After a multi-year restoration effort, NASA’s Apollo Mission Operations Control Room 2 (MOCR 2) is set to re-open to the public next week, as part of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. For two years, a team of historians and engineers have worked to rebuild the iconic consoles, decorations, and monitors that mission controllers saw as they guided astronauts through the first manned exploration of space during this critical early era. As the AP , the effort got a seal of approval from one of the heavyweights in the Apollo era — retired engineer, flight director, and later director of NASA flight operations Gene Kranz.
If you are excited for the upcoming remake of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII, then you won’t want to miss today’s deal. For a limited time, you can get it pre-ordered for just $41.99. Final Fantasy 7 is arguably the most popular entry in the Final Fantasy franchise, and the upcoming remake promises to be just as good but with updated game mechanics and HD image quality. If you are a die-hard fan of the Final Fantasy series, you can pre-order the remake from Amazon now for just $41.99. Amazon’s Echo Dot smart speaker comes with the company’s Alexa virtual personal assistant built-in, which is able to hear and obey numerous voice commands.
Most of what we know about Saturn’s moon comes from the Cassini probe, which studied it repeatedly during its 13-year mission orbiting Saturn. Cassini is gone, but Titan is going to get another robotic visitor in the coming years. NASA has given the green light to the Dragonfly mission, . This mission is on track to make history in more ways than one. Dragonfly is part of the agency’s New Frontiers program, which also includes Jupiter probe Juno, the OSIRIS-Rex asteroid mission, and more. This mission beat out a proposed comet sample return mission to become . Dragonfly builds on a previously discontinued concept project called Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM) that called for a balloon probe to circumnavigate Titan.
Boeing’s 737 Max problem keeps getting worse. The plane has been grounded for months, after Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 both crashed, killing all 346 people aboard the two aircraft. In the aftermath of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, the FAA eventually mandated that the planes stay on the ground while Boeing worked out a fix. That fix has now been delayed again, due to the discovery of another flaw that can lead to the nose of the aircraft being pointed inappropriately downward. “Government pilots discovered that a microprocessor failure could push the nose of the plane toward the ground,” CNN , adding that “it is not known whether the microprocessor played a role in either crash.
Traveling through space isn’t just about knowing where you are. You also need to know what time it is, and a wristwatch won’t do. Spacecraft rely on extremely accurate measurements of time to coordinate maneuvers, and these systems will become even more important as we aim for distant destinations. That’s why NASA is , which is smaller and more versatile. NASA’s new clock headed into space earlier this week aboard the . That rocket carried 24 different payloads including a prototype light sail spacecraft, NOAA temperature monitoring satellites, a NASA test of hydrazine fuel alternatives, and more. The Deep Space Atomic Clock was a very small part of the Falcon Heavy’s total payload, but it could be one of NASA’s most important current experiments.
The era of 5G could offer massively increased data speeds, more real-time services, and the proliferation of “internet of things” hardware. According to several groups representing meteorologists, 5G could also mean major disruptions to weather forecasting. They’ve submitted an official complaint to the Federal Communications Commission in order to study the issue. 5G is the successor to 4G LTE, but it’s not intended to be a full replacement. Many of the features tied to LTE right now like phone calls and location assistance will remain with LTE. 5G is intended as a conduit for hyper-fast data speeds with low latency and higher network capacity.
If you are in the market for a new display, there are two excellent options in today’s deals list. The first is a remarkably inexpensive 75Hz 1080p model for just $104.99. The other one is more expensive, but it offers excellent features for work and home use. AOC’s inexpensive display uses a 1080p TN panel that has a 75Hz refresh rate and a fast 1ms response time. It is also marked down from $149.99 to $104.99 on Amazon. This makes it an excellent solution for gamers on a tight budget. This system features an Intel Core i5-8250U and an Nvidia MX150 graphics processor that allows it to run modern games with low graphics details.
In the future, you may have to wonder if that insect buzzing around your head is even an insect at all. Researchers at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab have developed a new version of their amazing RoboBee, a micro-drone based on the flight mechanisms of bees. Past versions of the RoboBee needed external power to fly, but the new RoboBee has its own solar panels for untethered flight. The goal with the RoboBee is to keep the entire package small and light. That makes the device ideal for surveillance, search and rescue, and environmental monitoring. In 2016, Harvard showed off a version of the RoboBee with that could fly for short distances and land safely.
When AMD announced its Navi GPU architecture and publicly showed the chip beating past Nvidia’s RTX 2060 and RTX 2070, at modestly lower prices, it was inevitable that Team Green would respond. By all accounts, that response is being drawn up and will debut in the very near future. The Nvidia RTX 2060 Super, RTX 2070 Super, and RTX 2080 Super are all supposed to debut next week, but the rollout will be staggered. The 2060S and 2070S review embargos will lift same-day, with the 2080S following later in July. Supposedly, each GPU will use the GPU from the tier “above” it, but this doesn’t make a lot of sense for the RTX 2060 / 2070 — these two cards are both based on the same physical GPU (TU106).
