Science News Roundup: SpaceX delays Starship test flight a day over hardware swap; Bone bite marks reveal dinosaur predator-prey dynamics and more

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. SpaceX delays Starship test flight a day over hardware swap SpaceX has postponed its second attempt to launch the company's Starship rocket system into space by a day to Saturday, Chief Executive Elon Musk said, citing a piece of flight control hardware that needed replacing.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

SpaceX delays Starship test flight a day over hardware swap

SpaceX has postponed its second attempt to launch the company's Starship rocket system into space by a day to Saturday, Chief Executive Elon Musk said, citing a piece of flight control hardware that needed replacing. "We need to replace a grid fin actuator, so launch is postponed to Saturday," Musk wrote on social media platform X on Thursday.

Amazon's prototype Kuiper satellites operating successfully

Amazon.com said on Thursday its two prototype satellites for its planned Kuiper internet network have been operating successfully in orbit, with the project on track to start launching operational satellites by mid-2024. The Kuiper internet network is set to compete against billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, the world's largest satellite operator, to offer broadband internet service globally to consumers, companies and governments. Amazon said it had achieved a 100% success rate within the first 30 days of the launch of the prototype satellites from Florida aboard an United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. Amazon said it used the prototype satellites for brief two-way video calls, streaming a high-definition movie on Prime Video and ordering items off Amazon's website. "We still have a lot of hard work ahead, and scaling for mass production won't be easy," said Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology for Project Kuiper. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has required Amazon to deploy half of its more than 3,000-planned satellite constellation by 2026. On the heels of the successful prototype tests, Amazon expects to start building production-ready satellites next month for a launch in the second quarter of 2024, Badyal told Reuters. Badyal declined to say how many satellites Amazon would launch per rocket.

Bone bite marks reveal dinosaur predator-prey dynamics

On the perilous Jurassic Period landscape of western North America, it was good to be big. Your life may have depended upon it. Paleontologists have conducted a study scrutinizing bite marks left by meat-eating dinosaurs on the bones of sauropods - the familiar plant-eating dinosaurs with long necks, long tails and four pillar-like legs that were the largest land animals around - about 150 million years ago. The examination offered insight into predator-prey dynamics during the dinosaur age.