Month: August 2024

Enlarge / A high-resolution commercial Earth-imaging satellite owned by Maxar captured this view of the International Space Station on June 7 with Boeing's Starliner capsule docked at the lab's forward port (lower right). (credit: Satellite image (c) 2024 Maxar Technologies)

Senior NASA leaders, including the agency's administrator Bill Nelson, will meet Saturday in Houston to decide whether Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is safe enough to ferry astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth from the International Space Station.

The Flight Readiness Review (FRR) is expected to conclude with NASA's most consequential safety decision in nearly a generation. One option is to clear the Starliner spacecraft to undock from the space station in early September with Wilmore and Williams onboard, as their flight plan initially laid out, or to bring the capsule home without its crew.

As of Thursday, the two veteran astronauts have been on the space station for 77 days, nearly 10 times longer than their planned stay of eight days. Wilmore and Williams were the first people to launch and dock at the space station aboard a Starliner spacecraft, but multiple thrusters failed and the capsule leaked helium from its propulsion system as it approached the orbiting completed on June 6.

Enlarge / The Snoo, a "smart" bassinet.

Owners of the $1,695 Snoo "smart" bassinet like to gather in forums like Reddit's r/snoolife to swap tracking graphs of their children's sleep patterns. But they also like to complain about Happiest Baby, the company behind the Snoo. That's because Happiest Baby this summer added a $20 monthly subscription fee to several of the Snoo's "premium features," which are controlled by a smartphone app.

Those who bought their Snoo from an "authorized" retailer before July 15, 2024, get the premium features free for nine months. No problem!

But those who bought their Snoo from an unauthorized retailer—that is, got it used—can "enjoy all the fun and benefits of our premium App features—for FREE—until July 15, 2024," the company announced in its fine print. After that date, premium features went away; the only option for premium feature access on used Snoos now is to cough up $20 each month, atop the $600–$1,000 already spent on the device.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

As the COVID-19 case count continues to tick upward, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved an updated vaccine for use ahead of the northern hemisphere winter. The emergency use authorization covers updated mRNA vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna.

The booster shots will target the JN.1 and KP.2 strains of SARS-CoV-2, both of which are omicron variants. Last year's booster keyed on omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which has long since lost the evolutionary arms race.

Both Spikevax (Moderna) and Comirnaty (Pfizer) vaccines have been updated. While the vaccine is targeted toward those 12 and over, parents of children aged six months through 11 years are also eligible for the updated vaccines under the FDA's emergency use authorization.