks to its sub-250g, you don't have to worry about registering it under the current drone regulations.

In our DJI Neo review, our expert James Abbott awarded it four stars, calling it "incredibly easy to use and fun." And, prior to the release of the DJI Neo 2, we ranked it as the best DJI drone for simplicity. At this price, you can't go wrong!

• Check out our Amazon Prime Day hub, where we bring you the best deals of Prime Day 2026, including early Prime Day deals.
• We've also got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

If you're a beginner, you'll be in high-flying heaven with the DJI Neo. For $170, you get nearly everything you need to get flying: a charger, a screwdriver and spare propellers.

You fly it via the DJI Fly app on your mobile phone, though you don't have to be super-attentive for fear of losing it; aside from its return to home facility, you can instruct it to fly in patterns or even track you (not as sinister as it sounds, I promise).

With an 18-minute flight time, it can capture 4K video in 30PS and a 12MP 1/2-inch sensor will capture snaps of whatever you see from above.

DJI is one of the leading names in the drone industry, and its products appear regularly in our best drone guide. At $169 from Amazon, this drone is a steal considering its capabilities and overall ease of use. This deal is already live ahead of Amazon Prime Day 2026, which starts tomorrow and runs until June 26. We have all the best deals across drones, technology and skywatching gear on our Prime Day hub, so stay tuned there for low prices.

Key features: Up to 18 minutes flight time, 4.76 oz / 135 g weight, video capture up to 4K 30FPS / FHD 60FPS, 117.6-degree FOV

Product launched: Sept 2024

Price history: We saw the DJI Neo drop to $159, but this is still an excellent deal. And, given the Neo 2 is out, when it's gone, it's gone.

Price comparison: Amazon: $169

Reviews consensus: In our DJI Neo review, our expert awarded it four stars, singling out its ease of use as a major plus. Its Amazon reviews are even more positive, with purchasers praising its sheer value.

TechRadar: ★★★★ | Space: ★★★★ | Toms Guide: ★★★★½

Featured in guides: Best DJI drones

✅ Buy it if: You're a beginner after a budget-friendly drone that's easy to fly.

❌ Don't buy it if: You're going to record hour upon hour of video, since it doesn't have a MicroSD slot. Consider the DJI Mini 4K instead.

Going online can be a hazardous activity; like the inhabitants of Silo's bunkers, you're never quite sure what's out there. That's where ProtonVPN comes in and, thanks to this deal, you can save over £130 on a VPN we rank as the best for privacy.

Save up to 70% on two years of ProtonVPN Plus and stream anywhere with this hacker-busting deal.

On top of fending off hackers, blocking adverts, and generally protecting your privacy, ProtonVPN's service allows you to access your paid streaming service, Apple TV, for example, from anywhere.

Let's say that you're called away on business this July 3, the precise day Silo Season 3's first episode is dropping. You're itching to find out the fates of Juliette and Bernard but you're far from home. Just fire up ProtonVPN and you'll find out who, if anyone, ended up extra crispy.

Read on and find out why else you should take advantage of this ProtonVPN deal.

• Check out our Prime Day hub, where we bring you the best deals of Prime Day 2026, including early Prime Day deals.
• We've also got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

If you've spent any amount of time online, whether browsing or part of your job, you'll know that the internet is full of hazards, from phishing to bots and beyond.

A VPN essentially puts you behind a wall, hiding your actual location from hackers and identity thieves. It also allows you to 'spoof' your location, accessing the best streaming services even if you're on the go.

This deal is for ProtonVPN Plus, which allows you to browse securely, protecting up to ten devices at once. It crushes malware, offers super-fast streaming, and boasts 20,000+ servers across 140+ countries.

On top of that, you get encrypted cloud storage, a password manager and more. If you want to stream and surf safely, you really can't go wrong.

Key features: ProtonVPN Plus includes ad-blocking, anti-malware measures, fast streaming and up to ten devices supported.

Price history: We've seen ProtonVPN drop to this price during Black Friday but that's a long time to wait if you miss out this deal. .

Featured in guides: Best VPN services

✅ Buy it if: You want to stay safe online and stream your favorite shows wherever you are.

❌ Don't buy it if: You already have a VPN because, great as ProtonVPN is, you don't need two.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

Ahead of Prime Day 2026, which runs from 23-26 June, Amazon has dropped the Nikon Z fc mirrorless camera to its lowest price of the year. It's available for $856.95, reduced by $100 from its usual $956.95 MSRP.

Get the Nikon Z fc camera on sale right now for $856.95 at Amazon.

In our Nikon Z fc camera review, our expert tester Jacob Little awarded it 4.5/ star rating. Although it wouldn't be the first choice among the best cameras for astrophotography, the Nikon, with its APS-C sensor rather than a full-frame sensor, is still a highly capable camera for capturing the night sky, star trails, and the Milky Way when paired with the best astrophotography lenses.

The Nikon Z fc holds the title as the top choice as a budget camera in our best cameras 2026 buying guide, and is best overall in our beginner cameras buying advice, and with stiff competition from the likes of Canon and Fuji, it makes the Z fc a very attractive buy with this discounted Nikon deal on Amazon.

This camera deal is marked as a limited-time offer on Amazon, and is likely to be popular, considering it's the lowest price of the year. There's no indication of when it actually ends, and going by previous deals, it could be anytime, so we'd say grab it while you can.

Amazon also has the Nikon Z fc with a 16-50mm lens, discounted to $996.95, from $1,999.95. That's a 17% saving, and is ideal for beginners wishing to hit the ground running with an included all-rounder lens.

• We've got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

We highly rated the Nikon Z fc, and for me, as a fan of retro-looking cameras, it's safe to say Nikon has delivered here. From the 'Nikon' branding on the front to the shutter setting and exposure control dials on top, the Z fc just oozes that vintage look, and it adds to the appeal of the camera.

However, the look is the only yesteryear feature here; the Z fc is packed with mirrorless camera technology, and its APS-C sensor delivered an impressive dynamic range and performed well in various lighting scenarios.

We reckoned the Z fc hits the sweet spot between high-quality image output and a budget-friendly body size. It's compact and lightweight, and although it might not be the first choice for astrophotography, it's capable enough, and its overall versatility means it's suitable for just about everything from travel photography to capturing the latest SpaceX launch.

Our tester Jacob Little summed up the camera by saying: "The Nikon Z fc is an impressive bit of design and a gorgeous camera to look at and use. On the inside, it's capable and easy to get to grips with for most casual users."

Key features: Mirrorless, APS-C CMOS, 20.9MP, up to 11FPS burst shooting, 4K Ultra HD video at 30p, 25p or 24p, Nikon Z and F Mount lenses, 1 xSD/SDHC/SDXC (UHS-I), 100-51,200 (expanded 50-204,800) ISO range, 0.85 lb (390g) weight, 3-inch fully-articulating, 3.04M touchscreen.

Launched: July 2021

Price history: Before today's Amazon camera deal, the best price this year on Amazon has been $956.95. The launch price of the Nikon Z fc was $960, and that price has held fairly steady ever since. It makes this price a significant $100 off on a rarely discounted Nikon camera

Price comparison: Amazon: $856.95 | Adorama: $856.95 | Walmart: $996.95

Reviews consensus: There is no doubt that the Nikon Z fc is a powerhouse of a mirrorless camera that can deliver when it comes to astrophotography, but will also have you covered as a versatile all-rounder. We scored it a 4.5-star rating, and Amazon reviews are on par with ours, with an average 4.4 out of 5, and over 75% of global ratings are 5-star.

Space: ★★★★½ | Techradar: ★★★★½

Featured in guides: Best cameras, best beginner cameras, best Nikon cameras

✅ Buy it if: You want a camera with a gorgeous retro aesthetic, paired with functionality, design, and modern technology, at its best price this year.

❌ Don't buy it if: You're a more experienced photographer looking to upgrade. The big brother of the Z fc, the Nikon Z f has the same retro look, with a full-frame sensor upgrade. The Nikon Z f is discounted on Amazon by 7% to $2,046.95.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, Lego and much more.

Want stunning views of the night sky, without the awkward bulk of the best telescopes? That’s where these powerful all-weather Canon 18x50 IS binoculars come in. We think they’re the best image stabilized binoculars for magnification and thanks to this pre-Prime Day deal, they’re $100 off.

Get these Canon 18x50 IS binoculars for $1549 from B&H Photo

Canon’s gear features in our guides to the best cameras, best lenses and best binoculars, and the Canon 18x50 IS binos are well up to Canon's high standards.

In their Canon 18x50 IS binoculars review, our expert Jason Parnell-Brookes awarded them four stars, lavishing praise on their optics, image stabilization, ease of use and more. With their excellent low-light performance, they proved superb for stargazing.

Now's a great time to take advantage of this summer deal, too. June 16 sees Mercury shining alongside a sliver of the moon and at $100 off, these Canon 18x50 IS binoculars are perfect for bringing this conjunction into beautiful focus. The good news is this deal is from B&H, so if you want to avoid spending with Amazon on Prime Day, this is a great option.

• We've got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

Earning four stars in our Canon 18x50 IS binoculars review, these image-stabilizing binoculars boast superb image quality. The 50mm object lenses admit plenty of light and the 18x magnification brings the cosmos closer than some telescopes.

Their image quality is further enhanced by the inclusion of Canon’s proprietary UD (ultra-low dispersion) lens elements and Super Spectra coating.

A little over 1 kg, these porro prism binoculars are heavier than some and, correspondingly, harder to hold for long periods of time. However, the image stabilization eliminates the wobble that would otherwise creep in and ensures rock-solid viewing; our expert Jase found it preferable to attaching them to a tripod.

Their only real complaint was that, despite being advertised as all-weather, the Canon 18x50 IS binoculars are not strictly waterproof or fogproof (though they had zero issues with fogging during the test). Now, at $100 off, these are a superb investment for stargazers or nature-watchers.

Key features: 18x magnification, 50mm objective lens diameter, 3.7 degrees angular field of view, 15mm eye relief, 41.6 oz (1.18 kg) weight

Price history: These binos dropped to $1155 last Cyber Monday but $100 off is still a respectable saving. They're currently also the same price at Adorama and Best Buy.

Price comparison: BHPhotoVideo: $1549 | Adorama: $1549 | Best Buy: $1549

Reviews consensus: We praised virtually every aspect of these binoculars in our Canon 18x50 IS binoculars review, from magnification to image stabilization to ease of use. The reviews from purchasers are just as positive.

Space: ★★★★ | Live Science: ★★★★½

✅ Buy it if: You’re a stargazer after a pair of powerful image-stabilized binoculars that offer superb image quality coupled with excellent magnification.

❌ Don't buy it if: You’re on a tight budget and don’t need IS. Instead, consider these Celestron SkyMaster Pro 20x80 binoculars, which offer excellent image quality for much less money

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, Lego and much more.

Norton is renowned for providing industry-leading antivirus and security software. The US brand's VPN service is recommended as one of the best VPN services and also one of the most improved VPN providers of 2026 by our tech expert colleagues at TechRadar.

Norton VPN scored an impressive 4 out of 5-star rating, with its speeds, ease of use, and straightforward app being some of its review features. Norton has just dropped discounts across its three VPN plans, and you can save up to 70% or $192 when you sign up for a two-year plan.

Get up to 70% off when you sign up for a Norton VPN two-year plan at Norton.

As well as providing a host of online security features, a VPN allows you to view all your space and sci-fi streaming shows and movies from anywhere in the world.

There is a load of exciting sci-fi series coming in the next few months, including Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4, which is scheduled to premiere globally on Paramount+ on Thursday, July 23, 2026.

The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise — led by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) — is set to embark on another season of thrilling and emotional adventures across the stars. Rebecca Romijn, who plays Commander Una Chin-Riley in the acclaimed sci-fi series, recently told fans, "We're so proud of this Strange New Worlds, and we're really proud of season 4; we think it's our best season yet."

• We've got you covered with reviews and rankings of the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

A VPN is a solution to geo-blocking when it comes to viewing your streaming services. Assuming it complies with your broadcaster’s T&Cs, you can use a VPN to unblock the streaming services you're subscribed to and allow for uninterrupted viewing from any location.

Norton not only unlocks streaming geo-restrictions but also comes with added security benefits, which are particularly useful when overseas and connecting to unknown Wi-Fi connections. It offers ad blockers, anti-malware protection, a password manager and breach scanner, fast connections, and identity theft insurance. It means you can view and download content, work, and generally be online anywhere in the world with confidence.

These Norton deals are live now, running from June 11-24 inclusive, with prices and offers varying depending on the plan chosen and your location.

Key features: Up to 70% discount, high-speed VPN, ad and tracker blocker, anti-malware protection, password manager, data-breach scanner and cloud backup.

Price history: Before today's deal, the price of the popular "Plus" plan was $199.98. It's now 70% off and takes it down to just $59.76, or $2.49 for a two-year plan.

✅ Buy it if: You're looking for maximum online security, and you want to stream all your favorite shows anywhere in the world.

❌ Don't buy it if: Either you already have a VPN, or you're not in the market for one. Those are the only reasons you wouldn't make the most of this excellent value offer.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

It's hard to fit everything on a small satellite, especially the fuel, but a new propulsion system could make it easier.

Instead of having separate fuel for chemical thrusters and electrical thrusters, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study suggests that a single propellant can power both kinds of systems. And this idea will get an in-space test soon, if all goes according to plan.

"If you can have chemical and electrical propulsion in one small package, it's the best of both worlds," Amelia Bruno, a former postdoctoral student at MIT who led the new study, said in a university statement on Monday (June 1). "This opens the door for small satellites to do even more science, more observations, and more interesting missions, all on a smaller and cheaper platform."

The study borrows from fuel research by the U.S. Air Force, and it was partially funded by NASA. The space agency's Green Propulsion Dual Mode cubesat spacecraft will launch no earlier than November to see if the propulsion system and monopropellant, already tested on the ground, also works well in space.

The mission to low Earth-orbit will serve as a valuable demo, the agency stated, for missions that go much farther from our planet — to places such as Mars, the eventual destination for human missions under NASA policy.

"NASA is looking to expand deeper into space to support future agency objectives. Major drivers for these activities include researching and developing new and advanced propulsion systems and capabilities," agency officials wrote of the cubesat mission, which last year was expected to launch in October 2025, according to a SpaceNews report.

The green monopropellant the mission is using, tested in a new MIT study in the Journal of Propulsion and Power, builds upon previous Air Force research. The propellant is called ASCENT, or Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non-Toxic Propellant. The fuel is marketed as greener, or less toxic, than the usual high-efficiency hydrazine that is perfect for making big maneuvers in space but is dangerous to handle. It's also been tested in space before, during NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission in 2019-20 (when the fuel was called AF-M315E; it has since been renamed, according to the Air Force Research Laboratory, which developed it).

What's more, ASCENT — despite being originally envisioned for chemical thrusters that use fuel quickly, during big space moves like orbital insertions — may also be suitable for electrospray thrusters. These thrusters are designed to make smaller, long-term adjustments to a spacecraft's trajectory. The tiny (thumbnail- to dime-sized) thrusters use an electric field to accelerate particles of liquid propellant. The acceleration fires the propellant into space as a spray (hence the name).

The new MIT study appears to show that one fuel could serve different spacecraft needs. Engineers tested how well electrospray thrusters on the ground performed with ASCENT, using a model cubesat set on a testbed that magnetically suspended a device in a vacuum chamber, simulating the free-floating environment of space. The team tried out different voltage levels on the thrusters and examined the spray's ability to maneuver and spin the cubesat.

"Compared to our normal electrospray propellants, ASCENT can provide similar performance in terms of thrust," Bruno said. "Now that we know our thrusters work with ASCENT, we can start thinking of all the ways we can make them even better."

While NASA's focus is on distant destinations, ASCENT could also be repurposed for missions closer to home. Small satellites, for example, could make use of the propellant to save fuel during Earth-observing missions, especially when they're tasked to pivot for a fast-moving weather event.

"Say there's a storm coming, and you'd want to deploy your constellation of small satellites to observe over one location," study co-author Paulo Lozano, director of MIT's space propulsion laboratory, said in the same statement. "You could choose to send them quickly, or slowly, depending on the nature of the observation. And the only way to do that is if you have two propulsion systems, which is now possible."

NASA's X-59 jet has finally gone supersonic.

The X-59, a long-nosed demonstrator designed to help develop the tech required for "quiet" supersonic flight, notched the milestone on Friday (June 5), more than six months after getting off the ground for the first time.

"The X-59’s first supersonic flight is a testament to America's enduring leadership in science, engineering and aerospace innovation," Michael Kratsios, assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a statement on Friday.

Friday's flight began and ended at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The X-59, with NASA test pilot Jim "Clue" Less at the yoke, took off at 2:08 p.m. EDT (1808 GMT; 11:08 a.m. local California time) and touched down 81 minutes later.

Less took the jet to a maximum altitude of 43,400 feet (13,228 meters) and a top speed of 713 mph (1,147 kph). That works out to about Mach 1.1, or 1.1 times faster than the speed of sound, NASA officials said in the statement. (The speed of sound varies with temperature, as sound waves move faster in warmer air. At sea level, where the air is relatively warm, Mach 1 is about 761 mph, or 1,225 kph.)

X-59 team members won't rest on their laurels, however. In just a few days, they plan to send the plane on its first "mission conditions" flight — one that reaches a top speed of Mach 1.4 and an altitude of about 55,000 feet (16,764 m).

"This speed and altitude are the base conditions for the X-59 when it will eventually fly over several U.S. communities, enabling NASA to gather data about how people may perceive its quiet thump," NASA officials wrote in the same statement.

"NASA will share this data with U.S. and international regulators to help establish new data-driven noise standards to enable a future viable market for supersonic commercial flight over land," they added.

That market dried up in 1973, when the Federal Aviation Administration banned such flights to protect people and property from loud sonic booms.

The X-59, the centerpiece of NASA's Quesst ("Quiet Supersonic Technology") program, is designed to generate mild thumps rather than clapping booms. If all goes to plan, the work it's doing now could help bring widespread supersonic flight back to the U.S.

The X-59, which was built by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, has been quite active in the past few months, building up more and more flight hours.

"Since the aircraft’s first flight on Oct. 28, 2025, the team has made tremendous progress, flying 16 times in the last 90 days and getting into a steady test rhythm," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in the same statement. "I'm grateful to the NASA team and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works for their help getting us to this point, and I hope this is the first of many collaborations as we rebuild NASA’s X-plane portfolio."

The Celestron NexStar 8SE is the largest in the range of the best-selling NexStar telescopes. It's hailed by Celestron as the 'world's most beloved telescope', and it tops many of our buying advice on the best telescopes, including the top-overall choice as the best telescopes for deep space and the best telescopes for seeing planets guides.

The unmistakable orange-colored Celestron NexStar 8SE is without doubt a brilliantly performing telescope, and such performance is rarely discounted. It makes this Amazon telescope deal one to highlight. The Celestron NexStar 8SE has $200 off and is down to $1,499, its lowest price of the year. Even with Amazon Prime Day coming in June, we think it's unlikely to go any lower.

Save $200 on the Celestron NexStar 8SE, its best price of the year at Amazon.

In our review, our expert tester Jase Parnell-Brookes awarded it an impressive 4.5 out of 5-star score. Although they noted it comes in with an MSRP that might put new stargazers off, Jase reckoned it was a worthy investment and a fantastic scope. It's not only suitable for a beginner but has plenty to offer the intermediate or advanced sky watcher.

Amazon has the NexStar 8SE marked as limited stock and at this price it could sell out fast. However, Walmart is price-matching the Amazon deal along with Adorama, should you wish to purchase your it elsewhere.

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Considering Parnell-Brookes reviewed the NexStar 8SE telescope at full MSRP, this Amazon deal is well worth consideration because you not only get one of the best-looking telescopes but with its high-quality Schmidt-Cassegrain optics, you get beautifully clear views of the night sky. It's ideal for viewing both planets and distant objects like galaxies, nebulas and star clusters. Plus, it lets in 78% more light than its NexStar 6SE sibling thanks to its large 8-inch aperture.

Although for a beginner it is a considerable investment, it suits all abilities. Features like the motorized single fork arm and handheld remote control functionality mean it's easy to set up and start stargazing even for those unfamiliar with the night sky.

Parnell-Brookes also noted the smoothness of the motor, and with the help of the Celestron SkyAlign app, you can align the scope using three bright stars and enjoy automated viewing almost instantly in your stargazing journey.

Smaller aperture versions are available at 4, 5 and 6 inches with graduating costs. Of course, the smaller you go, the less light captured, thus making your views less awe-inspiring with each drop in aperture.

Key features: 8-inch (203.2mm) aperture, 80-inch (2032mm) focal length, f/10 focal ratio, 180x highest useful magnification, 32 lbs (14.48 kg) weight, two-year warranty.

Launched: June 2005

Price history: Before today's telescope deal, the best price we've seen on the Celestron NexStar 8 SE telescope was $1,299 during the Black Friday sales of 2024. The MSRP is $1,699, which makes the current on-sale price of $1,499 a significant saving on what is a seldom-discounted model.

Price comparison: Amazon: $1,499 | Adorama: $1,499 | Walmart: $1,499

Reviews consensus: There is no doubt that the Celestron NexStar 8 SE is a fantastic telescope; it pairs Celestron’s legendary orange tube with a fully computerized GoTo system—ideal for those ready to step up from manual scopes and explore more of the night sky with precision and ease.

Space: ★★★★½ | Live Science: ★★★★½

Featured in guides: Best telescopes, Best telescopes for deep space, Best telescopes for seeing planets

✅ Buy it if: You want to view deep space objects and planets, whether you're a beginner or advanced sky watcher. The automated motorized function means this telescope can be used by anyone with any level of experience and knowledge.

❌ Don't buy it if: You are seeking a more budget-friendly option. One of our recommended best budget telescopes might be more suitable, or even one of the best telescopes for beginners.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, Lego and much more.

NASA's X-59 jet is on the verge of finally breaking the sound barrier.

The X-59 is a supersonic aircraft designed with a radical elongated geometry that aims to reduce the volume of the sonic booms it can create when breaking the sound barrier. NASA's goal with the X-59 is to help develop "quiet" supersonic technologies that could lead to aircraft designs that minimize the impact of sonic booms on the ground below, which could potentially enable current restrictions on supersonic flight to be lifted.

After making its first test flight in October 2025 and going on 14 test flights since March 2026, the X-59 is finally ready to take on its first supersonic flight sometime this month, NASA says. According to the agency, the aircraft will reach Mach 1.4 (925 miles per hour or 1,489 kilometers per hour) at approximately 55,000 feet (16.7 kilometers). "What comes next is the first time this one-of-a-kind aircraft will fly supersonic," said Cathy Bahm, project manager for NASA's Low Boom Flight Demonstrator. "Completing the first mission-conditions flight is especially meaningful — it's the moment where we begin validating the aircraft in the environment it was designed for," Bahm said in a statement.

NASA recently completed several key milestones in the X-59 testing program ahead of this first supersonic flight attempt. Just last month, the jet retracted its landing gear for the first time, revealing how the aircraft will look when in full flight.

The X-59 has also recently pushed its speed as high as Mach 0.95, or around 627 mph (1,009 km/h) and made its first pair of test flights in a single day. Engineers and technicians working on the program now have a much better understanding of the aircraft and its unique systems.

One of the most unique features of the X-59 is what's known as its eXternal Vision System, or XVS. Because the nose of the X-59 is so elongated, pilots wouldn't be able to see what's in front of the aircraft out of a forward windscreen  — if it even had one.

The X-59 was designed without a forward windscreen at all, and instead uses a series of cameras that feed into an augmented reality display. Through the XVS, X-59 pilots get a view of what's in front of the aircraft with its nose completely removed from the picture.

The X-59 has so far been flying under what NASA refers to as "Phase 1" of its test program, which was designed to gauge the initial performance of the aircraft at low speeds and make sure it's airworthy. NASA has also been validating test instruments to help measure shockwaves the X-59 produces.

After making its first supersonic flight in upcoming tests, NASA will begin Phase 2 of the X-59 test campaign some time later in 2026.

That phase will be key for NASA's overall goal for the mission: reducing the impact of the sonic boom that is perceived on the ground below the aircraft as it flies over at above the speed of sound.

Supersonic flight has been prohibited above land within a certain distance of the U.S. since 1973 due to how disruptive the thunderous sonic booms are to people on the ground. NASA hopes the technologies developed for the X-59 can enable supersonic flight restrictions to be lifted over the continental U.S., paving the way for commercial supersonic flight once again.

"As we look ahead to the upcoming flights, we're poised to open the envelope even further — moving boldly toward the mission test point this aircraft was built to achieve," Bahm said in NASA's statement. "Flying supersonic and reaching these milestones isn't just progress; it's the realization of years of perseverance, innovation, and teamwork. Each step brings us closer to Phase 2, and to the future of commercial supersonic flight."

Aside from NASA, several private companies including Colorado's Boom Supersonic are developing aircraft capable of quieter supersonic flight. Boom Supersonic made its first successful supersonic flight last year, becoming the first civil aircraft to go supersonic over the continental United States.

Commercial supersonic flight would enable much faster travel times and could be a major boon to disaster relief, medical transport and more.

A novel approach to scouting the sand dunes of Mars is the Valles Marineris Explorer - or VaMEx. VaMEx is a project of the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The goal of the initiative is to blueprint an autonomous, heterogeneous robot swarm for exploring Valles Marineris on Mars — heralded as the "Grand Canyon" on the Red Planet.

Valles Marineris is an enormous rift valley system on Mars that scientists want to scour for traces of liquid water, which may exist in sheltered niches and serve as an habitat for possible life. But the region is difficult to investigate due to its topography, which poses challenges for robotic surveying.

But the VaMEx team is exploring combinations of driving, walking, and flying systems to leverage what each concept brings to the table in terms of jointly investigating a large area with varied environmental characteristics. One unique approach the team is exploring is a Mars rover that is outfitted with inventive curved wheels, which, like the feet of a desert lizard, can "swim" through sand.

A University of Würzburg research group has picked up on the sandfish's way of locomotion, adopting and adapting that movement into a Mars rover that reportedly outperforms other ways of navigating across sand.

Collaborating with DLR researchers in Bremen, Germany, University of Würzburg specialists have designed rover wheels that imitate the sandfish mobility characteristics and interaction with the ground, generating both longitudinal and lateral forces. That movement leaves sinusoidal, or S-shaped tracks in the sand.

Bio-inspired

Mars machinery must cope with sand, gravel, slopes, and generally uneven terrain while maintaining their mobility, stability, and efficiency.

Marco Schmidt, a university computer scientist and head of the Chair of Embedded Systems and Sensors for Earth Observation (ESSEO), is leading the bio-inspired mobility research.

Schmidt's team tested the rover on sand and in open terrain, working with the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in Bremen and the University of Bremen.

The results showed that the vehicle moves stably on sand, however, the experiments also spotlighted clear indications for improvements, Schmidt says.

The sandfish locomotion idea has been adopted from Scincus scincus, a lizard found in the Sahara desert that is able to burrow and then literally "swim" through the desert sand to hunt or escape predators.

Mobility solutions

Work on the mobility technique is ongoing at the university, with further refinements predicted to improve performance on mixed terrain. The ESSEO team aims to expand its contribution to VaMEx towards software-driven mobility.

Research plans also call for development of control strategies that explicitly take into account slippage, sinking and the interaction between terrain and wheel. An outcome would be more stable and adaptable behavior of the rover in granular environments.

"Creating mobility solutions that can reliably and efficiently drive across vast dune fields on Mars, not just in Valles Marineris, but across the planet, is key for future Mars exploration, both robotic and crewed," adds Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute, Mars Institute, Ceres Robotics, and NASA Ames Research Center, who is not associated with this study.

"This bio-inspired technology development is both innovative and intriguing," Lee told Space.com.

For details on the DLR's work on rovers, crawlers & drones on Mars — the Valles Marineris Explorer project, visit the project's website.