Month: June 2023

Enlarge / Delta IV Heavy on the pad with NROL-68 at SLC-37B on June 20, 2023. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

Once the most formidable rocket company in the United States, and arguably the world, United Launch Alliance has had a really difficult start to this year.

At the beginning of 2023, the company's CEO, Tory Bruno, expressed confidence that the long-awaited Vulcan rocket would make its debut flight in May. During a teleconference with reporters, Bruno even went so far as to say that by the end of 2025, his company would launch a rocket every other week.

But those plans came crashing down in late March when a large explosion occurred on a test stand at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, where United Launch Alliance was pressure testing the upper stage of the Vulcan rocket. As part of the qualification test, the liquid hydrogen tank ruptured. Now Vulcan's debut has slipped into at least late summer and may not take place until the final months of this year.

Enlarge / OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush shows David Pogue the 2010-era game controller that pilots the Titan sub during a CBS Sunday Morning segment broadcast in November 2022. (credit: CBS Sunday Morning)

On Sunday, news broke about an OceanGate Expeditions tourist submarine headed for the wreck of the Titanic that went missing with five people aboard. Soon after, details emerged about the sub's non-standard design that did not meet regulations, including steering apparently handled by a $30 Logitech F710 wireless PC game controller from 2010.

Reuters reports that the five-person crew of the missing vessel, known as Titan, includes Hamish Harding, a British billionaire and adventure enthusiast, and OceanGate's founder and CEO, Stockton Rush. It disappeared on Sunday while on an expedition to explore the Titanic shipwreck site after losing contact with the Polar Prince research ship, roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes after their dive began.

The submarine was last reported in the North Atlantic, approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod, in a water body known to have a depth of about 13,000 feet. Search and rescue operations began shortly thereafter and are still underway. According to the BBC, the entire sub is bolted shut from the outside, so even if the vessel surfaces, the occupants cannot escape without outside assistance and could suffocate within the capsule.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Rivian | Getty Images)

The Combined Charging System standard's days in North America may well be numbered. That's the spec that the auto industry arrived at for electric vehicles to fast charge using DC, which combines the five-pin J1772 plug (for AC charging) with two pins for direct current. But the connector and its cable are big and unwieldy, unlike the more elegant alternative created by Tesla (called the North American Charging Standard), which has had its own walled garden of charging infrastructure for over a decade.

Until now, that is, because Tesla is letting other automakers over that wall. First it was Ford. Then General Motors joined in. And today Rivian revealed that it, too, is switching from CCS to NACS, Tesla's competing standard, in 2024. Unlike the two automakers that preceded it, Rivian did not have to join Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a Twitter Space to announce the news.

"We’re excited to work with Tesla and to see collaborations like this help advance the world toward carbon neutrality. The adoption of the North American Charging Standard will enable our existing and future customers to leverage Tesla’s expansive Supercharger network while we continue to build out our Rivian Adventure Network. We look forward to continuing to find new ways to accelerate EV adoption," said Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe in a statement.