Voyager

The US Navy awarded Saildrone a $16.3 million task order to expand operations of its Voyager unmanned surface vehicles in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific for counternarcotics missions. The USVs have supported drug interdiction efforts since 2023, including a recent seizure of $81 million in cocaine. The Trump administration's counternarcotics strategy includes military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels, with 66 strikes reported as of June 22.

Astronomers discovered erythrulose, a sugar found in raspberries and self-tanners, in the interstellar medium using radio telescopes in Spain. The finding suggests sugars, crucial for life, may form in space and supports theories about life's building blocks originating in the galaxy.

The Coast Guard and Saildrone are collaborating in northern waters to enhance border security and surveillance. The Voyager, a Saildrone unit, is designed for persistent coastal surveillance and nearshore mapping missions, remaining at sea for approximately 100 days.

NASA still maintains some of the Voyager spacecraft code from the 1970s era, written in a programming language that few people understand. The handful of engineers who do understand it are now in their older age. This code is crucial for the continued operation of the Voyager spacecraft.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.1 has been deployed on a datacenter in orbit around Earth, aboard Voyager's LEOcloud Space Edge micro datacenter. The system aims to demonstrate the advantages of processing data in orbit, reducing latency by up to 30 times. This marks a significant milestone in space-based data processing.