Advanced Printed Electronic Solutions (APES), a U.S.-based developer of next-generation additive manufacturing systems, has officially launched Matrix6D, a modular, reconfigurable additive manufacturing platform designed to overcome one of the industry’s longstanding bottlenecks; scalable production beyond prototyping. The unveiling took place at RAPID + TCT 2025. Matrix6D departs from the fixed-bed printer paradigm and introduces a “swarm-based” architecture powered by mobile, magnetically levitated build platforms. These units autonomously navigate a configurable grid of multifunctional tool stations, orchestrated by proprietary software, enabling high-throughput and fully customizable additive workflows. “Every customer we’ve worked with asks the same question: how do we scale 3D printing beyond prototyping? Matrix6D is our answer,” said Rich Neill, CEO of APES. “It’s a clean-sheet reimagining of the additive factory, adaptive, software-defined, and built for mass customization and true production volume.” APES designs and manufactures adaptive manufacturing systems for the electronics and automation industries. Combining precision robotics, additive manufacturing, and real-time orchestration software, APES enables scalable production workflows from prototyping to volume manufacturing. The company partners with both commercial clients and R&D institutions globally.APES Logo. Image via Advanced Printed Elctronic Solutions. A new class of AM architecture At the core of Matrix6D is a grid-configurable tool-cell system, where each station operates as a mini-manufacturing unit. Users can equip these cells with a broad range of deposition technologies, including aerosol jet, inkjet, direct-write, extrusion, and precision dispensing, as well as non-additive processes like UV curing, laser sintering, robotic pick-and-place, or vision-based inspection. This format supports hybrid manufacturing workflows within a single system. The platform is engineered to support high-mix, low-volume production, enabling manufacturers to fabricate different parts simultaneously with varying process requirements. With machine vision and laser-based self-calibration integrated into each station, Matrix6D can maintain micron-scale precision, even during complex, multi-step processes. Scalable from lab to factory Thanks to its parametric design, Matrix6D can be scaled from small 1×2 bench demonstrators to full-scale 5×7 grid arrays and beyond. Each configuration supports interchangeable toolheads, dynamic task allocation, and parallel recipe execution. This allows manufacturers to run multiple jobs concurrently, an advantage for sectors like semiconductors, wearable electronics, aerospace sensors, and high-performance optics. At RAPID + TCT 2025, APES demonstrated a 1×2 Matrix6D unit featuring live material extrusion, robotic transfer between stages, and magnetic build platform movement. Attendees also previewed a digital twin of a 5×7 configuration, showcasing the platform’s orchestration software and real-time production visualization. Various configurations of the Matrix6D adaptive 3D printing factory. Image via Advanced Printed Electronic Solutions. Addressing challenges in the adoption of printed electronics While additive manufacturing has made significant inroads in metal, polymer, and biofabrication applications, additive electronics remains an underdeveloped frontier. Traditional approaches to electronics manufacturing often struggle with miniaturization, material integration, and design flexibility.  Last year, APES partnered with Integrated Deposition Solutions (IDS) to accelerate the development of 3D printed electronics applications, leveraging IDS’s NanoJet technology. Elsewhere in the field, Optomec has advanced aerosol jet printing for electronic components, upgrading their systems to support higher throughput and complex geometries in printed electronics production. In Europe, InnovationLab reported a breakthrough in 3D printing multilayer flexible electronics through the SmartEEs2 EU Horizon 2020 project. Similarly, Scrona is bringing ultra-precise AM technology to market for nanoelectronics after raising $9.6 million in funding. Back in 2020, AM electronics provider Nano Dimension revealed the successful 3D printing and assembly of a double-sided, ten layer PCB, signaling the maturation of AM in semiconductor contexts. In a recent interview at RAPID + TCT 2024, Nano Dimension’s leadership emphasized the industry’s transition toward production-ready electronic additive manufacturing, a vision closely aligned with APES’s modular, software-defined approach. What 3D printing trends should you watch out for in 2025? How is the future of 3D printing shaping up? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to keep up with the latest 3D printing news. You can also follow us onLinkedIn and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry Youtube channel to access more exclusive content. Featured Image shows configurations of Matrix 6D adaptive 3D factory. Image via APES.

If you don’t count the catalog for Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio, a 2003 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, then the recent Phaidon publication Architecture, Not Architecture is, in the office’s description, the “only comprehensive monograph” of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), led by partners Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro, and Benjamin Gilmartin. Scofidio died on March 6 at the age of 89. For the book, DS+R, in collaboration with 2 × 4, created a two-volume offering that artificially cleaved a single portfolio into two sections: “architecture” and “not architecture.” Each book block is affixed to a double-jointed, magnet-latched cover, which means one can look through front to back (the page numbers are continuous) or flip it out to see both sections—four pages, two spreads—at once. (An early, inspiring maquette was reversible, but the binding would have been difficult to manufacture.) Unfurled, the wide-angle object measures just over 40 inches in width and allows simultaneous viewing, like a Wölfflinian lecture with twinned slide projectors or two tape loops playing at different speeds. The book has multiple routes through its contents; one can scan chronologically, alphabetically, typologically, or by obsession. There are interstitial dialogues along the way. Manicules— those little pointing-hand icons: —direct attention across the spreads to make connections. While the first chunk evidences the now-familiar output of an office that expertly works around the world, the second surfaces a lesser-known portfolio of objects, installations, exhibitions, films, and happenings that are deviant, critical, and inventive. Diller recently spoke with Jack Murphy, AN’s executive editor, about the book’s archaeology, how New York has changed, and what risks are worth taking. AN: Can you talk about the origin of Architecture, Not Architecture? ED: We steered away from a monograph in the past. It never occurred to us to do one. We take books seriously, as if they were projects, and each book that we’ve made has had a theme or has focused on a particular project, so it’s a complete story of that effort or even a new manifestation, rather than just documentation. There’s nothing preconceived about the way we do books; it happens naturally and organically in the studio. After books on the Blur Building, High Line, and Lincoln Center, we were working on one about The Shed when the idea of a monograph came up. I think it was because I was tired of lugging three 10-pound books around with me when I traveled. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be better to have something that’s more consolidated?” We were allergic to a standard monograph, which is this heroic thing meant to organize and explain a body of work as something that’s understandable between two book covers. We tried that, with projects in a chronological order; it didn’t make any sense, because our independent, self-propelled work just intersects everything.  We tried another tactic, which was to separate the work typically considered as architectural work—buildings, parks, master plans, the stuff that normal architects do—and then the projects that were independent, curatorial, public art, performance, or artifacts—things that are actually foreign to architecture work. With this structure, a reader can bounce back between the two volumes. And then, of course, we had to make it more complicated. The sections had to be conjoined rather than freestanding volumes, a special table of contents was required, and we imagined different ways to navigate. We decided we’re making a portable archive. It’s a two-volume book, but it shouldn’t be read from beginning to end; you take your own path. Traffic, New York, 1981. Aerial view looking north (fig. 4, page 400, top) Not Architecture. (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) AN: There seems to be an inflection point in the early 2000s for DS+R: On the left side of the book, the buildings take off at that moment, and, correspondingly, the exhibitions seem to slow. Can you talk about that moment when building commissions became more prominent? ED: We did a housing project in Gifu, Japan, at the invitation of Arata Isozaki, which finished in 2000; that was a turning point. An earlier one was the unrealized Slow House, from 1991. It was almost the first project we had, because we had written off architecture for the most part. Our view was a bit aligned with Cooper Union’s position at the time that architecture as a profession was intellectually bankrupt. But then, when we started to work, it felt different; people were coming to us who were like-minded and didn’t represent power structures or “the man.” It went beyond the institutional critique—there was no one to critique. Jill Medvedow, our client for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, was my contemporary, and she wanted to do something interesting. So when there’s no resistance, you have to change your tune. It’s no longer only about being critical. You could still think critically about the conventions of a museum, but you also had to think more generatively about what you can contribute. The inflection point was that we were no longer in a big fight; we found our way in. Sometimes it had to be stealthy, and it was a learning process. We were maturing and the world was changing; we were given opportunities, but we never stopped doing independent work. It’s not like the architectural projects took up all our brain space, and it’s not as if we felt this need to not allow this stuff to disappear; it’s just natural. When the opportunities happen, we do them, whether they’re self-initiated or by invitation. I think that’s what keeps us sane. AN: The studio’s success also parallels the development of New York. You went from an installation of traffic cones in Columbus Circle in 1981 to, blocks away, redesigning Lincoln Center in the early 2010s. You were able to change so many pieces of your hometown. How have you experienced this creative growth?  ED: I see New York as a big punch list. Sometimes I can be on the High Line and appreciate it, but often when I see something that’s out of place or needs to be maintained, it bugs me. I get an OCD effect at the scale of the city. How can I have control over that? In our formative years, we were able to do things like Traffic, and we felt that we could just do things in our own city. After 9/11 was an extraordinarily important time. With Michael Bloomberg’s three-term run as mayor, we were the beneficiaries of an unusual administration where, in addition to Bloomberg, both Amanda Burden as the planning commissioner and Kate Levin as the commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs were interested in new things and making the city better. Things felt like gifts. When we opened the High Line, nobody expected anything. It wasn’t preadvertised, it just happened. Zaryadye Park, Moscow, 2017. Aerial view with flyover bridge looking northwest toward the Kremlin, Red Square (fig. 6, page 238) Architecture. (Iwan Baan) AN: Some of your work is risky: It’s provocative, and it’s about bodies and technology. But culture, lately, is fairly risk averse. How do you navigate which risks to take as a firm? ED: One of the big risks is that we take on things that we’re totally unqualified to do. Like with The Mile-Long Opera, we had a thousand singers, and we were producing and directing it. We were doing all this, and we weren’t qualified. We learned as we went. Like with the Blur Building, we jumped off the cliff without a parachute and learned on the way down. Thankfully we had a soft landing. We didn’t understand what we were getting into; we didn’t realize that all of Switzerland could’ve gotten Legionnaires’ disease. But we learned we needed serious filtration systems, and we had water engineers involved. The projects we take on wouldn’t be interesting if there was no risk, because then we’re just doing something we already know. It could be a new project or a novel structural system or technological idea, and even if it is a typology we have done before, we rethink it in a different way. We also do unpopular things, which is risky with our own audience. We designed Zaryadye Park in Moscow, right in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral and close to the Kremlin. It raised the question, “Are we supporting a regime we don’t endorse?” We decided to move forward because there was an international jury that picked us legitimately and there was a city architect who was extraordinarily enlightened. The project, which didn’t seem like a Russian project, was selected, and it went forward without being stopped. It was a delicate thing. The brief instructed us to not make any spaces where the public can assemble. So we included lots of smaller spots, including places where you can walk on the grass, unlike other parks in Russia. Challenging the rules might include taking on something that is risky in an ideological way, but it is an opportunity to make a positive change. I struggle with the issue, as populations need good minds, people, and institutions to change, but I can’t quite get it out of my head when the ruling body enables criminal things that we can’t support. Every project has those kinds of assessments. We actually made this interesting scorecard that had all the countries and their relative risk levels, so we could assess where we could feel comfortable working. It’s funny, but it allowed us to think about the world and human rights. The Shed (Courtesy Phaidon) AN: What surprised you when making this book? ED: I thought looking back at this work would have a nostalgic effect or that we would be showing things that maybe we’re not proud of. Instead, everything in there I feel I would do again. Things have changed, but every entry cracked a piece of research that was essential in our growth. When I look back, I’m proud of every project: Each made us think differently about the world and institutions and so forth. Maybe that’s the biggest discovery. And there are all these postpublication discoveries of the networked connections between projects that I didn’t realize before. We’ll have to start noting them down for the next edition.

All images courtesy of Atlantic Productions / Magellan / National Geographic ‘Titanic: The Digital Resurrection’ Unveils an Unprecedented View of the Harrowing Maritime Disaster April 14, 2025 Kate Mothes In the summer of 2022, a team of deep-sea researchers spent six weeks in the North Atlantic Ocean at a remote site about 370 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The final resting place of RMS Titanic, which sank on April 14, 1912, the ocean floor bears the magnificent remains of the 883-foot-long vessel. When the ship disembarked from Southampton, England, it carried more than 2,200 passengers and crew, but only about 700 were rescued after it struck an iceberg. Using remotely operated underwater vehicles, scientists explored the wreck from a range of vantage points, expanding their survey across a debris field that stretches as wide as three miles. The aim of this expedition revolved around capturing an unprecedented digital view of the ship, enabling a lifelike, virtual reconstruction. Two submersibles captured a whopping 16 terabytes of data, comprising 715,000 images and a high-resolution video. The files were processed and assembled over the course of seven months to create what Atlantic Productions head Anthony Geffen describes as a “one-to-one digital copy, a ‘twin,’ of the Titanic in every detail.” Released last Friday, Titanic: The Digital Resurrection chronicles the monumental task of capturing the footage and creating a never-before-seen view of the famous site. Produced by Atlantic Productions and National Geographic, the film follows the crew of deep-sea investigation outfit Magellan as they explored the iconic, hulking remains. “Accurate to the rivet,” a statement says, the film traces nearly two years of research by historians, scientists, and engineers. “Their mission is to review and challenge long-held assumptions, including reconstructing a minute-by-minute timeline of the tragedy to uncover new insights into the ship’s final moments on that fateful night in 1912.” Titanic: The Digital Resurrection is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. Next article

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Why it matters: A new "grand coalition" is set to debut in the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament. Led by Friedrich Merz, the incoming government plans to boost spending on science and technology - while extending a not-so-subtle invitation for ostracized US researchers to relocate and continue their work in Europe. Germany's three largest political parties have agreed to form a new government, uniting the center-right Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union with the center-left Social Democrats. While grand coalitions are nothing new, the incoming mix of ideologies includes some notably ambitious proposals for science and technology policymaking. The 144-page agreement - expected to win formal approval from all three parties in the coming weeks - outlines plans for a new "super-high-tech ministry" to oversee research, technology, and aerospace. The plan calls for splitting the current Ministry of Research and Education, transferring research responsibilities to the new ministry, and assigning education to the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth. Volkswagen Foundation CEO Georg Schütte called the plan a smart "realignment" of portfolios that naturally belong together. He argued that research is deeply tied to technology and aerospace, while splitting science from education mirrors a similar division within the Council of the European Union - one of the bloc's two central legislative bodies, alongside the European Parliament. The grand coalition led by CDU leader Friedrich Merz is betting big on a scientific revival in Germany. The new super-ministry will target specific research and technology priorities, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, microchip development and manufacturing, and fusion energy. The plan calls for Germany to pursue an ambitious goal: building the world's first operational fusion reactor. Germany has not yet assigned a budget to the proposed super-high-tech ministry, but the coalition agreement outlines a clear funding trajectory. It pledges to raise annual support for the country's major research organizations by 3 percent annually through 2030. // Related Stories The grand coalition agreement also includes plans to empower "scientific freedom," with funding decisions tied to strictly science-driven criteria and nothing more. Oncologist and researcher Eva Winkler said this goal should be a no-brainer. However, the current polarization coming from the US is putting even the most ordinary principles to the test. Germany may soon become a destination for researchers leaving the United States, where unprecedented budget cuts under the second Trump administration have forced even NOAA scientists to clean toilets. The new European government is preparing an initiative called "1000 Minds," to make Germany more attractive to science and research professionals. Creating a smoother path to recruit valuable US and international talent could be the right move to reach that goal, Winkler suggests.

Sony is one of the most prolific names in the world of TVs, and we’ve had the opportunity to test several of the company’s midrange and premium models over the last few years. Believe it or not, there are still some older Sony sets available to purchase brand-new. While looking through Walmart deals, we came across this fantastic offer on an awesome Sony:  For a limited time, the Sony 75-inch X850K Series 4K LED is on sale at Walmart for $650. The full MSRP on this model is $1,300.  Released in 2022, the Sony X850K is a midrange LED TV that delivers a bright and colorful picture and solid contrast levels. The TV gets bright enough to watch most SDR content in well-lit rooms and even manages to throw some impressive HDR highlights. There’s no local dimming feature, but the X850K may not be built for perfection. It’s going to give you an excellent picture nonetheless. Related The TV has four HDMI ports, two of which are HDMI 2.1 certified. If you’re a console or PC gamer, you’ll want to use ports 3 and 4 to get as little tearing and input lag as possible. Thanks to VRR and ALLM support, the X850K automatically switches to Game Mode when a PlayStation or Xbox is detected. And because you’ll be working with a native 120Hz refresh rate, you can expect smooth motion when watching sports and action movies, too.  The X850K brings a smart TV experience powered by Google TV OS. The platform gives you access to popular apps like Netflix and Disney Plus, as well as hundreds of free live TV stations and other web-connected features.  It’s only a matter of time before it can’t be found in stores at all anymore. Save $650 when you purchase the Sony 75-inch X850K Series 4K LED right now, and be sure to check out our lists of the best Sony TV deals, best TV deals, and best soundbar deals for even more discounts on top Sony screens! Editors’ Recommendations

Let the games begin Here’s the latest on NASA’s Lunar Gateway, a program many people want to cancel The NASA official in charge of Gateway briefed Ars on the program's challenges and achievements. Stephen Clark – Apr 14, 2025 4:29 pm | 1 Artist's concept of the Lunar Gateway's habitation and power and propulsion modules in orbit around the Moon. Credit: NASA Artist's concept of the Lunar Gateway's habitation and power and propulsion modules in orbit around the Moon. Credit: NASA Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more In one way or another, the Lunar Gateway has lingered around the periphery of NASA's human exploration program since the Obama administration. Back then, the elements that eventually coalesced into the Gateway were geared toward a nebulous initiative to capture a small asteroid and reposition it closer to Earth. Under direction from the first Trump administration, NASA ditched the asteroid idea and repackaged the concept to become a mini-space station in orbit around the Moon. NASA officials justified the Lunar Gateway program by highlighting its utility as a staging point or safe haven for astronauts traveling to and from the surface of the Moon. Crews could launch from Earth and travel to the Moon's vicinity inside NASA's Orion spacecraft, connect with the Gateway, and then float into their lunar lander already docked with the outpost. When plans for the Gateway came together nearly a decade ago, officials hailed the lunar station as a way to help lunar landers reach the Moon's south pole, where scientists believe large quantities of water ice reside in the bottoms of dark craters. At the time, NASA said the Gateway would also offer additional living space for astronauts beyond the relatively cramped quarters of the Orion crew capsule or small lunar landers. NASA cited other reasons for the Lunar Gateway program. It would help NASA gain experience sustaining human crews 1,000 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station. Gateway's design is about one-sixth the mass of ISS, with provisions to support astronauts for missions lasting up to 90 days when complete. The core of Lunar Gateway, called the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), will have 12-kilowatt Hall thrusters, the highest-power electric propulsion system ever sent into space. On future missions, these fuel-efficient engines could push heavy cargo into deep space and help enable human expeditions to Mars. That all sounds nice, but... Now, the justification for Lunar Gateway is less technical and more political. Many of the objectives listed above no longer make sense, or they could be met through other means. NASA will now use a much more voluminous lunar landing craft with its own muscular propulsion system—SpaceX's Starship—than engineers envisioned when work started on Gateway. Starship and NASA's second lunar lander, to be built by Blue Origin, doesn't need to dock with an outpost like Gateway to reach the surface of the Moon. In fact, docking Starship to the Gateway presents its own set of challenges. The Gateway's maneuvering thrusters weren't designed to keep the station stable with a massive spacecraft like Starship attached to it. You might say the Gateway is not only unnecessary, but an impediment to NASA's goals. If NASA wants a permanent outpost at the Moon, why not put it on the lunar surface? These are questions some space community stakeholders have asked since before the Gateway was even a line item in NASA's budget. If you ask NASA officials and other Gateway supporters today why it's important, you'll probably get an answer underscoring the program's international flavor. NASA is in charge of the Gateway's first two components, the PPE module and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), which will provide spartan accommodations to sustain the station's initial crews for up to 40 days. But it's true that most of the pieces required to complete Gateway's assembly will come from international partners. Europe and Japan will provide a larger habitation module to accommodate astronauts for up to 90 days, the United Arab Emirates has agreed to build an airlock to add spacewalking capability to the Gateway, and Canada is developing a robotic arm. The European Space Agency (ESA) is also responsible for the Gateway's refueling and communications systems. Maxar Technologies is building the Power and Propulsion Element for NASA's Lunar Gateway in Palo Alto, California. Credit: NASA All told, international partners will pay about 60 percent of the cost of developing and building the Gateway, according to Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Moon to Mars program. That sounds like a pretty good deal for NASA, but it still leaves the US space agency with a hefty bill. NASA has spent more than $3.5 billion on the Gateway program since its official start in 2019, and the agency is responsible for operating and resupplying the station once it is in space. At a recent event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Kshatriya said NASA's international partnerships have been "one of the great results" of the International Space Station program. The Lunar Gateway, he said, is important for "cultivating that and making sure it endures." There are other ways international partners can contribute to NASA's human exploration program. For example, Europe already builds service modules for the Orion spacecraft designed to ferry astronauts to and from Earth. Japan has agreed to develop a pressurized rover for astronauts to drive on the Moon. The focus of NASA's Artemis program is currently on the Moon—as it has been since the first Trump administration—with an eye toward building experience for future human voyages to the red planet. The balance between the Moon and Mars could shift in the second Trump administration, thickening the cloud of uncertainty about the Gateway's value to NASA. Behind schedule and over budget For now, the Gateway's first two modules are scheduled for launch at the end of 2027. That's five years later than the schedule NASA released six years ago. NASA currently projects it will cost the US government about $5.3 billion to build, launch, and activate the PPE and HALO in space. The two modules will launch together on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Officials blame changing requirements for much of the delays and rising costs. NASA managers dramatically changed their plans for the Gateway program in 2020, when they decided to launch the PPE and HALO on the same rocket, prompting major changes to their designs. Jared Isaacman, Trump's nominee for NASA administrator, declined to commit to the Gateway program during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on April 9. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the committee's chairman, pressed Isaacman on the Lunar Gateway. Cruz is one of the Gateway program's biggest backers in Congress since it is managed by Johnson Space Center in Texas. If it goes ahead, Gateway would guarantee numerous jobs at NASA's mission control in Houston throughout its 15-year lifetime. "That’s an area that if I’m confirmed, I would love to roll up my sleeves and further understand what’s working right?" Isaacman replied to Cruz. "What are the opportunities the Gateway presents to us? And where are some of the challenges, because I think the Gateway is a component of many programs that are over budget and behind schedule." The pressure shell for the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module arrived in Gilbert, Arizona, last week for internal outfitting. Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel Checking in with Gateway Nevertheless, the Gateway program achieved a milestone one week before Isaacman's confirmation hearing. The metallic pressure shell for the HALO module was shipped from its factory in Italy to Arizona. The HALO module is only partially complete, and it lacks life support systems and other hardware it needs to operate in space. Over the next couple of years, Northrop Grumman will outfit the habitat with those components and connect it with the Power and Propulsion Element under construction at Maxar Technologies in Silicon Valley. This stage of spacecraft assembly, along with prelaunch testing, often uncovers problems that can drive up costs and trigger more delays. Ars recently spoke with Jon Olansen, a bio-mechanical engineer and veteran space shuttle flight controller who now manages the Gateway program at Johnson Space Center. A transcript of our conversation with Olansen is below. It is lightly edited for clarity and brevity. Ars: The HALO module has arrived in Arizona from Italy. What's next? Olansen: This HALO module went through significant effort from the primary and secondary structure perspective out at Thales Alenia Space in Italy. That was most of their focus in getting the vehicle ready to ship to Arizona. Now that it's in Arizona, Northrop is setting it up in their facility there in Gilbert to be able to do all of the outfitting of the systems we need to actually execute the missions we want to do, keep the crew safe, and enable the science that we're looking to do. So, if you consider your standard spacecraft, you're going to have all of your command-and-control capabilities, your avionics systems, your computers, your network management, all of the things you need to control the vehicle. You're going to have your power distribution capabilities. HALO attaches to the Power and Propulsion Element, and it provides the primary power distribution capability for the entire station. So that'll all be part of HALO. You'll have your standard thermal systems for active cooling. You’ll have the vehicle environmental control systems that will need to be installed, [along with] some of the other crew systems that you can think of, from lighting, restraint, mobility aids, all the different types of crew systems. Then, of course, all of our science aspects. So we have payload lockers, both internally, as well as payload sites external that we'll have available, so pretty much all the different systems that you would need for a human-rated spacecraft. Ars: What's the latest status of the Power and Propulsion Element? Olansen: PPE is fairly well along in their assembly and integration activities. The central cylinder has been integrated with the propulsion tanks... Their propulsion module is in good shape. They're working on the avionics shelves associated with that spacecraft. So, with both vehicles, we're really trying to get the assembly done in the next year or so, so we can get into integrated spacecraft testing at that point in time. Ars: What’s in the critical path in getting to the launch pad? Olansen: The assembly and integration activity is really the key for us. It’s to get to the full vehicle level test. All the different activities that we're working on across the vehicles are making substantive progress. So, it's a matter of bringing them all in and doing the assembly and integration in the appropriate sequences, so that we get the vehicles put together the way we need them and get to the point where we can actually power up the vehicles and do all the testing we need to do. Obviously, software is a key part of that development activity, once we power on the vehicles, making sure we can do all the control work that we need to do for those vehicles. [There are] a couple of key pieces I will mention along those lines. On the PPE side, we have the electrical propulsion system. The thrusters associated with that system are being delivered. Those will go through acceptance testing at the Glenn Research Center [in Ohio] and then be integrated on the spacecraft out at Maxar; so that work is ongoing as we speak. Out at ESA, ESA is providing the HALO lunar communication system. That'll be delivered later this year. That'll be installed on HALO as part of its integrated test and checkout and then launch on HALO. That provides the full communication capability down to the lunar surface for us, where PPE provides the communication capability back to Earth. So, those are key components that we're looking to get delivered later this year. Jon Olansen, manager of NASA's Gateway program at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA/Andrew Carlsen Ars: What's the status of the electric propulsion thrusters for the PPE? Olansen: The first one has actually been delivered already, so we'll have the opportunity to go through, like I said, the acceptance testing for those. The other flight units are right on the heels of the first one that was delivered. They'll make it through their acceptance testing, then get delivered to Maxar, like I said, for integration into PPE. So, that work is already in progress. [The Power and Propulsion Element will have three xenon-fueled 12-kilowatt Hall thrusters produced by Aerojet Rocketdyne, and four smaller 6-kilowatt thrusters.] Ars: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) outlined concerns last year about keeping the mass of Gateway within the capability of its rocket. Has there been any progress on that issue? Will you need to remove components from the HALO module and launch them on a future mission? Will you narrow your launch windows to only launch on the most fuel-efficient trajectories? Olansen: We’re working the plan. Now that we're launching the two vehicles together, we're working mass management. Mass management is always an issue with spacecraft development, so it's no different for us. All of the things you described are all knobs that are in the trade space as we proceed, but fundamentally, we're working to design the optimal spacecraft that we can, first. So, that's the key part. As we get all the components delivered, we can measure mass across all of those components, understand what our integrated mass looks like, and we have several different options to make sure that we're able to execute the mission we need to execute. All of those will be balanced over time based on the impacts that are there. There's not a need for a lot of those decisions to happen today. Those that are needed from a design perspective, we've already made. Those that are needed from enabling future decisions, we’ve already made all of those. So, really, what we're working through is being able to, at the appropriate time, make decisions necessary to fly the vehicle the way we need to, to get out to NRHO [Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, an elliptical orbit around the Moon], and then be able to execute the Artemis missions in the future. Ars: The GAO also discussed a problem with Gateway's controllability with something as massive as Starship docked to it. What's the latest status of that problem? Olansen: There are a number of different risks that we work through as a program, as you'd expect. We continue to look at all possibilities and work through them with due diligence. That's our job, to be able to do that on a daily basis. With the stack controllability [issue], where that came from for GAO, we were early in the assessments of what the potential impacts could be from visiting vehicles, not just any one [vehicle] but any visiting vehicle. We're a smaller space station than ISS, so making sure we understand the implications of thruster firings as vehicles approach the station, and the implications associated with those, is where that stack controllability conversation came from. The bus that Maxar typically designs doesn't have to generally deal with docking. Part of what we've been doing is working through ways that we can use the capabilities that are already built into that spacecraft differently to provide us the control authority we need when we have visiting vehicles, as well as working with the visiting vehicles and their design to make sure that they're minimizing the impact on the station. So, the combination of those two has largely, over the past year since that report came out, improved where we are from a stack controllability perspective. We still have forward work to close out all of the different potential cases that are there. We'll continue to work through those. That's standard forward work, but we've been able to make some updates, some software updates, some management updates and logic updates, that really allow us to control the stack effectively and have the right amount of control authority for the dockings and undockings that we will need to execute for the missions. Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 1 Comments

In the ‘unsolvable task’, puppies are shown a reward they can’t access. Those that look to humans for help tend to be easier to trainJarno Niemi A set of cognitive tests for puppies can predict how brave, energetic, self-controlled and trainable they will be as adults. Knowing this can help owners tailor teaching styles, adapt expectations and generally better understand their pets’ abilities and limitations, says Saara Junttila at the University of Helsinki in Finland. “These traits are not necessarily good or bad,…

The RMS Titanic and its doomed voyage have captured people's interest since the tragedy 113 years ago, on April 15, 1912.The ship and its passengers were once again brought back into the spotlight when the wreckage was found on September 1, 1985, seven decades after it sank.Among those passengers was Millvina Dean, who was just 2 months old when the ship went down. She was the youngest survivor of the tragedy.Learn more about Dean's remarkable life, including her service during World War II, her relationship with her newfound fame, and why she never saw "Titanic," one of the highest-grossing films ever. Millvina Dean was just 9 weeks old when she boarded the Titanic in 1912 with her parents and older brother. Millvina Dean and her mother. Public domain The youngest passenger aboard the Titanic, she boarded the ship with her mother, Georgette, her father, Bertram Frank, and her brother, Bertram Vere, on April 10, 1912, before the ship set sail from Southampton, England. But she wasn't supposed to be on the Titanic at all. The Dean family boarded the ship after a coal strike canceled their original trip. The Titanic. Topical Press Agency/Getty Images The family was supposed to cross the Atlantic on a different White Star Line ship, according to the Los Angeles Times' obituary of Dean. However, a coal strike led to the cancellation of their original voyage. The White Star Line offered them third-class tickets on the Titanic instead. Her family was leaving the UK to move to Kansas City to join her father's cousin. Millvina Dean received many letters from Titanic scholars. Ian Cook/Getty Images The Deans were going to Missouri to be with her father's cousin, who owned a store in Kansas City, according to Millvina Dean's obituary in The New York Times. Her father was going to co-own the store after the Deans sold the pub they owned in England. On April 14, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and later sank. Dean, her mother, and her 2-year-old brother survived, but her father died. A lifeboat from the Titanic. Ralph White/CORBIS/Corbis/Getty Images Dean said her father felt the ship collide with the iceberg, which might have saved his family's lives."I think it was my father who saved us," Dean told the Los Angeles Times. "So many other people thought the Titanic would never sink, and they didn't bother. My father didn't take a chance."Dean, her mother, and brother were put on lifeboat 13, as reported by BBC News.The survivors on lifeboats were later picked up by the RMS Carpathia and taken to New York City. But Dean's father was among the more than 1,500 people who died in the tragedy. Dean said she believed it was true that White Star Lines employees had prevented third-class passengers from going above deck and potentially escaping the sinking ship, The New York Times reported."It couldn't happen nowadays, and it's so wrong, so unjust. What do they say? 'Judy O'Grady and the colonel's lady are sisters under the skin.' That's the way it should have been that night, but it wasn't," she said. When the Deans returned to England aboard the Adriatic, passengers lined up to hold the baby. A small baby pictured on the deck of the Carpathia, which pulled stranded survivors from lifeboats. Carl Simon/United Archives/Universal Images Group/Getty Images Three weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, the RMS Adriatic took some survivors back to England. Dean, her mother, and brother were on board."Passengers who knew what the family had been through lined up to hold baby Millvina, the youngest survivor of the Titanic. To keep the line moving, a ship's officer ordered that no one could hold the baby for more than 10 minutes," wrote Mary Rourke of the Los Angeles Times in Dean's obituary. Dean didn't learn about the true horrors of the Titanic until she was 8 years old when her mother finally told her. Millvina Dean at a Titanic exhibit in 2003. John Stillwell - PA Images/PA Images/Getty Images "My mother would never speak of it, because it was her husband and they were only married four years. He was strikingly handsome. I didn't know anything about it until I was 8 years old. And then my mother got married again. That's when I first heard about the Titanic, and about my father going down, everything like that," she told the Belfast Telegraph in 2009.In another interview with the Irish Times, the Los Angeles Times reported, Dean said that her mother suffered severe headaches every day after the sinking. Millvina and Bertram Dean were educated using money from the Titanic Relief Fund, a charity formed in England to support survivors. Millvina Dean and a street that was named after her. Ian Cook/Getty Images The White Star Line rather infamously didn't accept any liability for the Titanic's sinking for years, even though the tragedy left almost all of its passengers with no money, no possessions, and in many cases, no breadwinner — many families lost their husbands and fathers since they couldn't get on lifeboats.The Wall Street Journal reported in 2003 that four years after the crash, the White Star Line agreed to pay the US $665,000, or roughly $430 per passenger.In 2025, that'd be around $12,972 each. During World War II, she worked in the British Army's map-making office. A World War II-era map. Culture Club/Getty Images According to the Los Angeles Times, after the war, she worked as a secretary in an engineering office for 20 years. She never publicly spoke about the Titanic until 1985, when the shipwreck was found. Millvina Dean at another Titanic exhibition. GERRY PENNY/AFP/Getty Images "Nobody knew about me and the Titanic, to be honest, nobody took any interest, so I took no interest either," she said, according to The New York Times. "But then they found the wreck, and after they found the wreck, they found me."For decades after, Millvina Dean attended many Titanic exhibitions, conventions, and events. She also traveled to different schools to tell her life's story. Dean never watched James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster "Titanic." She would sign posters, though. NANCY PALMIERI/AP Even though Dean had said she didn't feel a huge connection to her father since she never really knew him, she couldn't watch any movies or documentaries about the Titanic."Because that's the ship on which my father went down. Although I didn't remember him, nothing about him, I would still be emotional. I would think: 'How did he go down? Did he go down with the ship or did he jump overboard?'" she told the Belfast Telegraph in May 2009, weeks before her death. Her brother Bertram, pictured right, died on the 80th anniversary of the iceberg collision in 1992. He was 81. Survivors Eva Hart and Bertram Dean (left and right) with scientist Robert Ballard (center), who led the deep-sea expedition to film the wreck of the Titanic. PA/PA Images/Getty Images Her mother lived to be 96, dying in 1975, according to The New York Times. In 1997, Millvina Dean finally successfully crossed the Atlantic from Southampton to New York City aboard the Queen Elizabeth II. Millvina Dean on the water. Xavier DESMIER/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images Eighty-five years after the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, Dean finally completed the journey from Southampton to New York City, reported the Deseret News.According to United Press International, after she arrived in NYC in August, she then journeyed to Kansas City to visit the neighborhood that would've been hers, if everything had gone to plan. She auctioned off some of her Titanic memorabilia later in life, including the mailbag her mother carried their possessions in after the sinking. A 100-year-old suitcase that was filled with clothes was donated to Millvina Dean. Ben Birchall - PA Images/PA Images/Getty Images After breaking her hip in 2006, Dean began living in a nursing home. To help with expenses, she auctioned off some items that had been with her family on the Titanic, including a suitcase that sold for $18,650. In total, she raised $53,906, according to NBC News. James Cameron and "Titanic" stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio donated thousands of dollars toward her nursing home costs in 2009. Kate Winslet, James Cameron, and Leonardo DiCaprio at the Golden Globes. Hal Garb/AFP via Getty Images Reuters reported that the trio behind "Titanic" donated $30,000 to Dean after her longtime friend Don Mullan challenged them to."I laid down the challenge to the 'Titanic' actors and directors to support the Millvina Fund and I was delighted with the generosity they have shown in meeting that challenge," Mullan told the Irish Examiner in 2009. Millvina Dean died in 2009 at 97. She was the last living survivor of the Titanic. Flowers where Millvina Dean's ashes were scattered. Johnny Green/PA Images/Getty Images Millvina Dean's ashes were scattered by her partner, Bruno Nordmanis, at the Southampton Docks, where the Titanic left for its first and only voyage, NBC News reported.