SpaceX to attempt rocket landing on a floating platform in Atlantic

By Trevor Mogg Published October 28, 2014

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said recently his private spaceflight company is planning to land a rocket on an enormous platform floating in the sea.

Its first attempt at a damage-free landing for its Falcon 9 rocket is expected to take place in December as part of the team’s next space launch. The ambitious plan is aimed at developing a safe and secure method for bringing the rocket back to Earth at the end of missions that involve sending its cargo-laden Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. If it succeeds in its plan to develop a reusable system for its rocket, the company’s space travel costs will be drastically reduced.

Recommended Videos

The platform, which measures 91 x 52 meters (300 x 170 ft), will float unanchored at an as-yet unspecified location in the Atlantic. Attached engines and GPS sensors will help to keep it in position.

SpaceX has already succeeded in bringing the Falcon 9 back to Earth, however, unstable landings have seen it destroyed each time.

February’s mission will be the company’s very first attempt at landing the rocket safely on a floating platform. But with the rocket as tall as a 14-story building, it’s clearly going to be an extremely delicate operation.

“When a 14-story building falls over, it’s quite a belly flop,” Musk said recently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AeroAstro Centennial Symposium. “We’ve been able to soft-land the rocket booster in the ocean twice so far. Unfortunately, it just sort of sat there for several seconds then tipped over and exploded.”

Despite all the planning, Musk puts the chances of succeeding with its first floating-platform landing at just 50 percent.

The SpaceX boss described the project as “tricky,” adding that they should be able to get it right during the 12 or so launches scheduled to take place over the next year.

“I think it’s probably quite likely – 80 percent or 90 percent likely – that one of those flights we’ll be able to land and refly. I think we’re quite close,” Musk said.

[Source: Space.com, Discovery]

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Emerging Tech

Pangram, the gold standard for AI text checks, releases Image 1.0 tool to sniff fake pics and videos

It can identify AI-generated pictures with an astounding 99.96% accuracy on its own evaluation set.

AI image detector tool pangram

Pangram, one of the most widely used and trusted AI text detectors out there, is finally releasing its multimedia detection tools to the masses. Pangram Image 1.0, which was previously available as a research preview, is now widely available on the web, through the company’s API, and via its eponymous Chrome extension.

The company claims its image detector can identify AI-generated pictures with an astounding 99.96% accuracy on its own evaluation set. Pangram also notes that it has improved the model’s accuracy over the past few months, especially against edited images, low-resolution pictures, and pictures made by the most advanced AI models out there. As far as the competition goes, TruthScan achieves an accuracy of 96.33%, followed by AI or Not at 91.38% and Sightengine at 88.33%.

Emerging Tech

Scammers are using AI to fake missing pet photos, and what happens next is horrifying

Criminals are using AI-generated pet photos to convince desperate owners their missing animals have been found, before demanding money and making disturbing threats.

Brown and white cat meowing in Inzoi.

Losing a pet can be heartbreaking, and anyone who's experienced it knows how quickly you'd drop everything if someone called to say they'd found your missing dog or cat. Unfortunately, scammers have learned to exploit that desperation, and AI is making their tricks even more convincing.

A disturbing new scam is targeting pet owners across the UK, with criminals using AI-generated images to pretend they've found missing animals. They then demand money for their return, sometimes going as far as threatening to kill the pets if the owners refuse to pay. According to a BBC report, several pet owners have already experienced these attacks, with scammers using convincing photographs, emotional stories, and increasingly aggressive messages to pressure them into paying.

Emerging Tech

AI can turn your Instagram posts into scam that know a little too much about you

Your public social media posts could be helping scammers create emails that feel personal, and existing AI safeguards aren't doing enough to stop them.

Electronics, Mobile Phone, Phone

We've all received those suspicious emails claiming we've won something, missed a delivery, or need to urgently update our bank details. Most are easy enough to ignore, especially when they're full of strange wording or have absolutely nothing to do with us. But what happens when a scam email actually knows what you've been up to lately? That's where things get a little worrying.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have found that AI can use information people share publicly on social media to create phishing emails that feel personal. And we're not just talking about knowing your name or where you work. These emails can reference things you've recently done, places you've visited, or even something you've been looking forward to. The researchers showed how widely available AI models could gather these details and turn them into targeted messages, potentially letting scammers reach large numbers of people without spending hours researching each person individually.