Following months of unsuccessful hardware recovery procedures, NASA has officially initiated decommissioning operations for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft.

The formal retirement marks the end of an illustrious 11-year operational run that fundamentally reshaped human understanding of planetary atmospheric degradation. Project administrators noted that the loss of the veteran probe, which went missing following a routine orbital sequence late last year, represents a deeply felt loss for the global space science community.

The fatal operational issue originally occurred in December 2025 during a scheduled communication blackout window while the probe traversed the far side of Mars. When MAVEN failed to check back in with the Deep Space Network, engineers spent months conducting emergency reboots and transmitting blind recovery scripts.

Later telemetry analysis of recorded faint radio frequencies revealed a surprising detail: MAVEN emerged from the Martian shadow stuck in a safe mode, tumbling continuously at a rate of 2.7 revolutions per minute.

Since the orbiter was physically incapable of normal operation while rotating, this uncontrolled spin permanently misaligned its solar arrays, entirely draining the internal battery banks and cutting off main electrical systems.

Tracking the Evolution of the Martian Climate

Launched from Cape Canaveral in November 2013, MAVEN was built as NASA’s premier orbital asset explicitly dedicated to analyzing the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet.

Arriving in September 2014, the spacecraft’s primary task was to investigate why Mars transitioned from a warm, wet, potentially habitable planet into the frozen desert observed today. While its baseline research charter was originally budgeted to last only two Earth years, the robust spacecraft managed to continuously execute scientific sweeps for over a decade.

During its prolonged, extended mission phases, MAVEN completely revolutionized the field of planetary science. Its instrument suite provided the first direct measurements of atmospheric sputtering, a physical process where high-energy solar particles slam into the upper atmosphere and violently knock gas atoms out into deep space.

The orbiter also mapped planetwide auroral arrays, documented the impact of severe solar storms on gas-erosion rates, and tracked how global Martian dust storms physically pump liquid water vapor directly into the upper atmosphere, accelerating planetary drying.

A Critical Void in the Deep Space Relay Network

Beyond compiling an archive that fueled more than 800 peer-reviewed scientific publications, MAVEN acted as an invaluable infrastructure hub for surface exploration.

While it accounted for roughly 8% of the overall planetary relay sessions scheduled during its operational life, its highly sensitive, high-bandwidth antenna pipeline successfully carried nearly 18% of all scientific data transmitted back to Earth from NASA’s ground rovers and landers.

The loss of this high-capacity communication pipeline leaves a temporary logistical gap in the Mars Relay Network, occasionally delaying incoming data transmissions from surface assets.

NASA administrators confirmed that the four remaining functional orbiters stationed at Mars have already altered their flight paths and communication sweeps to absorb the data load.

Though its telemetry is gone and it will slowly slide toward a destructive surface impact over the next century, MAVEN’s deep space findings remain a foundational cornerstone of modern solar system exploration.

Thales Australia has unveiled the next-generation Bushmaster Mulga utility variant at the Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris, marking the most significant evolution of the combat-proven Australian armored vehicle in years.

The Bushmaster 5.6 was officially revealed on the Team Defence Australia stand by Major General Jason Blain, Head of Land Systems for the Australian Defence Force’s Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, alongside Thales Vehicles and Tactical Systems Vice-President Julien Assoun.

The unveiling forms part of a broader Thales announcement push at Eurosatory 2026, which also included the RapidStriker counter-drone system and a new AI-powered military training analytics platform.

From Bendigo to global market

The Bushmaster has built its reputation over nearly three decades of continuous service. Produced at Thales Australia’s Bendigo, Victoria facility since 1997, more than 1,300 units have been built and deployed in operations spanning East Timor, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, the Golan Heights, and, most recently, Ukraine.

The 5.6 variant is explicitly designed for global export. Its most visible change is a new left-hand-drive configuration — a departure from the right-hand-drive layout standard in Australian service, aimed squarely at international buyers across Europe, the Middle East, and other left-hand-drive markets. The redesign also introduces more user-friendly door access and vehicle entry systems, as well as enhanced digital displays in the cabin.

Built around connectivity and counter-drone integration

What distinguishes the 5.6 from earlier Mulga variants is not just cosmetic — it is architectural. Thales says the new version features systems that are more interconnected, supporting both autonomous and crewed operations, and is capable of integrating a range of different sensors, effectors, and mission systems depending on customer requirements.

Counter-drone capability sits at the center of that flexibility. The Bushmaster 5.6 has been designed to support electronic warfare measures, remote weapon stations, and laser-guided rockets — Thales separately unveiled a next-generation 70mm laser-guided rocket dedicated to counter-drone operations at the same event.

The vehicle was also showcased at Eurosatory as the demonstration platform for RapidStriker, Thales’s new mobile air defense system designed to detect and neutralize aerial threats — including drones and low-flying helicopters — within seconds using a combination of sensors, automated fire control, and multiple weapon options.

Thales Australia & New Zealand CEO Jeff Connolly framed the upgrade as a direct response to the changing character of modern warfare, particularly the lessons drawn from drone proliferation on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Already a trusted defender, he said, the Bushmaster 5.6 has been designed to provide greater flexibility for modern missions, particularly in counter-drone operations, sensing, communications, and electronic warfare.

Adaptable by design

Thales Australia Land Vice-President Andrew Downes described the underlying philosophy behind the redesign: a vehicle that allows customers to adapt it for different missions while retaining the protection, mobility, and reliability that made the original Bushmaster successful globally.

One operator may prioritize surveillance equipment; another may opt for missile launchers or electronic warfare payloads — the same chassis accommodating either configuration.

That modularity reflects a broader shift across modern armored vehicle design, where platforms are increasingly expected to function as adaptable mission carriers rather than single-purpose vehicles.

The existing fleet of more than 1,300 Bushmasters in service worldwide stands to benefit as well — Thales has indicated that select capabilities demonstrated on the 5.6, including counter-drone systems, can be retrofitted onto earlier platform variants already in operation.

As militaries worldwide reassess vehicle survivability requirements in light of the drone-saturated battlefields seen in Ukraine, the Bushmaster 5.6’s emphasis on connectivity, adaptability, and counter-drone integration positions it as Thales’s answer to a fundamentally changed combat environment — one where survivability now depends as much on sensor and electronic warfare integration as on armor plating alone.

An elephant’s trunk can haul a felled log across a clearing and, moments later, peel a single banana without bruising the fruit. That range — from raw strength to delicate precision — comes from a boneless, all-muscle structure that has fascinated soft robotics researchers for years.

A new study has now mapped exactly why the trunk’s skin enables that range, down to its microscopic architecture.

Researcher Lucia Beccai and colleagues studied trunk tissue obtained from a single adult Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) that died of natural causes at Zurich Zoo, Switzerland, in 2020.

Using 35 tissue samples taken across the specimen, the team combined biomechanical testing, histology, multiple imaging techniques, and computational modeling to characterize the trunk’s skin in unprecedented detail.

A skin split into two functional zones

The central finding is that the trunk’s skin is not a uniform material — it is sharply divided into two distinct mechanical zones, each engineered for an entirely different job.

The upper skin functions like an armor-like shield: tough, protective, and 3.14 times stiffer than the skin on the underside of the trunk. That stiffness makes sense functionally — the top of the trunk is what drags across rough bark, scrapes against the ground, and absorbs impact during heavy lifting and pushing.

The underside skin is the opposite: highly flexible and acutely sensitive, built specifically for grasping. Its low stiffness allows it to conform tightly to the contours of whatever object the elephant is handling — a log, a piece of fruit, another elephant’s trunk in greeting — maximizing contact area between the skin and the object and producing a steady, secure grip without requiring excessive muscular force.

A mechanical lens hidden beneath the surface

The most striking discovery lies just beneath the surface of the underside skin: dome-shaped structures called dermal papillae. Using finite element modeling — a computational technique that simulates how physical structures respond to stress — the researchers found that these papillae function like a subsurface mechanical lens.

Rather than simply cushioning the skin, the dome-shaped papillae concentrate and amplify mechanical stress at precisely the locations where the trunk’s sensory nerves are positioned.

In effect, the structure acts as a biological signal booster — taking a faint mechanical input, such as the texture of a banana peel, and intensifying it before it reaches the nerve endings responsible for interpreting touch.

What it means for robotics

According to the study’s authors, this two-zone, mechanically tuned architecture offers a direct, ready-made blueprint for engineers designing the next generation of soft robotic systems.

The trunk does not need separate “armor” and “sensor” components bolted together — it achieves both functions through a single continuous tissue with engineered variation in stiffness and subsurface geometry.

The practical implication: by using biomimetic multi-material approaches — fabricating robotic grippers from layered materials with deliberately varied stiffness, much like the trunk’s natural upper-lower dichotomy — engineers could build grippers with passive outer protection that simultaneously amplify faint tactile signals, all without exposing delicate sensors directly to mechanical wear and abrasion.

That combination has been a persistent challenge in soft robotic gripper design: sensors sensitive enough to detect subtle touch are often the same components most vulnerable to physical damage from repeated contact.

The elephant trunk’s solution — concentrating sensitivity beneath a protective, graduated-stiffness shield — offers a structural answer that robotics researchers have been seeking for years.

The study was published in the journal PNAS Nexus.

German defense manufacturer Rheinmetall have officially unveiled its Containerized Missile Launcher (CML), a specialized multi-launcher platform engineered for the FV-014 Loitering Munition System (LMS).

Designed to expand frontline firepower and shorten critical tactical reaction times, the CML serves as a modular, fully autonomous, and digitally networked weapon system.

The new launcher integrates directly into modern multi-domain combat networks, bridging the operational gap between close-range reconnaissance and conventional artillery units.

The technological core of the system relies on a standardized, logistically flexible 20-foot shipping container. This tactical footprint allows the launcher to be transported seamlessly across various civilian and military logistics systems, including commercial trucks, trains, and maritime supply vessels.

By utilizing a universally recognized container format, the CML enables covert deployment strategies and rapid positioning across highly contested operational theaters, functioning either as a standalone ground asset or mounted directly onto land vehicles and seagoing units.

Autonomous swarm capabilities

The internal architecture of the CML accommodates up to 18 ready-to-launch FV-014 loitering munitions. Equipped with an onboard battery system and a dedicated low-power sleep mode, the launcher can remain operational in a standby state over extended periods.

When a fire mission is authorized, the system automatically transitions from standby to active mode, utilizing an integrated power supply and an optional auxiliary generator to sustain prolonged remote operations.

A central highlight of the design is its high degree of automation and minimized crew footprint. Utilizing advanced swarm coordination algorithms, the system allows a single operator to launch and manage multiple FV-014 “kamikaze drones” simultaneously in a single, coordinated salvo.

Network integration

The CML features integrated fire control systems and highly secure communication channels, allowing tactical units to execute remote launch sequences while keeping human operators safely isolated from counter-battery fire.

Digital command is anchored by the Rheinmetall Battlesuite, which provides an open software architecture that leverages standardized military protocols such as ROS2, MAVLink, and established NATO STANAGs.

This open framework is publicly available on GitHub alongside a dedicated digital test environment, enabling the system to be quickly integrated with existing electronic command, control, and reconnaissance systems across different global defense forces.

Specifications of the FV-014 strike system

The FV-014 munition housed within the CML is an EU-designed, 20-kilogram aerial platform built specifically for rapid, high-volume industrial mass production.

Featuring a quiet, low-signature electric propulsion system and folding wings that deploy immediately upon booster launch, the drone is highly optimized for survivability in heavily contested airspaces.

It features a maximum operational range of 100 kilometers (62 miles), a 60-kilometer (37 miles) real-time data link range, and a flight endurance window of up to 70 minutes.

For precise target engagement beyond the line of sight, the drone carries a 6-kilogram total payload capacity, which includes a highly potent High-Explosive Dual Purpose (HEDP) warhead manufactured by Rheinmetall.

This warhead delivers a rated penetration capability exceeding 600 millimeters of rolled homogeneous armor (RHA), making it lethal against main battle tanks, heavy artillery emplacements, and protected military infrastructure.

Following a successful demonstration for a NATO client in February 2026, the German Armed Forces validated the system’s strategic importance by signing a multi-billion-euro framework agreement for the FV-014 in April 2026.

By coordinating simultaneous deep-space observations, an international team of astrophysicists has successfully captured one of the most powerful and highly stratified “Ultra-Fast Outflows” (UFOs) ever recorded emanating from a supermassive black hole.

The breakthrough, documented via the WISSHFUL heritage program, focuses on a hyper-luminous, non-lensed quasar known as WISSH13, located at a redshift of 3.294.

This positioning places the object squarely within “Cosmic Noon”—a pivotal epoch in cosmic history roughly 1.6 to 3.5 billion years ago when both star formation and black hole accretion rates reached their absolute evolutionary peak across the universe.

The discovery was made possible by blending the high-resolution spectral capabilities of the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatory with the high-energy X-ray sensitivity of NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

Together, the space telescopes produced the highest-quality broadband X-ray spectrum of a non-lensed quasar at this extreme distance to date. The data exposed the inner mechanical workings of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and shed light on how supermassive black holes influence their host galaxies.

The Dynamics of a Dual-Wind Structure

When a supermassive black hole aggressively consumes surrounding matter, friction heats the gas in its accretion disk to millions of degrees. This intense energy generates immense radiation pressure that blasts gas streams outward instead of pulling them inward. In astrophysics, these extreme, highly ionized gas streams are called Ultra-Fast Outflows (UFOs).

What sets the WISSH13 observation apart from standard black hole wind detections is the discovery of two distinct, kinematic components moving simultaneously at vastly different velocities. The joint XMM-Newton and NuSTAR data revealed specific absorption features at roughly 7.5 and 10 kiloelectronvolts (keV) rest-frame.

Physical modeling of these markers verified a stratified wind structure composed of a slower kinematic layer traveling at roughly 10% the speed of light, paired alongside a secondary, high-velocity layer blasting outward at an astonishing 30% the speed of light.

Archival comparisons with observations from 2017 confirmed that while the slower wind remains a persistent feature of the system, the ultra-fast 30% light-speed component emerged dynamically during a later 2024 observation cycle.

Mass Ejections and Galactic Feedback

The sheer energetics of this stratified wind array place it among the most violent ejections ever observed in the deep universe. According to the research analysis, each independent wind component features a mass outflow rate of approximately 20 solar masses per year.

This massive displacement means the dual ejections are shedding gas equivalent to roughly 15% of the total mass the black hole actively consumes each year.

This phenomenon provides concrete evidence for the theory of “galactic feedback”. As these ultra-fast winds slam into the host galaxy, they generate expansive, large-scale shocks that heat and displace cold gas reservoirs. Because galaxies require cold, stable gas to form new stars, these powerful ejections can effectively “quench” or shut down star production.

By mapping this extreme system from Cosmic Noon, scientists have captured a real-time example of a supermassive black hole actively regulating its host galaxy’s growth during a crucial era of the universe’s maturity.