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Blue Origin has successfully reused its first-stage New Glenn booster for the first time after it landed in a cloud of smoke and fire on a recovery ship. It marks the second flight and reuse of Never Tell me the Odds, after the booster was recovered from New Glenn's previous launch in November last year. However, the rocket company's first commercial mission was marred by a failure to place the communications satellite payload into orbit.
The launch went smoothly to start with, with the first-stage GS1 booster separating from New Glenn after three minutes and landing smoothly 10 minutes after launch following two braking burns, as shown in a post on X from Blue Origin's owner, Jeff Bezos.
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 19, 2026
However, several hours later the Blue Origin team and satellite manufacturer, AST SpaceMobile, announced that the payload had failed to reach orbit. "We have confirmed payload separation," Blue Origin announced on X. "AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on. The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information."
Later on in a press release, AST SpaceMobile reveale
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To make up for an incredibly laughable inaugural event, Beijing is running back its humanoid robot half-marathon. Fortunately, the event that pits humanoid robots made by Chinese companies against each other across 13 miles went a lot smoother this year.
This year's half-marathon hosted more than 100 competitors, with first place going to Honor, better known for its smartphones, and its red-clad robot named Lightning. Living up to the name, the gold medalist finished the race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. That's several minutes faster than the human record that was recently set by Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo last month.
Honor swept the other podium spots, with the important caveat that they all navigated the course autonomously, according to the state-sponsored television news agency CCTV. That's a massive improvement over last year, where the fastest time among 21 robots was achieved by Tiangong Ultra with a record of two hours
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 No, you aren't going crazy - Apple has quietly made a backend change to the App Store app in iOS that switches the location of the Updates tab and renames it to make it more prominent.
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