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Noland Arbaugh, the first user of Neuralink’s implant keeps breaking the brain-computer interface (BCI) performance record. The record value is given in bits per second, but what exactly does it mean in terms of neural interface speed? How do they measure BCI performance?
Three key engineers have recently left Neuralink – Jeremy Barenholz, vice president of product and technology, Sam Schmitz, neurosurgical robot consumables design & manufacturing lead, and Bliss Chapman, developer of algorithms for decoding brain signals. Here’s why they left.
Neuralink has announced the selection of another clinic to perform N1 Telepathy neural interface surgeries for the PRIME clinical trial. This is the second clinic to partner with the company in the US and the third overall.
The first implantation of the N1 interface in a human was the most important event of the year for Neuralink. The company also managed to implant a second neural interface, received approval for human trials in Canada and made significant progress with preparations for testing a vision prosthesis. Let’s recap 2024’s most important milestones and reflect on what 2025 might bring.
Neuralink began to look for additional candidates for its neural interface, and on this occasion, a new video about the first implantation was released. In it, Noland Arbaugh, the first user of the N1 interface, talks about his injury and the difficult life afterwards. Engineers who worked closely with him are also shown, capturing many amazing moments of this historic event.
SpaceX is gearing up for the fourth test flight of its Starship rocket, scheduled for as early as June 6th, pending regulatory approval. This mission aims to validate and refine key technologies crucial for Starship’s operational deployment and its long-term goals. The primary objective of this test flight is to demonstrate the controlled reentry and landing of both the Starship upper stage and its Super Heavy booster.
A new SpaceX spacesuit designed for extravehicular activities (EVA) was unveiled and will be tested for the first time on the Polaris Dawn mission. Among other things, the Jared Isaacman-led mission aims to conduct the first ever EVA by a private astronaut and test connecting to the Starlink satellite network using a laser link. SpaceX has announced many details about the extent of the changes made to the spacesuit and the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
It has long been known that SpaceX’s Falcon rockets use more than one type of upper stage depending on the needs of a given mission, but only now have we learned some more details. Falcon rockets actually use three different upper stages, which differ in how long they can last in orbit.
SpaceX used to perform a so-called static fire test before every launch of its Falcon 9 rocket. However, since 2020 SpaceX has in some cases not performed this pre-launch test at all. Let’s take a look at the purpose of a static fire, the types of missions where SpaceX skips this test, and try to figure out why. We will also explain why some static fires are performed with the payload attached and others without.
Complete list of all Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy static fires SpaceX has conducted or skipped. List contains booster numbers, videos, photos and notes. Also included is information about whether the payload was attached during the firing or not.
