Richard Lawler

After being pushed back an hour, we are a few minutes away from the scheduled 7:30PM ET opening of a 90-minute window for the 12th Starship flight test . It's the first since SpaceX and its most significant risk factor filed for a massive IPO yesterday, the first attempt for new “ next generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles ,” and the first launch scheduled from a new Pad 2 at the Starbase in Boca Chica, TX.

The Trump Administration's Director of National Intelligence confirmed her resignation on X Friday afternoon, saying she must step away as “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”

SpaceX is now preparing to go public , and a lot of its big promises hinge on the development of vehicles like the next-generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicle launched today. The booster will not attempt a return this time, while the Flight 12 Starship is attempting to deploy 20 Starlink simulators and two “modified” Starlink satellites.

The latest update on an overheating tank filled with an estimated 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate is that firefighters were still trying to determine if some pressure had been released, after discovering a crack that could lessen the risk of a BLEVE, or Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion.

Variety reports on why early uploads of Stephen Colbert's post-The Late Show endeavor were pulled, citing copyright complaints from Paramount/CBS. A statement from the company says it was because it financed and produced the episode with Colbert, which was eventually published on his YouTube channel , but it has now “decided to waive further enforcement of this standard industry practice until additional review.”

Virginia doesn’t allow autonomous vehicles yet, but Wired reports the company told state officials in a meeting this week its vehicles are in the state, mapping Arlington and Alexandria with their sensors. Updated laws governing self-driving vehicles are still under discussion, but it’s preparing to bring its vehicles one step closer to Washington, D.C., despite public skepticism and some recent issues. [Link: Most people still don’t want anything to do with robotaxis

Recently grounded after issues with its third mission, the New Glenn rocket intended to launch the NG-4 mission has suffered an “anomaly,” exploding at Cape Canaveral during a hotfire test just after 9PM ET. Blue Origin said, “All personnel have been accounted for. We will provide updates as we learn more.” [Media: https://www.instagram/reel/DY55yLkxeMy/]

Along with a new ARM CPU for Windows laptops, Nvidia’s Computex news includes another feature it’s adding to the DLSS 4.5 suite ahead of that other DLSS AI graphics update. Called Ray Reconstruction, it uses a second generation transformer AI model to “generate higher-quality pixels in the noisy parts of a ray traced frame where rays were not sampled.” They say it will deliver cleaner particle effects plus better lighting accuracy, available on RTX 20 and newer GPUs starting in August. [Media: https://www.youtube/watch?v=dSMYgGi0ZvY]

Fresh off interviewing the chatbot-powered stunt that is Tilly Norwood, the NYT tells us of Martin Scorsese’s advisor and partner arrangement with Black Forest Labs (whose Flux tech has powered xAI’s image generation) in what it calls “a clear sign of Hollywood’s softening stance on artificial intelligence.” Right now, however, that softening extends only to a test of storyboard creation: > I recently tested this out on a scene and the ability to visualize and immediately share the storyboard was creatively freeing. During the pre-production process, time costs money, and this allowed us to move faster without sacrificing quality or craft.

As Microsoft shows off its AI tools at Build, close frienemy OpenAI is once again promoting Codex as something for all kinds of information and knowledge-based work that goes beyond ChatGPT’s features. It’s launching new plugins, and says that business and enterprise customers have access to a new preview capable of building “interactive, hosted websites and apps” that it can keep updated with new data. [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Blossom-Enterprise-Summit.png?quality=90&strip=all]