Space reuse seemed like a SpaceX thing. China is already trying to replicate the formula with LandSpace

For decades, access to space was conditioned by a simple and very expensive logic: each launch was an almost unrepeatable operation, with rockets designed to be used only once. That model turned cost per kilo into a structural barrier for the entire industry. Reuse broke that inertia and changed the rules of the game, not as an incremental improvement, but as a different way of thinking about launches. Today, that idea has become the bar for who can compete in the new space economy. The trajectory that is currently taken as a model was not born from a comfortable position. In 2008, SpaceX faced a sequence of technical failures with the Falcon 1 that left the company with no financial margin. Elon Musk even admitted that a fourth explosion would have meant the end of the project. The turning point came first with a successful launch to orbit and, almost three months later, with a NASA contract to transport cargo to the International Space Station. That combination gave oxygen to a company that was still far from demonstrating sustained reliability. When launching is no longer the most expensive. The traditional model assumed that launch was the most expensive and risky part of any orbital mission. NASA analyzes place Historical costs in a typical range of between $10,000 and more than $20,000 per kilo in low orbit, with an average cost around $18,500/kg. The drop in prices associated with reuse altered that balance: with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, the cost per kilo fell into the range of $3,000 to $1,500. By reducing the cost of travel, the door was opened to launch more often and rethink the scale of projects. Why LandSpace is coming into the picture now. In this new scenario of more frequent and scale-oriented launches appears LandSpace. Founded in 2015, a few years after China opened the space sector to private capital, the company has positioned itself as a player focused on building a complete chain from design and manufacturing to launch. Its program aims to recover and reuse the first stage, and in parallel it is committed to liquid oxygen and methane launchers, a combination linked in the industry to cost reduction strategies. This approach fits with China’s need to deploy large satellite constellations in the coming decades. Zhuque-3 from LandSpace With the Zhuque-3LandSpace proposed something unprecedented in China for an orbital-class launcher: attempting to recover the first stage in a real flight. The launch made this vehicle the largest Chinese commercial launcher ever flown and the first by a private company in the country to attempt a vertical landing after completing its primary mission. The profile was carefully planned, with a recovery area built specifically for it in the Gobi Desert. LandSpace has not given figures on the probability of success, and the flight was functioning as a recovery test in real conditions. Zhuque-3 from LandSpace Similar to Falcon 9, with nods to Starship. The comparison with SpaceX is not a rhetorical device, it is in the design itself. Zhuque-3 adopts a very recognizable pattern: nine engines in the first stage, return maneuver, aerodynamic control with grid ends and legs for a vertical landing. At the same time, it is not a carbon copy of the Falcon 9. The rocket is built of stainless steel and uses methane and liquid oxygen as propellants, two features associated with the development of Starship. SpaceX Falcon 9 The December attempt did not end as LandSpace had planned. After takeoff, the Zhuque-3 completed its initial phase of flight, but the first stage failed to execute the final landing maneuver. According to Reutersthe booster had to start its engines about three kilometers from the ground to stop the descent and carry out a controlled landing, something that did not occur. The result was an impact rather than a vertical landing. The design of the test itself assumed that risk: it was a reuse test, not a complete operational mission. Reuse and risk tolerance. The commitment to reusable rockets forces us to review how risk is understood within the Chinese space sector. The aforementioned agency highlights that the local industry has historically been dominated by state companies reluctant to see visible failures. The entry of private companies like LandSpace is introducing another logic, closer to controlled experimentation. The fact that failed attempts are documented and publicly explained suggests that the priority is beginning to shift from immediate success to the accumulation of experience, a necessary condition for reuse to be more than a promise. Images | LandSpace | SpaceX In Xataka | While Silicon Valley dreams of servers in orbit, Russia prepares a nuclear reactor on lunar soil

Apple has discovered gunpowder with the 16E iPhone. So he has launched the machinery to replicate his success, according to Gurman

It seems that Apple has taken the like to launch an ‘low cost’ iPhone with premium performance. And is that after the launch of the iPhone 16E In February, the Cupertino company wants to continue exploiting this vein. From Bloomberg, Mark Gurman points That Apple plans to launch the Iphone 17E in spring of 2026, giving clues that the brand seems to have decided to bet strongly on the entrance segment with annual updates. The formula that works. Apple seems to have found some balance with the iPhone 16E: a device that shines in performance thanks to its chip A18, and that makes sacrifices to place in a spectrum lower than the iPhone 16 As for the price and features (we would already like that price spectrum to be even lower, but well). This combination has proven to be very attractive for those looking for the iPhone experience without coming up. A reminiscence of iPhone se. The continuity plan. According to Gurman, the iPhone 17E will maintain the same OLED design and screen of the current model, but will incorporate the A19 chip to be up to the next generation. As reported from the Korean medium The ELECscreens suppliers will remain BOE and Samsung, with LG Display as a possible third actor. Change of strategy. The rapid transition from 16e to 17E marks an important turning point. Apple leaves its previous policy of updating the entry models every few years – as with the iPhone se – to adopt an annual cycle. This shows that the company has identified a market opportunity that does not want to miss. Beyond the iPhone 17E. The Ming-Chi Kuo analyst points that Apple has even more ambitious plans for this line. The 18E iPhone is expected to arrive in spring of 2027, coinciding with a divided release strategy where standard and entrance models will be presented six months after the PRO. New MacBook Pro and iPad. The 17E iPhone will not be the only protagonist of the first half of 2026. Gurman reveals That Apple plans a massive product deployment that includes new entrance iPad and iPad Air with M4 chip, MacBook Pro and AIR updated, and even a new external monitor for Mac. This strategy seeks to revitalize sales after an irregular demand period. It seems that we will have to wait until you know how Apple implements its new strategy on these devices and if the change is well received by its users. In Xataka | Apple has lost the throne that maintained for a decade. And Chinese brands don’t even let him be second

Xiaomi surprised the world with his own mobile chip. The next step is to replicate this success in your electric car

Xiaomi creating its own chips by the hand of TSMC It is something that we did not see in 2025 in which China’s greatest obsession is to boost 100% national technology. The company, in a movement to reduce dependence with Qualcomm and MediaTek Without breaking the ties that still tied to the United States, he presented his Xring 01. A chip capable of competing with the best in the market, thanks to both TSMC technology and its innovative design. The company has confirmed to be locking in its own chip for its future electric cars. It is one of the last pieces that the company needs to close the circle and not depend on companies such as NVIDIA or Qualcomm. The beginning of an era. Xring 01 is a before and after for Xiaomi. It is the first time that it manages to design a processor at the height of the best in the market, improving proposals such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite. Most of this TSMC baby success, who has manufactured this hand processor with Xiaomi. But its architecture is peculiar: it is the only high -end processor with a design composed of ten nuclei, and a distribution of workloads much more efficient than most current processors. Three chips, at least. Xring is the mobile processor, the Xring T1 It is the chip for watches, and Xiaomi has confirmed being working on a third processor for electric cars. The recent launch of your SUV, the Yu7came from the hand of Nvidia and Qualcomm, something that could change completely in the next generation of vehicles. Why there is a Qualcomm chip in the SU7. If you wonder what paint a Nvidia chip and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 In Xiaomi cars the answer is easy: electric cars, today, They are computers with wheels. Yu7 is one of the cars with the largest infotainment system in the world: one in which the windshield is a giant screen. Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is responsible for moving HyperosXiaomi’s own software platform. Why there is a nvidia chip in Yu7. The central screen is just a small example of the computing capacity that an electric car needs. Assisted driving systems, Lidar data processing, radars and cameras, are in charge of the Autonomous Driving Platform Nvidia Drive Agx Thor. This software solution allows to manage high work loads with maximum energy efficiency, and is currently the most capable in terms of computing aboard a vehicle. A discreet approach. Xiaomi has not revealed data about whether you are preparing an adaptation of the Xring 01 to electric cars or if the goal is more ambitious and seeks to create its own complete hardware platform. The company has TSMC as an ally, but the design runs on its side. Competing to lead on platforms for new mobility is the next step for a Xiaomi that aspires to conquer almost all of the technological product categories. There Huawei has special advantage with Your Driveone platformone that gives life to Chinese vehicles like the Luxeed S7 or Aito’s latest proposals, such as the M5 and M7. The limitations. The United States Department of Commerce has tried to advise China, urging its national EDA software companies (electronic design automation software) to stop selling your products to your rivals. This software is key to the development of new lithographic processes, and one of the keys to lead the next generation of 2 Nm. Consequently, giants such as Xiaomi will have it complicated to continue improving the design of their chips. As much as TSMC is the one who manufactures them, falls into their hands to design their architecture. The current competitiveness of this chip resides largely in Your 3nm nodewhile China struggles to achieve ability to Manufacture 5 Nm national chips. There is a strong national movement in China to overcome this limitation and boost an EDA industry within the country. It is something that will end up happening, although not in the immediate future. Xiaomi’s great opportunity. Shanghai Xuanjie Technologies, the Xiaomi chips design subsidiary led by former Qualcomm and Ex Unisoc, is an important threat to the United States, with and without TSMC within the equation. The division has shown that, with the necessary tools, the design quality in Xiaomi semiconductors is up to the best. And there are the keys. How much will take advantage of that they can still collaborate with TSMC, and how much of a Xiaomi preparing its complete independence from the United States and seeking to be as competitive as Huawei on platforms for the car of the future. Image | Xiaomi In Xataka | An unexpected war has opened in China: Byd, Catl and Huawei fight for having the final electric car charger

Google wants to replicate in its glasses with Android’s success in mobiles. Unlike Glass in 2013, now it makes sense

In 2013, Google Glass He promised to revolutionize our day to day with smart glasses that would give us real -time information. However, the project ran into multiple obstacles that led him to commercial failure. Now, more than a decade later, Google bets again on a similar proposal, but this time The cards on the table are completely different For two reasons: Android XR and Gemini. “If you go back and look at the original video of Google Glass’s launch, I think the vision was great. This idea of ​​a product that you can take and that gives you the right information at the right time was incredible. An interview during the Google I/O In Googleplex offices in Mountain View, California. The equation that was missing in Glass Image | Antonio Zugaldia The Google I/O. has left us with great novelties Around the company’s products and ecosystem. Almost overnight, Google bombard us with A flood of functions and products oriented to its Android ecosystem that Gemini has hugged strongly. Among some of the most prominent aspects we could try THE NEW AI MODE which replaces Google’s traditional searches with Search Live, Flow with the new Image 4 models and I see 3and even the new mixed reality devices with Android XR as Project Moohan and His glasses with Gemini. Payne has given us more context about the plans that the company has for the New ecosystem they are developing with Android XRwhich already borrows all the work behind android for mobiles. The Executive identifies three key elements that were not present at the time of Google Glass and that now exist: artificial intelligence, an ecosystem of robust applications and truly usable hardware. Image | Xataka “One thing that did not exist was the AI. Make Those experiences They were reality required some fundamental advances in artificial intelligence that had simply not occurred yet. Gemini is here now, “Payne explains. The second factor is the application ecosystem. While for Glass the developers had to build specific applications in a special development environment, Android XR takes a radically different approach. “We are building a platform. We work with the ecosystem. We include all Android developers. Now, instead that developers have to create a new application, the app simply works,” says Payne. Image | Xataka This approach means that All Android applications will work on Android XRfrom mobile phones to virtual reality glasses and devices, eliminating the input barrier that existed previously. With this, Google wants to leave behind That fragmentation problem That has been ballasting Android for years, offering universal compatibility, unified development tools and the use of open standards such as Webxr, Openxr and Vulkan to expand their ecosystem. Gemini as an intermediary between the software and us Interface that Google raises for Android XR in Project Moohan | Image: Google “We think Gemini is for XR what the touch screen was for smartphones,” says Payne, establishing a parallelism with The 2007 iPhone which changed the mobile industry forever. According to Payne during the interview, Google’s vision for his smart glasses is to create “a natural conversational interface that understands what is important for you and gives you the right information at the right time.” Glasses, equipped with cameras and microphones, They can feed Gemini with real world informationwhile the connection with the phone gives access to the user’s digital world. Real -time translation test with Gemini at glasses | Image: Google Glasses that people really want to wear The third pillar is hardware. Google has made significant investments in screens technology, such as The acquisition of Raxumwhich manufactures “tiny and efficient energy” monolithic micro LED screens, according to the manager. The company also seems to be considered as important Collaboration with brands Fashionable like Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to create “really elegant glasses, glasses that people really want to wear.” “What we learned is that people really need to feel that they wear normal glasses to wear them all the time,” Payne acknowledges about the lessons learned from Glass. And to see, the proposal that Google offered in 2013 with Glass cool a lot, but to win the mass public, perhaps opting for One more approach mainstream In design be more appropriate. Proof of this is the irrefutable success of the Ray-Ban Meta Not as a product, which also, but as a format. Privacy of what we know in Android PROJECT MOOHAN | Image: Xataka Aware of privacy concerns generated by a continuous recording device, Payne also told us more about the approach that Google is adopting in privacy and security. On the one hand, the idea is that the device offer key switches and markers To know when the user is recording, activating their location or sending their information to their servers. “Privacy ends up being the basis of anything we develop around the ecosystem,” says Payne. In the current prototype we cannot talk that these measures have been applied because they are not for sale to the public yet and everything indicates that the company still has a long journey ahead before marketing its glasses. Of course, Payne has been able to advance that The idea is to apply the Android already familiar permissions framework related to privacy, together with that series of switches and mechanisms incorporated into the hardware to protect the user. It is clear that having constantly connected glasses and that they see everything your eyes see must land with a crucial and determining approach in this aspect. The explosion with AI can be the ideal time to boost this technology As we have seen, for Android XR to stop being a niche and become a mainstream product, Payne identifies The confluence of three factors: abundant and useful applications, diversity of devices for different needs, and a powerful interface fed by AI. “No one is saying: ‘Do you know what I want to do? I want to wear a helmet. I want to wear smart glasses. I don’t know what they do, but … Read more

Bie million years ago symbiosis between two cells created a new kingdom in nature. We are trying to replicate the meeting

About one billion years ago an event happened that would change our planet forever. It was not the first time that an event of this Tupo was happening, in fact, when something similar happened millions of years before, the ban was opened to the appearance of complex life on earth. This time it was the time of the plants. All because one cell managed to swallow another. 1+1 = 1. A team of researchers He is trying to recreate In a laboratory the conditions that gave rise to the appearance of the unicellular organisms of which all past and present plants evolved. The project, baptized as 1+1 = 1, has an objective that goes beyond the study of the evolution of these organisms, could give rise to new tools to use both in biotechnology and medicine. A first radical change. To better understand the experiment, we must return to these two key moments in the evolutionary history of the Earth’s Vira. The first of the events that would mark these changes took about 2,000 million years ago, although the estimates vary. This change occurred when a simple, prokaryotic cell, swallowed another and turned it to its organelle. The engulmed cell had the ability to produce energy from chemical compounds, which became a useful tool for the “host” cell, which made it its private energy center, The mitochondria. Having such a source of energy was what allowed this cell to evolve, generate an independent nucleus and then give rise to complex life. Second act. About a billion years after the appearance of the first eukaryotic cells, the story was repeated again: one cell swallowed another and turned it into something of its own, another organelle. On this occasion, the swallowed cell was cyanobacteria, an organism capable of performing photosynthesis. When integrating into a eukaryotic cell, cyanobacteria went to become a chloroplastallowing his guest to enjoy the advantages of photosynthesis. This change gave way to a new kingdom of life, that of plants. From symbiosis to total union. The integration process between cells was slowly surely: first individual cells would have become a symbiotic relationship. A relationship that, over the years (millions, perhaps) would give rise to total integration. Replicate the process From beginning to end in laboratory it may not be feasible, so the work focuses on the first steps, in creating a “synthetic symbiosis” that allows us to investigate the processes that gave rise to the formation of complex cells. The team responsible for this project wants to observe the process closely, Replicating this synthetic relationship between two organisms in controlled conditions. The chosen microorganisms are a bacteria, Burstar Parameciumand a unicellular algae, Chlorella vulgaris. The relationship they seek to replicate the nature symbiosis, in which the bacteria acts as a algae host. New tools. To carry out the experiment, the team turned to microchips designed specifically for this, which allow studying cells closely maintaining control of light, temperature and nutrient availability in these cells. To “force” symbiosis, the team put the bacteria under stressful conditions and studied interactions with the other organism involved. Methodological details can be consulted In an article Posted in the magazine Lab on a chip. More common than it seems. We have proof of two occasions in which these advanced symbiosis changed the course of life, but the relationships between unicellular organisms that give rise to endosimbiosis do not seem to be something strange. In recent years We have seen similar cases discovered in nature, for example The case of the algae Braarudosphaera Bigelowiiwhich absorbed a newly discovered cyanobacteria called UCYN-A. In Xataka | Luca, this was the ancestral microorganism that all current living beings emerged Image | Witting et al. (2025), Forschungszentrum Jülich / Degleex Ganzorig

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