Science News Roundup: SpaceX targets Dec 28 for launch of US military's secretive X-37B spaceplane; US-China science pact renewal 'not a given' -US envoy

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

SpaceX targets Dec 28 for launch of US military's secretive X-37B spaceplane

SpaceX said it was targeting Thursday, Dec. 28 for the launch of the U.S. military's X-37B robot spaceplane on its seventh mission to orbit. "Now targeting no earlier than Thursday, December 28 for Falcon Heavy to launch USSF-52 to orbit from Florida," SpaceX said in a post on X on Friday, after it stood down on the launch earlier this week to perform additional system checkouts.

US-China science pact renewal 'not a given' -US envoy

U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said on Friday he had started talks with Beijing on renewing a landmark scientific cooperation agreement, and while the deal needed to be modernized, prospects for a new one were uncertain. Controversy over the renewal of the U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement (STA) - the first accord between the two countries signed in 1979 after the official establishment of diplomatic ties - has grown amid U.S. accusations of China's theft of U.S. scientific and commercial achievements.

(With inputs from agencies.)