Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

A California-based startup pulled off two hypersonic flights of its reusable aircraft, which became the first fully autonomous drone to reach Mach 5 speeds.

Stratolaunch’s Talon-A2 completed a series of test flights for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, part of a hypersonic testbed program that echoes Cold War-era efforts like the X-15, which retired in 1968. The hypersonic vehicle exceeded Mach 5 speeds during the tests that took place in December 2024 and March 2025, Stratolaunch revealed this week.

“We’ve now demonstrated hypersonic speed, added the complexity of a full runway landing with prompt payload recovery, and proven reusability,”  Zachary Krevor, president and CEO of Stratolaunch, said in a statement. The Talon-A prototype is an autonomous, reusable aircraft capable of flying at least five times the speed of sound. During its test flights, Roc—the largest airplane ever built—released the vehicle over the Pacific Ocean. Stratolaunch’s Roc took off with Talon-A1 tucked in its belly before the hypersonic vehicle conducted its own flight and landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

When it was founded in 2011, Stratolaunch intended to use Roc to launch Orbital ATK’s Pegasus XL rocket into space. Following its founder Paul Allen’s death in 2018, the company switched gears to focusing on developing, deploying, and flying hypersonic vehicles instead. In December 2021, Stratolaunch announced a contract with the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency to provide a testbed for developing defense strategies against hypersonic threats.

In March 2024, Talon-A1 launched for its first powered test flight, reaching hypersonic speeds that didn’t quite make it to Mach 5. Unlike Talon-A1, Stratolaunch’s latest prototype, Talon-A2 is fully reusable. The company is developing future versions of the Talon-A, which will be rocket-powered and capable of carrying customizable payloads at hypersonic speeds. Stratolaunch is also working on a larger hypersonic vehicle, dubbed Talon-Z, and a spaceplane nicknamed Black Ice, that would carry payloads—and possibly passengers—to Earth orbit.

Talon-A2’s recent flights mark the first hypersonic flights since the X-15 program conducted by the U.S. Air Force and NASA. The X-15 hypersonic aircraft were air-launched from a B-52 aircraft, and flew a total of 199 times over the span of 10 years. The program ended in the late 1960s due to a lack of funding and a shift of focus toward orbital missions.

The Department of Defense has shown a renewed interest in hypersonic vehicles as other nations like China and Russia are working on developing their own. The U.S. has never operated a reusable hypersonic vehicle, a capability that could significantly reduce costs. “Demonstrating the reuse of fully recoverable hypersonic test vehicles is an important milestone for MACH-TB,” George Rumford, director of the Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center, said in a statement. “Lessons learned from this test campaign will help us reduce vehicle turnaround time from months down to weeks.”

A new electric vehicle startup called Slate Auto unveiled its first vehicle at a splashy event on Thursday, and the company is coming out of the gates with a pickup truck that is everything Tesla’s Cybertruck is not. The Slate Truck, as it is called, promises to be a small electric pickup truck with 150 miles of range on a single charge and a variety of customization options. But the most notable detail is the car’s price, starting at just $20,000 with federal tax incentives.

If the Cybertruck is the most eye-catching yet polarizing truck on the market, the Slate Truck is everything but. The small, two-door vehicle features a traditional pickup design with no frills or fancy features like an infotainment system or autonomous driving.

In fact, the Slate Truck has does not have an infotainment system at all—drivers connect their phone over Bluetooth for entertainment—and uses crank windows as well as steel wheels and HVAC knobs. Some of those will be nice to drivers who loathe the transition away from physical knobs and buttons in cars, and are fine relying on Bluetooth to play music rather than forgoing some privacy to use a complicated infotainment system.

The stand-out feature of the vehicle is suggested in the “Slate” itself: the Slate Truck can be customizable to each buyer’s needs. Every vehicle comes off the line the same, and flat-pack kits will allow owners to quickly convert the two-seat pickup truck into a five-seat SUV in case they do not need the bed. Buyers are expected to retrofit the car themselves or through yet-to-be-announced nationwide partners who will support service and installation. The Slate Truck is something akin to the Framework laptop but for cars, or maybe a Pebble, with its simplistic design appealing to customers who just want the basics.

Slate has reportedly raised over $100 million from investors, including Jeff Bezos, who previously plowed billions into another electric truck maker, Rivian, while still at the helm of Amazon. Being backed by Bezos may be a turn-off to some who have soured on his political ideology, but ultimately, car buyers often care about value the most, and it might not matter.

Detractors of the Cybertruck say CEO Elon Musk never followed through with his promises for the vehicle, namely on price—the original starting price of $39,000 never came to fruition, and the vehicle instead starts at $62,000 for a pared-down version. Even at that price, the vehicle does not appeal to many buyers who simply want a daily work vehicle for hauling dirt. Tesla sold just over 6,000 Cybertrucks in the first three months of the year, a steep drop from the 12,000 units it sold at the end of 2024.

The popularity of the Ford Maverick and cult following of Japan’s Kei trucks suggests there could be demand for a small, affordable, lightweight pickup. That being said, Americans are addicted to large vehicles, which is why most automakers in the country have largely abandoned small sedans in recent years for compact SUVs. The Ford F-150 is the most popular truck in America, too. Other electric work vehicles like the Rivian R1T, Ford F-150 Lightning, and Ford E-Transit Cargo, which starts at $51,000 with a range comparable to the Slate Truck, are still quite expensive for what they offer.

To give Tesla a small amount of credit, the Slate Truck is two years from rolling off factory lines, and whether the company can fulfill its promise of a $20,000 price tag will remain a big question. For one, that price includes federal tax incentives for EVs that could be eliminated by the current administration. And the most expensive component of an EV is the battery, often making up about 40% of the car’s price. The battery in a Tesla Model Y, for instance, is estimated to cost between $10,000-$11,000. With China restricting access to rare earth metals found in many batteries, U.S. automakers may need to find alternative sources or design batteries with new materials. The Slate’s low price also raises questions about whether that battery will include heating and cooling necessary to prevent it from overheating.

Another concern is that with Rivian and others planning more affordable EVs in the next two years, will the Slate Truck be competitive at launch?

Still, for many people, the Slate Truck represents exactly what they have asked for in an electric workaday car. Truck designs have evolved over many years to reach their current state. Why not take a design that already works and modernize it for the EV age? That is what many people wanted out of the Cybertruck, and a desire that Slate appears to be capturing. Its horsepower only allows for O to 60mph in 8 seconds, and a top speed of 90mph, but the Slate Truck is clearly targeted as a daily driver or fleet vehicle for practical use, where nightly charging is to be expected.

We will soon be able to see whether those clamoring for a cheap EV with no bells or whistles are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

With the refinement of digital tools, companies are subjecting their employees to increasing levels of surveillance — and increasing risks. Now, the security of thousands of employees and their parents companies is at risk after real-time images of their computers were leaked by an employee surveillance app.

On Thursday, researchers at Cybernews reported that over 21 million screenshots from WorkComposer, which works with over 200,000 companies worldwide, were discovered in an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket.

As part of its services, WorkComposer captures screenshots of an employee’s computer every 3 to 5 minutes. So, the leaked images potentially include sensitive content like internal communications, login information, and even an employee’s personal information that could leave them vulnerable to identity theft, scams, and more.

It’s unknown exactly how many companies or employees were impacted by this leak. But according to researchers, these images offer a look into “how workers go about their day frame-by-frame.” Following its discovery, Cybernews, who also uncovered a leak by similar company WebWork earlier this year, contacted WorkComposer and the information has since been secured. WorkComposer did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

In addition to screenshot monitoring, WorkComposer offers services like time (including monitoring breaks) and web tracking. On its website, WorkComposer describes its vaguely dystopian goal as “help[ing] people stop wasting their lives on distractions and finish what is important to them instead.” The statement is a bit ironic. Not just because a data leak is probably a major distraction to most people, but because any surveillance that you’re aware of is in and of itself a distraction.

Surveillance’s detrimental psychological and mental health impacts are well-documented. That doesn’t magically change when it’s third-party companies monitoring employees. In 2023, the American Psychological Association reported that 56 percents of digitally surveilled workers feel tense or stressed at work compared to 40 percent of those who aren’t. Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen also noted that surveilling employees may increase mistakes and force them to “focus on quantified behavioral metrics” that aren’t necessary for people to do their jobs.

Workplace surveillance isn’t new by any means. However, WorkComposer’s leak demonstrates that as surveillance exponentially expands thanks to new technology, so do its consequences. Unfortunately, the United States offers very little protection at a state or federal level. For the most part, it’s up to each company to decide how much it wants to surveil workers. But it’s hard to imagine that a company can adequately justify the near-total removal of privacy and autonomy that companies like WorkComposer bring.

A German startup was aiming to test a reentry capsule designed to reach orbit and survive the intense heat of returning to Earth. For its first flight, PHOENIX 1 launched to space as part of a SpaceX ride-share mission, but a change in launch plans largely messed the whole thing up.

ATMOS Space Cargo launched its PHOENIX 1 capsule at 8:48 p.m. ET on Monday, with the device tucked inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. About two hours after liftoff, the capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere, but its splashdown point ended up much farther from the target than originally planned. Missing its intended splashdown zone meant that the spacecraft could not be recovered, and the company could not acquire valuable data and imagery of PHOENIX 1 to see how well it fared during reentry.

The company’s inaugural mission was designed to test the capsule’s heat shield during reentry. In doing so, ATMOS is hoping to develop a capsule capable of carrying out research in orbit and returning back to Earth with its payloads safe on board.

PHOENIX-1 was part of SpaceX’s Bandwagon-3 ride-share mission. The experimental spacecraft was loaded onto the rocket along with two other payloads: a satellite for South Korea’s military, and a weather satellite for a Boston-based company. However, not all payloads are created equal. Around five weeks before liftoff, SpaceX informed ATMOS of a change in plans brought on by its primary payload.

Due to operational constraints of the South Korean reconnaissance satellite, PHOENIX 1 found itself on a new flight path. “With a recent update in the overall mission design, our flight path angle and return trajectory has changed, so we went back to the drawing board to quickly adapt,” ATMOS wrote in a statement.

In anticipation of its launch, ATMOS had initially set up ground stations along the spacecraft’s path to “ensure continuous data downlink from our heat shield sensors and onboard payloads,” the company stated. PHOENIX 1 was initially supposed to follow a return trajectory designed to pass over those designated ground stations in Africa and Mauritius, before splashing down in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of La Réunion. The new trajectory, however, altered its return trajectory such that the spacecraft initiated its deorbit path over Los Angeles, crossing over Colombia and continuing over Cuiabá in central Brazil. The vehicle then splashed down off the coast of Brazil in the Atlantic Ocean.

The company was forced to set up new ground stations to establish communication with PHOENIX 1, and chartered a plane designed to collect data from the capsule during its reentry. The spacecraft’s splashdown ended up being around 310 miles (500 kilometers) farther off the coast, preventing ATMOS from acquiring the data.

ATMOS did receive data from four commercial payloads that were on board the vehicle, and initial indicators suggest that the capsule’s heat shield was inflated successfully.

Ride-share missions are designed to carry payloads to space at a lower cost, packing satellites and other spacecraft together on the same rocket. They do come with their own risks, but still provide a chance for space startups to get a go at reaching orbit.

“All in all, I would say it was a very successful mission,” ATMOS Space Cargo CEO Sebastian Klaus during a post-flight press conference.