Rocket Report: Nova moving through test campaign; SpaceX IPO launches Friday

Rocket Report: Nova moving through test campaign; SpaceX IPO launches Friday

fivenewscrypto    juin 13, 2026   

Welcome to Edition 8.45 of the Rocket Report! Even though we are now two weeks removed from the catastrophic loss of the New Glenn rocket and its LC-36A launch pad, it continues to dominate discussion in the space community. This week, NASA said it nominally plans to fly Blue Origin's test lander on New Glenn for the Artemis III mission, but officials quietly acknowledged that other launch vehicles, including Vulcan and the Falcon Heavy, could also get the job done. We'll obviously be watching closely.

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

Isar raises funding, announces new launch date. German launch startup Isar Aerospace announced this week that it had closed a 270 million euro Series D to "drive global scaling and ramp up serial production," European Spaceflight reports. The company also said the previously delayed second launch attempt of its Spectrum rocket would now take place sometime between June 15 and June 21.

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Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden try to fight censorship with bipartisan JAWBONE Act

Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden try to fight censorship with bipartisan JAWBONE Act

fivenewscrypto    juin 12, 2026   

US Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today introduced the JAWBONE Act, a proposed law that could fuel lawsuits against federal officials who try to coerce broadcasters or tech platforms into restricting speech.

The Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression Act would prohibit federal agencies and employees from coercing or trying to coerce broadcasters and providers of online services or AI services into changing content. The bill could apply to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr's repeated attempts to pressure TV networks and broadcasters, or government pressure imposed on social media firms and AI chatbot makers.

The bill would create a private right of action for victims of "jawboning," letting people recover compensatory damages in court. Individuals whose speech is stifled could bring cases against government officials, and the proposed law could be enforced by state attorneys general through civil actions.

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AcuRite admits new app falls short, delays old app’s May shutdown to fix problems

AcuRite admits new app falls short, delays old app’s May shutdown to fix problems

fivenewscrypto    juin 12, 2026   

Smart weather-monitoring device vendor AcuRite has delayed plans to force users onto a new companion app. The transition from My AcuRite to AcuRite NOW, which AcuRite previously set for May 30, “has raised serious questions and concerns among many long-time users,” AcuRite’s VP of product development, Jeff Bovee, told Ars Technica.

AcuRite, whose devices include weather stations, rain gauges, and indoor thermometers, told customers that it would shut down My AcuRite at the end of May. Devices owners would have to use AcuRite NOW, an iOS and Android app launched in June 2025, to control their gadgets instead.

Some long-time users lamented being forced to new software when the current software worked fine, if not better, than the new app. When Ars first reported on AcuRite in May, AcuRite NOW lacked some features of My AcuRite, including the ability to rename multiple temperature sensors, report temperatures in non-integers, as well as an online dashboard option. Users have also highlighted problems uploading data to weather sites and a poor layout with wasted space.

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After nearly breaking, NASA's Deep Space Network "worked well" on Artemis II

After nearly breaking, NASA's Deep Space Network "worked well" on Artemis II

fivenewscrypto    juin 12, 2026   

NASA pushed its Deep Space Network beyond its limits during the Artemis I mission nearly four years ago. The global array of deep space communications antennas couldn't keep up with the routine demands of 40 robotic science missions and the extraordinary surge required by NASA's Orion space capsule as it flew around the Moon.

The experience in late 2022 reduced or delayed downlinks from several high-profile science missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope and Mars rovers, as the data-hungry Artemis I mission took priority on NASA's communications network. And that was before the first Artemis mission with astronauts onboard. When Artemis II launched April 1, NASA called upon the Deep Space Network (DSN) again to connect Mission Control to the Orion capsule as it soared more than a quarter of a million miles from Earth.

With a crew of four flying inside the spacecraft, the agency's appetite for data from Orion on Artemis II was even higher than it was on Artemis I. But at a little more than nine days, the Artemis II mission was shorter than the 25 days Artemis I spent in space, helping alleviate the communications overload. Artemis I also launched 10 small CubeSats into deep space, many of which required tracking and telecom services from the DSN. Artemis II carried fewer CubeSats.

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F1 teams spend millions on their simulators—what makes them different?

F1 teams spend millions on their simulators—what makes them different?

fivenewscrypto    juin 12, 2026   

Among the ways Formula 1 has changed in the 21st century has been its adoption of driver-in-the-loop simulators. It all started in the early 2000s, probably at McLaren, maybe at Toyota or Ferrari; F1 teams are notoriously secretive about their performance advantages. Along the years, they've gotten more and more capable, but so too have high-end consumer sims like the multi-axis setups that cost tens of thousands of dollars. What is it that makes the multimillion-dollar simulators used in F1 that much more expensive, and that much better for the job?

For one thing, latency.

"There's this intimate link between the inputs that [a driver] provides to the car, the way the car responds, and then the driver immediately feels that and reacts to it. So this is a very dynamic closed loop involving the driver and the car," explained Ash Warne, founder and CTO of Dynisma Motion Generators, a UK-based simulator company that supplies Ferrari, Alpine, and soon Cadillac with DiL simulators that can cost as much as $10 million.

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"This cannot continue": Xbox leaders lay out "hard truths" behind sagging brand

"This cannot continue": Xbox leaders lay out "hard truths" behind sagging brand

fivenewscrypto    juin 12, 2026   

Just 100 days ago, when new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma replaced long-serving executive Phil Spencer, she said she'd work to "understand what makes [Xbox] work and protect it." Now, Sharma and Xbox Studios chief Matt Booty have laid out the many things that are not working for the Xbox brand in a brutal self-assessment the they say necessitates a wholesale "Xbox reset."

The message sent to Xbox employees and shared publicly via Xbox Wire last night paints a grim picture for practically every facet of the Xbox division. That portion of Microsoft is currently only seeing a "3 percent accountability margin" (read: profit margin), down year over year and well below both the game industry average and the lofty 30 percent margins that Microsoft is reportedly seeking across the board.

It's an underperformance, they write, born out of being "overextended" by moves like the $69 billion acquisition of Activision. That mega-merger came on top of $20 billion in spending on other acquisitions, platform investments, and hardware subsidies over the last five years, the executives write. But despite the spending spree, Microsoft's overall gaming revenues are down nearly $500 million compared to five years ago.

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Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

fivenewscrypto    juin 12, 2026   

Potentially impacting all AI search engines and chatbots known to poorly paraphrase source links, a German court has ruled that Google is liable for false statements in AI Overviews.

The preliminary ruling came in a case flagged by The Decoder, where two publishers found that Google's AI Overviews incorrectly linked them to scams and other sketchy business practices. After smearing publishers by making affirmative statements like "Yes, [it] is known for dubious business practices and is often perceived as a scam," Google failed to correct the misleading output, even after the publishers sent a cease-and-desist letter earlier this year.

Google tried the usual arguments to shield itself from liability for false statements in AI Overviews, such as arguing that most users understand that AI outputs aren't always accurate and must be verified.

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