WORLD BRIEFLY SpaceX rocket accident leaves company’s Starlink satellites in wrong orbit
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket has failed for the first time in nearly a decade, leaving the company’s internet satellites in an orbit so low that they’re doomed to fall through the atmosphere and burn up.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket has failed for the first time in nearly a decade, leaving the company’s internet satellites in an orbit so low that they’re doomed to fall through the atmosphere and burn up.
The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Thursday night, carrying 20 Starlink satellites. Several minutes into the flight, the upper stage engine malfunctioned. SpaceX on Friday blamed a liquid oxygen leak.
The company said flight controllers managed to make contact with half of the satellites and attempted to boost them to a higher orbit using onboard ion thrusters. But with the low end of their orbit only 84 miles (135 kilometers) above Earth — less than half what was intended — “our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites,” the company said via X.
SpaceX said the satellites will reenter the atmosphere and burn up. There was no mention of when they might come down.
Man gets 226 years in deaths of two Alaska Native women
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A man who killed two Alaska Native women and was heard while videotaping the torture death of one say that in his movies “everybody always dies” was sentenced Friday to 226 years in prison.
Brian Steven Smith received 99-year sentences each for the deaths of Kathleen Henry, 30, and Veronica Abouchuk, who was 52 when her family reported her missing in February 2019, seven months after they last saw her.
“Both were treated about as horribly as a person can be treated,” Alaska Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby said when imposing the sentence.
“It’s the stuff of nightmares,” Saxby said.
The remaining 28 years were for other charges, like sexual assault and tampering with evidence. Alaska does not have the death penalty.
1 dead, 2 missing after helicopter crashes off Hawaiian island of Kauai
HONOLULU (AP) — A tour company helicopter crashed off the Hawaiian island of Kauai, police said, killing one person and leaving two missing in the latest in a series of crashes to plague the industry in recent years.
A hiker on the Kalalau trail reported seeing the helicopter crash into the water about a quarter of a mile off the Na Pali Coast on Thursday and called the fire department around 1:40 p.m., Kauai officials said in a statement.
The Robinson R44 helicopter was part of Ali’i Kauai Air Tours & Charters, authorities said.
