NASA has abandoned its attempt to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, the gamma-ray satellite expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere later this year, after the Katalyst-built LINK rescue craft was crippled by attitude control failures. The same week, NPR reported that Goddard Space Flight Center engineers had lost the labs and equipment they need to build the next generation of spacecraft.
Science28 September 20265 min readSources 4
Stanford and Caltech researchers have built HomeBody, a system that lets a Unitree G1 robot tidy an unfamiliar kitchen by calling a vision-language model directly into a skill library, according to The Decoder on 27 September.
Science28 September 20263 min readSources 6
Helion says its Polaris prototype became the first privately developed fusion machine to run on deuterium-tritium fuel, reaching plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius. The company announced the result on 13 February 2026. Two other data points from the same year tell a different story: ITER's $22 billion construction programme in southern France, and a $100 million Series B for stellarator developer Thea Energy.
Science28 September 20267 min readSources 3
Helion says its Polaris prototype became the first privately developed fusion machine to run on deuterium-tritium fuel and hold plasma at 150 million degrees Celsius. Realta Fusion reported the first direct conversion of plasma energy into electricity by a commercial fusion company.
Science28 September 20264 min readSources 3
Helion says its Polaris machine reached 150 million degrees Celsius and became the first privately developed device to run on deuterium-tritium fuel. Realta Fusion reported the first direct conversion of plasma energy into electricity by a commercial company. Both results landed in a year when ITER's price tag was put at $22 billion.
Science28 September 20264 min readSources 4
NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies called off the Link rescue of the Swift gamma-ray observatory on Wednesday, after attitude control failures left the $30 million spacecraft unable to capture the falling telescope.
Science28 September 20263 min readSources 3
