Month: July 2020

Enlarge / The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is back home at the company's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility after its December test flight. (credit: NASA)

Following the failed test flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in December, NASA on Monday released the findings of an investigation into the root causes of the launch's failure and the culture that led to them.

Over the course of its review, an independent team identified 80 "recommendations" for NASA and Boeing to address before the Starliner spacecraft launches again. In addition to calling for better oversight and documentation, these recommendations stress the need for greater hardware and software integration testing. Notably, the review team called for an end-to-end test prior to each flight using the maximum amount of flight hardware available.

This is significant, because before the December test flight, Boeing did not run an integrated software test that encompassed the roughly 48-hour period from launch through docking to the station. Instead, Boeing broke the test into chunks. The first chunk ran from launch through the point at which Starliner separated from the second stage of the Atlas V booster.

Enlarge / A stand of TikTok (Douyin) at The First International Artificial Products Expo Hangzhou on October 18, 2019, in Hangzhou, China. (credit: Long Wei | VCG | Getty Images)

The Trump administration is considering banning Chinese social media apps inside the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday. The ban would start with popular short-video platform TikTok.

"We're taking this very seriously. We're certainly looking at [TikTok]," Pompeo said during a televised interview with Fox News. He directly and explicitly linked the considered ban on TikTok and other apps to the administration's actions against other Chinese tech firms.

"We've worked on this very issue for a long time, whether it was the problems of having Huawei technology in your infrastructure, we've gone all over the world and we're making real progress getting that out," he said. "We declared ZTE a danger to American national security, we've done all of these things. With respect to the Chinese apps on people's cell phones I can assure you the United States will get this one right. I don't want to get out in front of the president, but it's something we’re looking at."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Westend61)

The Trump administration has officially withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization, according to a Democratic senator and multiple news reports. But the withdrawal process will take a year, so Trump may not be able to see it through.

"Congress received notification that POTUS officially withdrew the US from the WHO in the midst of a pandemic," Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) wrote on Twitter today. "To call Trump's response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice. This won't protect American lives or interests—it leaves Americans sick and America alone."

According to The Hill, a senior Trump administration official confirmed today that "the White House has officially moved to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization."