Spanish research centre CIC energiGUNE has completed 10,000 charge-discharge cycles on an iron-lead redox flow battery, according to pv magazine, testing a design built from abundant materials for multi-hour grid storage.
Google's orbital compute prototype launched on a SpaceX rocket on 1 October, the first time the company has sent a Tensor Processing Unit into space, while new peer-reviewed work put the launch maths at roughly 1,800 Starship flights. The same week brought a blood-metabolite explanation for astronaut constipation and a machine-learning pipeline that forecasts grid risk at 66,935 US substations.
Google DeepMind published a method on Wednesday to embed watermarks in AI-designed protein sequences, a biosecurity measure that arrives as Anthropic claims its Claude agents produced the first scientific discovery by an AI system.
A University of Copenhagen study published on 28 September found signs of protein fermentation in blood samples from 52 astronauts who flew long stays on the International Space Station, offering a possible explanation for a complaint NASA crews have logged for years: constipation in microgravity.
Russia's state space corporation will begin parachute drop tests of its next-generation crewed spacecraft this autumn, Ars Technica reported on 30 September, with a first crewed launch still pencilled in for 2028 or 2029.
Japanese startup Helical Fusion says it will begin preliminary power-on tests at its Helix HARUKA demonstration reactor in 2027. The first spiral coil is now largely finished at the National Institute for Fusion Science site in Toki, Gifu Prefecture.
Quantum Space said on 30 September it has executed a spacecraft processing work order with All Points Logistics for its Prime pathfinder mission, which is targeting the second half of 2027 for launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
A machine learning pipeline developed at Microsoft Research can warn grid operators 30 to 60 minutes before space weather threatens individual substations, according to a company research post published on 30 September.
The European-Chinese Smile mission was cleared to begin science operations on 23 September, ESA said, ending a commissioning period that began when the spacecraft reached its target orbit on 20 June.
Google's DeepMind team published research on Wednesday 30 September describing SynthIDBio, a variant of its SynthID watermarking technology. The method steers the amino acid choices made by the AI protein design tool ProteinMPNN, without breaking the resulting protein's function.
Google's DeepMind team published a protein watermarking method on Wednesday, 30 September, that marks AI-generated protein sequences without changing how they fold, Ars Technica reported the same day.
Japan's Helical Fusion expects to start preliminary power-on tests at its Helix HARUKA pilot reactor in 2027, the company said on 29 September, while a UK machine's 59 megajoule shot remains the benchmark for fusion output.
Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov said on Tuesday that parachute drop tests of Russia's long-delayed next-generation crewed spacecraft will begin this fall in the Far East, according to Interfax comments translated for Ars Technica.
Anthropic says its molecular biology lab, staffed by Claude agents, made its first discovery earlier this year. The claim, announced on 28 September, has drawn fire from biologists who argue that spotting a pattern is not the same as working out what it does.
STAR.VISION Aerospace unveiled plans on 25 September for a 1,080-spacecraft computing constellation, backed by 10 billion Yuan (1.49 billion US dollars) in credit agreements with two of China's largest state banks, according to China in Space.
Anthropic says its Claude agents found a previously uncatalogued genetic pattern after 21 hours of work, but biologists are disputing whether that counts as a scientific discovery at all.