What is a light-day? The milestone Voyager 1 is closing in on

NASA asks industry to rescue Hubble before it falls from orbit

“We owe it to the American taxpayer”: NASA asks companies how to save Hubble, as its Swift telescope falls to Earth.

Voyager 1 Briefly Goes Silent, Scaring Everyone

Voyager 1 went silent for more than 24 hours on October 18 and 19, and the team is still trying to figure out what happened. Diagnostic data collected after communications were restored showed a group of thrusters went offline, with backup units kicking in. This indicates the onboard computer detected some kind of anomaly, and whether it is a recurrence of previously observed clogged fuel lines will have to be investigated. It is currently unknown whether the blackout is related to a recent switch of multiple instruments to lower-power versions, which should give both spacecraft a few more years before power reserves fall below usable levels.

Tracks along the longest drive on another world

Written by Vandi Verma, Chief Engineer for Robotic Operations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Google Cloud and NASA: Testing robotic systems for deep space missions

Google Public Sector and NASA are building a proof-of-concept robotic system to assist astronauts on deep space missions, including Mars trips where round-trip communication delays can reach 44 minutes. The robot handles cargo and logistics and can switch to medical support tasks, like preparing an ultrasound machine. It uses the open-source Pi0 vision-language-action model from Physical Intelligence, which hit an 85% baseline success rate in a pick-and-place test at Johnson Space Center's iMETRO facility. Google Cloud G4 instances fine-tuned the 4-billion-parameter Pi0 model in 2.5 hours, and the team tested about 15 edge computing devices for low-power operation in space.

The Download: everyday AI harms and the race to nuclear spaceflight

Ukraine has regained high-speed Starlink and Starshield connectivity.

Starship’s engine failure could slow NASA’s plan to return to the moon

Sự cố động cơ Raptor trên chuyến bay quỹ đạo đầu tiên của Starship có thể làm chậm kế hoạch NASA đưa phi hành viên quay mặt trăng vào năm 2028. Nguyên nhân kỹ thuật là việc động cơ Raptor ngừng hoạt động trong quá trình bay thử nghiệm. Sự cố này ảnh hưởng trực tiếp đến tiến độ phát triển hệ thống đổ bộ mặt trăng (Human Landing System) của NASA. Bài viết cung cấp cái nhìn thực tế về rủi ro kỹ thuật trong các dự án hàng không vũ trụ quy mô lớn, nhấn mạnh tầm quan trọng của việc thử nghiệm kỹ lưỡng trước khi triển khai nhiệm vụ có người.

Hỏng động cơ Raptor trên chuyến bay đầu tiên của Starship có thể làm chậm kế hoạch của NASA đưa phi hành gia quay mặt trăng vào năm 2028.

Mars rovers give scientists a ground-level view of the red planet – peek inside their NASA control room

A NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory project scientist describes a day inside the Rover Operations Center directing the Curiosity rover on Mars. The piece walks through the daily seven-hour cycle of receiving overnight data, analyzing images, debating science targets among a global team, planning arm and drive maneuvers, and sending commands via the Deep Space Network. It also recaps Curiosity's scientific findings on Aeolis Mons, including ancient lake sediments, organic molecules, and newly discovered honeycomb-textured polygon rock surfaces that may indicate past water activity even in Mars' drier era.

Hackaday Links: November 1, 2026

This week's links roundup covers Hubble, folding iPhones, and a radiation-mapping site. NASA is again soliciting proposals to boost the Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit before it reenters the atmosphere around 2034. A similar $30 million commercial mission to reboost the Swift Observatory launched just nine months after contract signing, though it was ultimately unsuccessful. Separately, some iPhone Duo units are reportedly suffering tight hinges leading to cracked displays; Apple says only a small number of units are affected, but Internet sleuths believe the total may be in the thousands. iFixit's teardown suggests the folding mechanism may be jamming. The post also mentions Radiaverse, a site where users upload radiation readings from RadiaCode detectors to an interactive map, similar to WiGLE for WiFi.