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NASA spacecraft successfully slams into asteroid ten months after SpaceX launch
Ten months after launching into interplanetary space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) spacecraft has successfully impacted an asteroid moon.
Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4) carrying the 630-kilogram (~1400 lb) spacecraft on November 24th, 2021. The rocket performed flawlessly, continuing a streak of successful launches, and boosted DART on its way to a near-Earth asteroid pair.
The goal: slam into the small asteroid moon Dimorphos at an eyewatering speed of 6.3 kilometers per second (14,000 mph / Mach 18). Ten months later, the spacecraft has accomplished exactly that, successfully crashing into a target about 160 meters (530 ft) wide just 17 meters away from a perfect ‘bullseye’ after traveling for ten months and hundreds of millions of kilometers through space. Depending on the results NASA and dozens of other groups will now attempt to glean from ground and space telescopes, the successful impact could be a major leap forward for the field of planetary defense.
The main goal of planetary defense is to protect humanity’s home planet from asteroids, a threat that has routinely caused mass-extinction events throughout the multibillion-year history of life on Earth. With the technology to both detect and reach virtually all near-Earth objects (NEOs) more or less at hand, DART is the first attempt to test and verify what would seem to be the easiest and most obvious method of redirecting asteroids: knocking them off course with the spacecraft itself.
Planetary science and the behavior of things in microgravity conditions have a tendency to defy expectations, however, so testing that assumption is essential. The perfect way to do so came to DART Lead Investigator Andy Chang in a burst of mid-exercise inspiration: instead of hitting any odd NEO, a small spacecraft could slam into a tiny asteroid moon of a much larger parent asteroid. Hitting an asteroid moon would mitigate the small but nonzero risk of accidentally redirecting the target towards Earth while also amplifying the results, making them much easier to observe from tens of millions of kilometers away.
Rather than being forced to search for a virtually imperceptible change in a single asteroid’s half-billion-kilometer-long orbit, the results of hitting the right asteroid moon would be much more easily detectable as a change in the moon’s much smaller orbit around its untouched parent asteroid.
The problem is that aside from spectrographic readings that tell scientists the broad strokes of an asteroid’s composition and other telescope images that can make out the rough shape, it’s very difficult to scout the objects without actually visiting them. And given the difficulty, spacecraft have only visited a handful of the virtually countless asteroids of our solar system. Without knowing exactly what a target asteroid’s surface and subsurface are like, it’s hard to predict exactly what a spacecraft impacting that asteroid will do. A looser surface, which is what most visited asteroids appear to have, would be much worse at momentum transfer than a boulder or relatively solid surface of rock.
As an example, as DART rapidly approached and revealed more detailed views of the surface of Didymos and Dimorphos in its final minutes, Chang himself was surprised to see just how rough and boulder-strewn the surface of both asteroids were. Then, after the spacecraft impact, many scientists were also surprised to almost immediately see a massive cloud of dust – easily visible from ground-based telescopes – ejected from Dimorphos.
Despite the DART spacecraft’s eventful demise, the fun has only just begun on the ground as scientists attempt to solve that riddle (and many others) and begin searching for changes in Dimorphos’ orbit. Data will soon arrive from even larger and more prestigious observatories, including NASA’s space-based Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes. Italian companion cubesat LICIACube, which deployed from DART shortly before impact, will also downlink images it took up close, potentially offering the most detailed view of the impact for years.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency (ESA) is developing a spacecraft called Hera that will launch in 2024 and attempt to enter orbit around Didymos and Dimorphos as early as late 2026 to examine the aftermath of DART’s last stand in even greater detail.
In the more distant future, particularly if the international science community ultimately concludes that DART did successfully redirect an asteroid (moon), it’s possible that the mission will help to kickstart an entirely new global project and fleet of spacecraft that will stand ready to protect Earth if the need ever truly arises. With a little luck and a modest amount of government funding, humanity may soon be able to entirely eradicate one of the most infamous sources of mass extinction.
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles.
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla has long emphasized that large-scale real-world data is central to improving its neural network-based approach to autonomy. Each mile driven with FSD (Supervised) engaged contributes additional edge cases and scenario training for the system.
The milestone also brings Tesla closer to a benchmark previously outlined by CEO Elon Musk. Musk has stated that roughly 10 billion miles of training data may be needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving at scale, citing the “long tail” of rare but complex driving situations that must be learned through experience.
The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable.
As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.
At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.
With the fleet now past 8.4 billion cumulative miles, Tesla’s supervised system is approaching that threshold, even as regulatory approval for fully unsupervised deployment remains subject to further validation and oversight.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk fires back after Wikipedia co-founder claims neutrality and dubs Grokipedia “ridiculous”
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Elon Musk fired back at Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales after the longtime online encyclopedia leader dismissed xAI’s new AI-powered alternative, Grokipedia, as a “ridiculous” idea that is bound to fail.
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Wales made the comments while answering questions about Wikipedia’s neutrality. According to Wales, Wikipedia prides itself on neutrality.
“One of our core values at Wikipedia is neutrality. A neutral point of view is non-negotiable. It’s in the community, unquestioned… The idea that we’ve become somehow ‘Wokepidea’ is just not true,” Wales said.
When asked about potential competition from Grokipedia, Wales downplayed the situation. “There is no competition. I don’t know if anyone uses Grokipedia. I think it is a ridiculous idea that will never work,” Wales wrote.
After Grokipedia went live, Larry Sanger, also a co-founder of Wikipedia, wrote on X that his initial impression of the AI-powered Wikipedia alternative was “very OK.”
“My initial impression, looking at my own article and poking around here and there, is that Grokipedia is very OK. The jury’s still out as to whether it’s actually better than Wikipedia. But at this point I would have to say ‘maybe!’” Sanger stated.
Musk responded to Sanger’s assessment by saying it was “accurate.” In a separate post, he added that even in its V0.1 form, Grokipedia was already better than Wikipedia.
During a past appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show, Sanger argued that Wikipedia has drifted from its original vision, citing concerns about how its “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” framework categorizes publications by perceived credibility. As per Sanger, Wikipedia’s “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” list leans heavily left, with conservative publications getting effectively blacklisted in favor of their more liberal counterparts.
As of writing, Grokipedia has reportedly surpassed 80% of English Wikipedia’s article count.
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Tesla Sweden appeals after grid company refuses to restore existing Supercharger due to union strike
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons.
Tesla Sweden is seeking regulatory intervention after a Swedish power grid company refused to reconnect an already operational Supercharger station in Åre due to ongoing union sympathy actions.
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons. A temporary construction power cabinet supplying the station had fallen over, described by Tesla as occurring “under unclear circumstances.” The power was then cut at the request of Tesla’s installation contractor to allow safe repair work.
While the safety issue was resolved, the station has not been brought back online. Stefan Sedin, CEO of Jämtkraft elnät, told Dagens Arbete (DA) that power will not be restored to the existing Supercharger station as long as the electric vehicle maker’s union issues are ongoing.
“One of our installers noticed that the construction power had been backed up and was on the ground. We asked Tesla to fix the system, and their installation company in turn asked us to cut the power so that they could do the work safely.
“When everything was restored, the question arose: ‘Wait a minute, can we reconnect the station to the electricity grid? Or what does the notice actually say?’ We consulted with our employer organization, who were clear that as long as sympathy measures are in place, we cannot reconnect this facility,” Sedin said.
The union’s sympathy actions, which began in March 2024, apply to work involving “planning, preparation, new connections, grid expansion, service, maintenance and repairs” of Tesla’s charging infrastructure in Sweden.
Tesla Sweden has argued that reconnecting an existing facility is not equivalent to establishing a new grid connection. In a filing to the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate, the company stated that reconnecting the installation “is therefore not covered by the sympathy measures and cannot therefore constitute a reason for not reconnecting the facility to the electricity grid.”
Sedin, for his part, noted that Tesla’s issue with the Supercharger is quite unique. And while Jämtkraft elnät itself has no issue with Tesla, its actions are based on the unions’ sympathy measures against the electric vehicle maker.
“This is absolutely the first time that I have been involved in matters relating to union conflicts or sympathy measures. That is why we have relied entirely on the assessment of our employer organization. This is not something that we have made any decisions about ourselves at all.
“It is not that Jämtkraft elnät has a conflict with Tesla, but our actions are based on these sympathy measures. Should it turn out that we have made an incorrect assessment, we will correct ourselves. It is no more difficult than that for us,” the executive said.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
Elon Musk fires back after Wikipedia co-founder claims neutrality and dubs Grokipedia “ridiculous”
