International
Artemis 1: Nasa cancels moon mission launch over engine problem
Nasa is delaying a decision on the timing of its next launch attempt for Artemis 1, the US space agency’s first human-rated moon rocket in 50 years, after calling off Monday’s scheduled lift off late in the countdown because of an issue related to “engine bleed”
Engineers at Nasa’s launch complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida, discovered the problem with one of the four core-stage engines of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket during overnight loading of 2.76m litres (730,000 gallons) of liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel needed to send the spacecraft off on its 1.3m-mile, 42-day journey to the far side of the moon and back.
They were unable to find a fix in time to meet a two-hour launch window that opened at 8.33am (1.33pm BST) on Monday, and they are now troubleshooting the issue to assess readiness for the next available opportunity, on Friday 2 September.
“Friday is definitely in play. We just need a little bit of time to look at the data, but the team is setting up for a 96-hour recycle,” Mike Sarafin, Nasa’s Artemis mission manager, told a lunchtime press conference.
“We’re going to play all nine innings. We’re not giving up yet.”
Sarafin said no decision could be made until mission managers conducted a readiness review beginning on Tuesday afternoon, noting that he did not believe the problem was with the engine itself, but in the bleed system that “conditions” it with cryogenic propellant and adjusts the temperature for launch.
“The team… also saw an issue with a vent valve at the inner tank, so the combination of not being able to get the engine three chilled down and then the vent valve issue caused us to pause today, and we felt like we needed a little little more time,” he said.
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Sarafin added that poor weather conditions at launchpad 39B at Kennedy Space Centre throughout Monday’s window would also have precluded the launch taking place.
The uncrewed Artemis flight is a crucial test mission designed to gauge the capabilities of the SLS rocket and six-person Orion crew capsule ahead of humanity’s planned return to the moon for the first time in half a century.
If Artemis 1 ultimately succeeds, astronauts will be onboard an interim test flight along the same route 40,000 miles beyond the moon and back, a trek scheduled for 2024. The first moon landing since Apollo 17 in December 1972 would follow a year or so later, with Nasa declaring it will carry the first woman to walk on the lunar surface.
Upwards of a quarter-million people flocked to Florida’s space coast on Monday to watch a moment in history now postponed to later this week, or even later in September or October, if engineers cannot quickly diagnose and address the cause of the engine bleed issue.
Problems with the rocket, which is made by Boeing, first arose during a “hot fire” test in January last year, when the engines shut down only one minute into a scheduled eight-minute run. The project at that stage was already almost three years behind schedule and $3bn (£2.55bn) over budget.
Critics say the ultimate cost to the US taxpayer of the Artemis programme, projected to reach $93bn (£79bn) by 2025, and which has longer-term goals of placing the first humans on Mars in 15 to 20 years’ time, cannot be justified.
But the Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson, a former space shuttle astronaut, said there was greater purpose in placing new human footprints in lunar soil now from those of the 12 men of the Apollo programme who did so over six missions in a past generation.
“We need to be on the moon for much longer periods of time than just landing like we used to, stayed a couple of days and left,” Nelson told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “This time we’re going back, we’re going to live there, we’re going to learn there. We’re going to develop new technologies, all of this so we can go to Mars with humans.
“All of this is to develop where we may be living on other worlds. They may be floating worlds, they may be the surface of Mars. But this is just part of our push outward, our quest to explore, to find out what’s out there in this universe.”
Nasa’s shuttle program, which was retired in 2011, limited crewed missions to lower Earth orbit, and subsequently private US space companies, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, have flown, or are planning flights, to the International Space Station orbiting about 250 miles above Earth.
Artemis is Nasa’s first deep-space exploration project for decades and, unlike the Apollo and shuttle programmes before it, relies heavily on outside contractors and international partners.
SLS is designed and manufactured by Boeing. The Orion crew capsule is the brainchild of Lockheed Martin. And the European Space Agency supplies the service module, the powerhouse of the spacecraft for its lunar journey once the powerful solid rocket boosters and core stage of SLS have placed it beyond Earth’s gravitational pull.
The ESM will push Orion farther from Earth than any human-rated space vehicle has ever flown before, providing electricity, water, oxygen and nitrogen and keeping the capsule on course and at the correct temperature before separating and burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere on its return to Earth.
International
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
US President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban TikTok the day before his January 20 inauguration if it is not sold by its Chinese owner ByteDance.
“In light of the novelty and difficulty of this case, the court should consider staying the statutory deadline to grant more breathing space to address these issues,” Trump’s legal team wrote, to give him “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution.”
Trump was fiercely opposed to TikTok during his 2017-21 first term, and tried in vain to ban the video app on national security grounds.
The Republican voiced concerns — echoed by political rivals — that the Chinese government might tap into US TikTok users’ data or manipulate what they see on the platform.
US officials had also voiced alarm over the popularity of the video-sharing app with young people, alleging that its parent company is subservient to Beijing and that the app is used to spread propaganda, claims denied by the company and the Chinese government.
Trump called for a US company to buy TikTok, with the government sharing in the sale price, and his successor Joe Biden went one stage further — signing a law to ban the app for the same reasons.
– Reversing course –
Trump has now, however, reversed course.
At a press conference last week, Trump said he has “a warm spot” for TikTok and that his administration would take a look at the app and the potential ban.
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Earlier this month, the president-elect met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Recently, Trump told Bloomberg he had changed his mind about the app: “Now (that) I’m thinking about it, I’m for TikTok, because you need competition.”
“If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram — and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
International
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Actress Olivia Hussey, who shot to international prominence as a teenager for her role in the acclaimed 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, has died aged 73.
The Argentinian-born actress, who grew up in London, died on Friday surrounded by her loved ones, a statement posted on her Instagram said.
Hussey won the best new actress Golden Globe for her part as Juliet, but decades later she sued Paramount Pictures for sexual abuse as she was aged just 15 when she filmed the movie’s nude scene.
Her other most notable screen role was as Mary, mother of Jesus, in 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth.
“As we grieve this immense loss, we also celebrate Olivia’s enduring impact on our lives and the industry,” the statement said.
Hussey was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1951, before moving to London aged seven and studying at the Italia Conti Academy drama school.
1968’s Romeo and Juliet was nominated for best picture and director Oscars
She was 15 when Romeo and Juliet director Franco Zeffirelli discovered her onstage, playing opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the play The Prime of Miss Joan Brodie
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Zeffirelli was looking for someone who was young enough to be a convincing Juliet in what he intended to be the definitive cinematic version of the Shakespeare play.
He cast Hussey alongisde British 16-year-old Leonard Whiting as Romeo in the film.
The film was nominated for an Oscar for best picture and director. Hussey missed out on an Oscar nomination herself in a strong year in which Barbra Streisand won the main award for Funny Girl.
But at that year’s Golden Globes Hussey won the award for best new star.
Decades later, she and Whiting sued Paramount Pictures alleging Zeffirelli – who died in 2019 – had encouraged them to film nude scenes despite previous assurances they would not have to.
The pair sought damages of more than $500m (£417m), based on suffering they said they had experienced and the revenue brought in by the film since its release.
But last year a judge dismissed the case, finding the scene was not “sufficiently sexually suggestive”.
In 1977, Hussey had reunited with Zeffirelli for Jesus of Nazareth to play the Virgin Mary, before appearing in Death on the Nile a year later based on Agatha Christie’s novel.
Her roles in early slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and TV film Psycho IV: The Beginning earned her recognition as a scream queen. In the latter, she p[layed Norman Bates’s mother in a prequel storyline.
In later years she also took on work as a voice actress, appearing frequently in video games.
But she did have one final reunion with her former Romeo – as she and Whiting appeared together in the 2015 British film Social Suicide, which was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, albeit set in the social media era.
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
BBC
International
Israel attacks: UN warns humanitarian disaster in Yemen may get worse
Israel attacks: UN warns humanitarian disaster in Yemen may get worse
NEW YORK CITY: The humanitarian crisis in Yemen, already one of the most dire in the world, threatens to get even worse should Israel continue to attack Hodeidah seaport and Sanaa airport and puts them out of action, the UN warned on Friday.
Julien Harneis, the organization’s resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said the number of people in the country in need of aid to survive is expected to reach 19 million in the coming year.
Speaking from Sanaa, he said Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, has the second-highest number of malnourished children of any nation, and ranks third in terms of food insecurity.
The civil war there, which has dragged on for nearly a decade, has decimated the economy and left millions of civilians without access to the basic necessities of life, he added. The country is in the throes of a “survival crisis” and the number of people unable to access healthcare services is one of the highest in the world.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck the international airport in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, as well as seaports and power stations on the Red Sea coast, killing at least four people. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the attacks were a response to more than a year of missile and drone attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis, and were “just getting started.”
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The Houthis began attacking Israel and international shipping lanes shortly after the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. They have vowed to continue as long as the war goes on.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Israeli airstrikes and said he was “gravely concerned” about the intensified escalation of hostilities. He said the strikes on the airport and seaports were “especially alarming,” and warned that they pose “grave risks to humanitarian operations” in the war-torn country.
Harneis, who was in the vicinity of the airport during the strikes, told of the destruction of its air traffic control tower, which left the facility temporarily nonoperational. A member of the UN staff was injured in the strike, and there were significant concerns about the safety of humanitarian workers in the area, he added. The airstrikes took place while a Yemeni civilian airliner was landing, additionally raising fears for the safety of passengers.
The airport is a critical hub for the delivery of humanitarian aid, and a key departure point for Yemenis seeking medical treatment abroad. Harneis said destruction of the airport would have far-reaching implications for international aid operations and the ability of Yemenis to access life-saving healthcare.
Hodeidah seaport is another focal point for humanitarian efforts in Yemen, with 80 percent of the country’s food and 95 percent of medical supplies arriving through this gateway. The recent airstrikes, which damaged tugs used to guide large ships, have reduced the port’s capacity by 50 percent.
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“Any damage to this crucial facility would only deepen the suffering of the Yemeni population,” Harneis warned. He also reiterated that the one of the UN’s tasks is to ensure the harbor is used solely for civilian purposes in accordance with international law.
In addition to the immediate physical dangers airstrikes pose to its staff, the UN is also grappling with the detention of 17 of its workers by the Houthis, which casts another shadow over humanitarian operations.
Harneis said the UN has been in negotiations with the Houthis in Sanaa and continues to work “tirelessly” to secure the release of detained staff.
About 3,000 UN employees are currently working in Yemen, Harneis told Arab News, and the ongoing detentions and the threat of further airstrikes continue to create an atmosphere of anxiety. Given these risks, the emotional toll on staff is significant, he said.
“Many colleagues were very anxious about even coming to the office or going out on field missions. It’s very heavy for everyone,” he added.
Though there have been some improvements in operating conditions for humanitarian workers in recent months, Harneis said that when staff see that 16 of their colleagues are still detained “there’s obviously a great deal of anxiety.”
He added: “Then if you add in to that air strikes and the fear of more airstrikes, there is the fear of what’s going to happen next? Are we going to see attacks against bridges, roads, electricity systems? What does that mean for them?”
Despite the challenges to aid efforts, Harneis stressed that as the situation continues to evolve it is the response from the international community that will determine whether or not Yemen can avoid descending even more deeply into disaster.
Israel attacks: UN warns humanitarian disaster in Yemen may get worse
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