Month: January 2024

A new Chinese rocket just blasted its way into the record books.

The Gravity-1 vehicle, built by Chinese company Orienspace, lifted off for the first time ever Thursday (Jan. 11). The squat, burly rocket rose off the deck of a ship stationed in the Yellow Sea at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT), sending two big plumes of exhaust, and some impressively large pieces of debris, into a blue sky.

Gravity-1 deployed its payloads — three Yunyao-1 commercial weather satellites — into their planned orbit, according to Orienspace, which declared the debut launch a success. 

Gravity-1 can haul about 14,300 pounds (6,500 kilograms) of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), SpaceNews’ Andrew Jones reported. Today’s liftoff made it the most powerful Chinese commercial rocket, as well as the most powerful solid-fueled launcher, ever to ace an orbital mission.

Related: China’s Long March rocket family: History and photos

Gravity-1 will be just one of the rockets in Orienspace’s stable, if all goes according to plan. 

The company is also developing a vehicle called Gravity-2, which will feature a liquid-fueled core stage and solid rocket boosters. Orienspace is targeting a 2025 debut for Gravity-2, which will likely be capable of lofting 25.6 tons to LEO, according to Jones. 

Then there’s Gravity-3, which will combine three Gravity-2 core stages, much as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy features three strapped-together Falcon 9 boosters, Jones wrote. Gravity-3’s payload capacity to LEO is projected to be about 30.6 tons.

For comparison: The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy can haul about 25 tons and 70 tons to LEO, respectively, according to their SpaceX specifications pages.

Today’s Galaxy-1 launch was the fourth orbital mission of the year for China. The nation has ramped up its launch cadence to impressive levels recently, with the private sector playing an increasingly important role.

China launched 64 orbital missions in 2022, then broke that national record with 67 in 2023.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

eBay agreed to pay out a $3 million fine—the maximum criminal penalty—over a twisted scandal that saw top executives and other employees stalking a couple in Massachusetts who published a newsletter that criticized the company. The harassment campaign included online threats, sending employees to surveil the couple’s home, and mailing them disturbing objects—including live spiders and cockroaches, a bloody pig mask, and a book on recovering from the death of a spouse.

The Justice Department charged eBay with obstruction of justice, witness tampering, stalking through interstate travel, and stalking through online communication. eBay’s former security director James Baugh and former director of global resiliency David Harville are both serving jail time for their roles in the scheme.

The couple, Ina and David Steiner, published a statement on their website Thursday. “eBay’s actions against us had a damaging and permanent impact on us—emotionally, psychologically, physically, reputationally, and financially,” the Steiners wrote. “We strongly pushed federal prosecutors for further indictments to deter corporate executives and board members from creating a culture where stalking and harassment is tolerated or encouraged.”

The criminal activity seems to have started at the top of the company. In 2019, Ina Steiner published an article on the couple’s newsletter EcommerceBytes discussing a lawsuit eBay brought against Amazon. Half an hour later, eBay’s then-CEO Devin Wenig sent another executive a message saying: “If you are ever going to take her down…now is the time,” according to court documents. The message was forwarded to Baugh, who responded that Steiner was a “biased troll who needs to get BURNED DOWN.”

Wenig, who resigned later that year, denied any knowledge of the criminal activity and wasn’t charged with a crime. The Steiners are currently suing Wenig for his role in the campaign to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them.”

“We continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners for what they endured,” said Jamie Iannone, eBay’s current CEO, in a press statement. “Since these events occurred, new leaders have joined the company and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training. eBay remains committed to upholding high standards of conduct and ethics and to making things right with the Steiners.”

A total of seven eBay employees and contractors have been convicted for their involvement in stalking and harassing the Steiners, according to the Department of Justice. In addition to Baugh and Harville, the list includes Stephanie Popp and Philip Cooke, who were both sentenced to jail time in 2022. Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea were each sentenced to one year of home confinement that same year. Brian Gilbert pleaded guilty and is currently awaiting sentencing.

Taking your vehicle to the shop doesn’t look the same if it’s electric.

That’s what Hertz learned the hard way over the past year, citing a higher cost of repair and service as a factor in its decision to sell 20,000 electric cars, representing about a third of its EV fleet. 

Electric vehicles represent a small but quickly growing part of the US vehicle market. EVs accounted for about 9.8% of sales in December. And as they continue to gain traction, buyers have all sorts of questions, like what it’s like to drive and charge one. They also wonder what it means to service and maintain these vehicles — and how much that will cost them. 

EVs are different from gas-powered vehicles for a lot of reasons, not just for their lack of engines. They’re often referred to as computers on wheels. 

They don’t need oil changes. They don’t have spark plugs and generally have fewer moving parts. Tesla advertises its vehicles as "eliminating the need for service."

EVs require less service — but repairs could be costly

A lot of the parts of an EV are similar to those in a gas-powered car, like the suspension, brakes, and body. EV drivers must replace the wipers and wiper fluid, like in any gas-powered car, and rotate the tires. Where EVs differ most are the propulsion elements — and while EVs are generally long-lasting vehicles, eventually certain components may wear out or need repair. 

Electric cars "have a tendency to have a very long life in terms of vehicle miles traveled — maybe several hundreds of thousands of miles versus one hundred thousand miles," Bill Newman, head of auto at SAP North America, told Insider. 

"The frequency of repairs may go down," he said. "But the costs for repair will go up." 

A Kelley Blue Book assessment of the total cost to own an EV versus an internal-combustion engine vehicle estimated EV maintenance costs of $4,246 on average over five years of ownership, lower than the $4,583 estimate for gas-powered cars. 

But it estimated EVs have slightly higher repair costs — about $1,712 on average — compared to $1,695 average repair costs for gas-powered vehicles.

"EVs don’t require as much maintenance — meaning fluids and filters — but EVs are going to require high-ticket repairs," Quin Garcia, managing director at VC firm AutoTech Ventures, said. 

What else EV-buyers can expect

EV tires are different from those on gas-powered vehicles. In general, EV tires must be able to handle heavy loads (largely due to the battery), faster initial acceleration, and even noise reduction. The weight and near-instant torque of EVs means higher tire wear, which could mean they need to be replaced more often.  

There doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus on how EV batteries age and whether they’ll need replacing. It’s not likely they will for their first owner, but once an EV makes its way to the used market, variables like the battery’s health and state of charge will be important to determine whether a second or third owner can expect a hefty replacement cost. This may shift as battery tech improves and production scales.

On the plus side, you might not have to replace your brakes on an EV, as wear is reduced with regenerative braking. 

What it means for car dealers

Dealers have been assessing just how much of an impact that potentially less frequent vehicle service will have on their bottom lines. After-sales service is a huge part of their business. 

"We all think that after-sales service is going to be a profit center in the future," Garcia said. "How do dealers navigate that thin line between focusing on after-sales, but also navigating EVs not requiring as much after-sales service?"

British researchers have tested a prototype self-eating rocket that could pave the way for cheaper launches of small satellites and would leave no debris behind. 

The concept rocket engine, called Ouroborous-3 after the ancient mythical creature that eats its own tail, was developed by a team of researchers at the University of Glasgow in the U.K. 

In the video, the rocket engine is seen gradually burning up like a candle until the final section suddenly collapses when the rocket runs out of fuel.

Related: Firefly Aerospace’s new rocket engine spouts green flames in 1st ‘hot fire’ test (photo)

The concept, originally proposed in the 1930s, was shown to be feasible in previous studies done in cooperation between the Glasgow team and researchers at the Dnipro National University in Ukraine. Since then, however, the teams have gone their separate ways. The Ukrainian development has spun out a company called Promin Aerospace, which has tested its own self-eating concept rocket in a lab and is currently looking for funding.

The rocket made by the Glasgow team burns gaseous oxygen and liquid propane in its engine. As the engine heats up, it melts the rocket’s supporting structure made of a plastic tube and burns it too. By burning this plastic, the rocket gains an additional 5 to 16 percent of fuel. As a result, the rocket can be lighter when it launches and have more room for payloads.

"A conventional rocket’s structure makes up between five and 12 percent of its total mass," Professor Patrick Harkness, of the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering, who led the development of the Ourouboros-3 self-eating engine, said in an email statement. "Our tests show that the Ouroborous-3 can burn a very similar amount of its own structural mass as propellant. If we could make at least some of that mass available for payload instead, it would be a compelling prospect for future rocket designs."

Since the rocket burns most of its structure, it doesn’t produce as much debris as other rockets. Standard rockets contain fuel in separate stages. When a stage runs out of fuel, it gets dropped and either falls back to Earth or remains in orbit and turns into orbital debris. 

The researcher said the self-eating technology could also enable the creation of very small rockets tailored for the smallest satellites, which currently have to piggyback on much larger missions. 

The researchers put the rocket through its paces at the Machrihanish Airbase in Scotland and demonstrated that it can be throttled, reignited and pulsed. During the tests, the rocket produced 100 newtons of thrust, and the researchers are already working on a more powerful successor. 

"Getting to this stage involved overcoming a lot of technical challenges but we’re delighted by the performance of the Ourouboros-3 in the lab," Krzysztof Bzdyk, a postgraduate researcher at the James Watt School of Engineering and corresponding author of the paper, said in the statement. "From here, we’ll begin to look at how we can scale up autophage propulsion systems to support the additional thrust required to make the design function as a rocket."

The team received £290,000 ($368,089) from the UK Space Agency and the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council to develop the rocket. 

The researchers presented the results of the latest round of experiments at the AIAA SciTech Forum in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday, Jan. 10.

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