Major academic publishers including Elsevier and Springer Nature are grappling with a sophisticated new journal hijacking scam that precisely mimics their websites to deceive researchers.

The fraudulent operation, reported by Retraction Watch, has cloned at least 13 legitimate journals through fake domains, according to Crossref data. The scam, the publication reports, features high-quality website clones that replicate even cookie consent popups. The operation assigns its own DOI prefix to published papers and offers paper-writing and peer review services typical of paper mills.

A million and a half years ago, amid giant storks and the ancestors of antelopes, two extinct relatives of humans walked along the same muddy lakeshore in what is today northern Kenya, new research suggests. From a report: An excavation team uncovered four sets of footprints preserved in the mud at the Turkana Basin, a site that has led to important breakthroughs in understanding human evolution. The discovery, announced on Thursday in a paper in the journal Science, is direct evidence that different kinds of human relatives, with distinct anatomies and gaits, inhabited the same place at the same time, the paper's authors say. It also raises questions about the extent of the species' interactions with each other.

"They might have walked by one another," said Kevin Hatala, an evolutionary anthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh who led the study. "They might have looked up in the distance and seen another member of a closely related species, occupying the same landscape." Based on skeletal remains found in the region, Dr. Hatala's team attributed the footprints to Paranthropus boisei and Homo erectus, two types of hominins, the group consisting of our human lineage and closely related species. Paranthropus boisei had smaller brains along with wide, flat faces and massive teeth and chewing muscles; Homo erectus more closely resembled modern human proportions and are thought to be our direct ancestors.

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Phys.org: Researchers from Imperial College London have discovered that a space-returned sample from asteroid Ryugu was rapidly colonized by terrestrial microorganisms, even under stringent contamination control measures. In the study, [...] researchers analyzed sample A0180, a tiny (1 x 0.8 mm) particle collected by the JAXA Hayabusa 2 mission from asteroid Ryugu.

Transported to Earth in a hermetically sealed chamber, the sample was opened in nitrogen in a class 10,000 clean room to prevent contamination. Individual particles were picked with sterilized tools and stored under nitrogen in airtight containers. Before analysis, the sample underwent Nano-X-ray computed tomography and was embedded in an epoxy resin block for scanning electron microscopy. Rods and filaments of organic matter, interpreted as filamentous microorganisms, were observed on the sample's surface. Variations in size and morphology of these structures resembled known terrestrial microbes. Observations showed that the abundance of these filaments changed over time, suggesting the growth and decline of a prokaryote population with a generation time of 5.2 days.

Population statistics indicate that the microorganisms originated from terrestrial contamination during the sample preparation stage rather than being indigenous to the asteroid. Results of the study determined that terrestrial biota had rapidly colonized the extraterrestrial material, even under strict contamination control. Researchers recommend enhanced contamination control procedures for future sample-return missions to prevent microbial colonization and ensure the integrity of extraterrestrial samples. Another factor in gathering contamination-free sampling is that everything used to collect extraterrestrial material originates on a planet awash in microbial life.

A University of Birmingham study reveals that PFAS and microplastics have a synergistic effect that significantly increases their toxicity. "The study's authors exposed water fleas to mixtures of the toxic substances and found they suffered more severe health effects, including lower birth rates, and developmental problems, such as delayed sexual maturity and stunted growth," reports The Guardian. From the report: The enhanced toxic effects raise alarm because PFAS and microplastics are researched and regulated in isolation from one one another, but humans are virtually always exposed to both. The research also showed those fleas previously exposed to chemical pollution were less able to withstand the new exposures. The findings "underscore the critical need to understand the impacts of chemical mixtures on wildlife and human health," wrote the study's authors, who are with the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Researchers compared a group of water fleas that had never been exposed to pollution with another group that had been exposed to pollution in the past. Water fleas have high sensitivity to chemicals so they are frequently used to study ecological toxicity. Both groups were exposed to bits of PET, a common microplastic, as well as PFOA and PFOS, two of the most common and dangerous PFAS compounds. The mixture reflected conditions common in lakes around the world.

The study's authors found the mixture to be more toxic than PFAS and microplastics in isolation. They attributed about 40% of the increased toxicity to a synergy among the substances that makes them even more dangerous. The authors theorized the synergy has to do with the interplay in the charges of microplastics and PFAS compounds. The remainder of the increased toxicity was attributed to simple addition of their toxic effects. Fleas exposed to the mixture showed a "markedly reduced number of offspring," the authors said. They were also smaller at maturation and showed delayed sexual growth.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: Virtual- and augmented-reality setups already modify the way users see and hear the world around them. Add in haptic feedback for a sense of touch and a VR version of Smell-O-Vision, and only one major sense remains: taste. To fill the gap, researchers at the City University of Hong Kong have developed a new interface to simulate taste in virtual and other extended reality (XR). The group previously worked on other systems for wearable interfaces, such as haptic and olfactory feedback. To create a more "immersive VR experience," they turned to adding taste sensations, says Yiming Liu, a coauthor of the group's research paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The lollipop-shaped lickable device can produce nine different flavors: sugar, salt, citric acid, cherry, passion fruit, green tea, milk, durian, and grapefruit. Each flavor is produced by food-grade chemicals embedded in a pocket of agarose gel. When a voltage is applied to the gel, the chemicals are transported to the surface in a liquid that then mixes with saliva on the tongue like a real lollipop. Increase the voltage, and get a stronger flavor. Initially, the researchers tested several methods for simulating taste, including electrostimulating the tongue. The other methods each came with limitations, such as being too bulky or less safe, so the researchers opted for chemical delivery through a process called iontophoresis, which moves chemicals and ions through hydrogels and has a low electrical-power requirement. With a 2-volt maximum, the device is well within the human safety limit of 30 V, which is considered enough to deliver a substantial shock in some situations. Some of the possible applications mentioned by the authors include gustation tests, virtual grocery shopping, and immersive environments for exploring food flavors. However, the current system is limited to one hour of use due to gel depletion and it only supports a handful of flavor channels.

Future development aims to extend operation time, increase flavor complexity, and improve usability, marking the beginning of a new frontier for XR interfaces.

An asteroid named 2024 PT5, recently exhibiting "mini moon" behavior around Earth, may have been a boulder that was blasted off the moon by an impacting, crater-forming asteroid," reports the Associated Press. The 33-foot space rock is expected to pass safely near Earth in January, when it will be closely observed. From the report: While not technically a moon -- NASA stresses it was never captured by Earth's gravity and fully in orbit -- it's "an interesting object" worthy of study. The astrophysicist brothers who identified the asteroid's "mini moon behavior," Raul and Carlos de la Fuente Marcos of Complutense University of Madrid, have collaborated with telescopes in the Canary Islands for hundreds of observations so far.

Currently more than 2 million miles (3.5 million kilometers) away, the object is too small and faint to see without a powerful telescope. It will pass as close as 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) of Earth in January, maintaining a safe distance before it zooms farther into the solar system while orbiting the sun, not to return until 2055. That's almost five times farther than the moon. [...] NASA will track the asteroid for more than a week in January using the Goldstone solar system radar antenna in California's Mojave Desert, part of the Deep Space Network.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, according to a sweeping new study. The findings have wide-reaching implications for the nation's health and medical costs as it faces a growing burden of weight-related diseases.

The study reveals the striking rise of obesity rates nationwide since 1990 -- when just over half of adults were overweight or obese -- and shows how more people are becoming overweight or obese at younger ages than in the past. Both conditions can raise the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and shorten life expectancy.

The study's authors documented increases in the rates of overweight and obesity across ages. They were particularly alarmed by the steep rise among children, more than one in three of whom are now overweight or obese. Without aggressive intervention, they forecast, the number of overweight and obese people will continue to go up -- reaching nearly 260 million people in 2050. Further reading: Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss.

"Scientists have found what seems to be the oldest direct evidence of hot water flowing on Mars during its ancient past," reports Space.com.

"The discovery could further indicate that the Red Planet, despite its arid and desolate appearance today, may have been capable of supporting life long ago." The evidence was delivered to Earth and sealed within the well-known Martian meteorite NWA7034, found in the Sahara Desert in 2011. Due to its black, highly polished appearance, the Martian rock is also known as "Black Beauty." At an estimated 2 billion years old, Black Beauty is the second oldest Martian meteorite ever discovered. However, the Curtin University team discovered something even older within it: a 4.45 billion-year-old zircon grain that harbors the fingerprints of fluids rich in water.

Team member Aaron Cavosie from Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences thinks this discovery will open up new avenues to understanding hydrothermal systems associated with the activity of volcanic magma that once ran through Mars. "We used nano-scale geochemistry to detect elemental evidence of hot water on Mars 4.45 billion years ago," Cavosie said in a statement. "Hydrothermal systems were essential for the development of life on Earth, and our findings suggest Mars also had water, a key ingredient for habitable environments, during the earliest history of crust formation...."

[T]his new research implies that water in liquid form may have existed on Mars even earlier than previously expected in the planet's pre-Noachian period.

NBC News reports that a newly identified chemical byproduct "may be present in drinking water in about a third of U.S. homes, a study found."

"Scientists do not yet know whether the byproduct is dangerous. But some are worried that it could have toxic properties because of similarities to other chemicals of concern." The newly identified substance, named "chloronitramide anion," is produced when water is treated with chloramine, a chemical formed by mixing chlorine and ammonia. Chloramine is often used to kill viruses and bacteria in municipal water treatment systems. Researchers said the existence of the byproduct was discovered about 40 years ago, but it was only identified now because analysis techniques have improved, which finally enabled scientists to determine the chemical's structure.

It could take years to figure out whether chloronitramide anion is dangerous — it's never been studied. The researchers reported their findings Thursday in the journal Science, in part to spur research to address safety concerns. The scientists said they have no hard evidence to suggest that the compound represents a danger, but that it bears similarities to other chemicals of concern. They think it deserves scrutiny because it's been detected so widely...

David Reckhow, a research professor in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who was not involved with the study, said the finding was an important step. The ultimate goal, he said, is understanding whether the substance is a hazard; he concurred that it was likely toxic. "It's a pretty small molecule and it can probably for that reason enter into biological systems and into cells. And it is still a reactive molecule," he said. "Those are the kinds of things you worry about."
"It's estimated more than 113 million people drink chloraminated processed water in the U.S.," according to a follow-up article by ABC News.

But they also include this quote from Dr. Stephanie Widmer, a board-certified medical toxicologist and emergency medicine physician. "The reality is that no one really knows too much about this chloronitramide and its impact on human health, and more research needs to be done. These disinfecting chemicals have been giving us clean drinking water for decades, so no reason to fear drinking water as a result of this study." Although ABC News tacks on this sentence.

"The study authors suggest, in general, adding a carbon filter to a sink or a standalone pitcher may be a good option for those concerned."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Greymane for sharing the news.

June, 2023: "Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings."

November, 2024: "The Business-School Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Bigger." A senior editor at the Atlantic raises the possibility of systemic dishonesty-rewarding incentives where "a study must be even flashier than all the other flashy findings if its authors want to stand out," writing that "More than a year since all of this began, the evidence of fraud has only multiplied."

And the suspect isn't just Francesca Gino, a Harvard Business School professor. One person deeply affected by all this is Gino's co-author, a business school professor from the University of California at Berkeley — Juliana Schroeder — who launched an audit of all 138 studies conducted by Francesca Gino (called "The Many Coauthors Project"): Gino was accused of faking numbers in four published papers. Just days into her digging, Schroeder uncovered another paper that appeared to be affected — and it was one that she herself had helped write... The other main contributor was Alison Wood Brooks, a young professor and colleague of Gino's at Harvard Business School.... If Brooks did conduct this work and oversee its data, then Schroeder's audit had produced a dire twist. The Many Co-Authors Project was meant to suss out Gino's suspect work, and quarantine it from the rest... But now, to all appearances, Schroeder had uncovered crooked data that apparently weren't linked to Gino.... Like so many other scientific scandals, the one Schroeder had identified quickly sank into a swamp of closed-door reviews and taciturn committees. Schroeder says that Harvard Business School declined to investigate her evidence of data-tampering, citing a policy of not responding to allegations made more than six years after the misconduct is said to have occurred...

In the course of scouting out the edges of the cheating scandal in her field, Schroeder had uncovered yet another case of seeming science fraud. And this time, she'd blown the whistle on herself. That stunning revelation, unaccompanied by any posts on social media, had arrived in a muffled update to the Many Co-Authors Project website. Schroeder announced that she'd found "an issue" with one more paper that she'd produced with Gino... [Schroeder] said that the source of the error wasn't her. Her research assistants on the project may have caused the problem; Schroeder wonders if they got confused...

What feels out of reach is not so much the truth of any set of allegations, but their consequences. Gino has been placed on administrative leave, but in many other instances of suspected fraud, nothing happens. Both Brooks and Schroeder appear to be untouched. "The problem is that journal editors and institutions can be more concerned with their own prestige and reputation than finding out the truth," Dennis Tourish, at the University of Sussex Business School, told me. "It can be easier to hope that this all just goes away and blows over and that somebody else will deal with it...." [Tourish also published a 2019 book decrying "Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research," which the article notes "cites a study finding that more than a third of surveyed editors at management journals say they've encountered fabricated or falsified data."] Maybe the situation in her field would eventually improve, [Schroeder] said. "The optimistic point is, in the long arc of things, we'll self-correct, even if we have no incentive to retract or take responsibility."

"Do you believe that?" I asked.

"On my optimistic days, I believe it."

"Is today an optimistic day?"

"Not really."

Neuralink, the brain chip startup founded by Elon Musk, says it has received approval to launch its first clinical trial in Canada for a device designed to give paralysed individuals the ability to use digital devices simply by thinking. Reuters reports: [T]he Canadian study aims to assess the safety and initial functionality of its implant which enables people with quadriplegia, or paralysis of all four limbs, to control external devices with their thoughts. Canada's University Health Network hospital said in a separate statement that its Toronto facility had been selected to perform the complex neurosurgical procedure. Neuralink has successfully implanted the device in two patients in the United States. One of the patients has been using it to play video games and learn how to design 3D objects.

A team of undergraduate students from the University of Southern California's Rocket Propulsion Lab set multiple amateur spaceflight records with their rocket, Aftershock II. "The student-made missile soared 90,000 feet (27,400 meters) beyond the previous record-holder -- a rocket launched more than 20 years ago," reports Live Science. From the report: The students launched Aftershock II on Oct. 20 from a site in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The rocket stood about 14 feet (4 meters) tall and weighed 330 pounds (150 kilograms). The rocket broke the sound barrier just two seconds after liftoff and reached its maximum speed roughly 19 seconds after launch, the RPL team wrote in a Nov. 14 paper summarizing the launch. The rocket's engine then burned out, but the craft continued to climb as atmospheric resistance decreased, enabling it to leave Earth's atmosphere 85 seconds after launch and then reach its highest elevation, or apogee, 92 seconds later. At this point, the nose cone separated from the rest of the rocket and deployed a parachute so it could safely reenter the atmosphere and touch down in the desert, where it was collected by the RPL team for analysis.

The rocket's apogee was around 470,000 feet (143,300 m) above Earth's surface, which is "further into space than any non-governmental and non-commercial group has ever flown before," USC representatives wrote in a statement. The previous record of 380,000 feet (115,800 m) was set in 2004 by the GoFast rocket made by the Civilian Space Exploration Team. During the flight, Aftershock II reached a maximum speed of around 3,600 mph (5,800 km/h), or Mach 5.5 -- five and a half times the speed of sound. This was slightly faster than GoFast, which had also held the amateur speed record for 20 years.

But elevation and speed were not the only records Aftershock II broke. "This achievement represents several engineering firsts," Ryan Kraemer, an undergraduate mechanical engineering student at USC and executive engineer of the RPL team who will soon join SpaceX's Starship team, said in the statement. "Aftershock II is distinguished by the most powerful solid-propellant motor ever fired by students and the most powerful composite case motor made by amateurs."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: After asking both SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop cargo landers for its Artemis missions, NASA has announced plans to use those landers to deliver heavy equipment to the Moon. The agency wants Elon Musk's SpaceX to use its Starship cargo lander to deliver a pressurized rover to the Moon "no earlier" than 2032, while Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will be tasked with delivering a lunar surface habitat no sooner than 2033. Both launches will support NASA's Artemis missions, which aim to bring humans back to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.

Both companies are developing human landing systems for Artemis missions -- SpaceX for Artemis III and Blue Origin for Artemis V. NASA later asked both companies to develop cargo-hauling variants of those landers, capable of carrying 26,000 to 33,000 pounds of equipment and other materials to the Moon. NASA says it will issue proposals to SpaceX and Blue Origin at the beginning of next year.

Space.com's Julian Dossett writes: For twelve years, we've watched Curiosity crawl its way over the rocky surface of Mars, decoding mysteries of the Red Planet and broadcasting back home pictures and data from the strange Martian environment. The Mars rover, built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), has slowly scaled Mount Sharp since 2014. This mountain, officially monikered "Aeolis Mons," was discovered in the 1970s; cut into its alien landscape is the boulder-packed Gediz Vallis channel, which some scientists believe to be an ancient river bed.

Curiosity crossed into Gediz Vallis earlier this year -- and, yesterday, JPL released a real treat for Mars lovers: a 360-degree panorama view of the Gediz Vallis channel. You can play the YouTube video and move your phone around for the nifty interactive feature. Or, if you're using a desktop PC, you can shift the video around with a mouse. The panorama showcases features like Kukenan Butte and Gale Crater Rim, with scientists debating whether water, wind, or landslides shaped the boulder-laden terrain. Another interesting observation is the presence of mysterious sulfur stones with yellow crystals. Scientists are unsure about their origin since such formations on Earth are linked to hot springs and volcanoes -- neither of which are known to exist on Mars.

Curiosity is now heading toward a location called "the boxwork," a mineral-rich area potentially formed by ancient water flows.

Scientists unveiled on Wednesday the first blueprint of human skeletal development as they make progress toward the goal of completing a biological atlas of every cell type in the body to better understand human health and diagnose and treat disease. From a report: The work is part of the ongoing Human Cell Atlas project that was begun in 2016 and involves researchers around the world. The human body comprises roughly 37 trillion cells, with each cell type having a unique function. The researchers aim to have a first draft of the atlas done in the next year or two.

Aviv Regev, founding co-chair of the project and currently executive vice president and head of research and early development at U.S. biotech company Genentech, said the work is important on two levels. "First of all, it's our basic human curiosity. We want to know what we're made of. I think humans have always wanted to know what they're made of. And, in fact, biologists have been mapping cells since the 1600s for that reason," Regev said. "The second and very pragmatic reason is that this is essential for us in order to understand and treat disease. Cells are the basic unit of life, and when things go wrong, they go wrong with our cells, first and foremost," Regev said.

SpaceX's Starship rocket successfully completed its sixth launch today. Not only did it carry the first-ever payload but it also briefly re-lit one of its six Raptor engines about 38 minutes into flight, a crucial milestone for future space missions. Space Magazine reports: SpaceX landed Starship's huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, back at the launch tower on the vehicle's most recent flight, which occurred on Oct. 13. The company aimed to repeat that feat -- which the tower achieved with its "chopstick" arms -- today, but the flight data didn't support an attempt. "We tripped a commit criteria," SpaceX's Dan Huot said during the company's Flight 6 webcast. So Super Heavy ended up coming down for a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico instead, hitting the waves seven minutes after liftoff.

Today's mission aimed to do far more than just bring Super Heavy back to Earth in one piece. SpaceX also wanted to put Starship's upper stage -- a 165-foot-tall (50 m) spacecraft called Starship, or simply "Ship" -- through its paces. The launch sent Ship on the same semi-orbital trajectory that it took on Flight 5, targeting a splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the northwestern coast of Australia about 65 minutes after liftoff. But Ship also achieved some new milestones along the way this time. For example, Flight 6 carried the first-ever Starship payload -- a plush banana onboard Ship, which served as a zero-gravity indicator. (It was not deployed into space.) In addition, Ship briefly re-lit one of its six Raptor engines about 38 minutes into the flight. (Super Heavy also employs Raptors -- a whopping 33 of them.)

This burn helped show that Ship can perform the maneuvers needed to come back to Earth safely during orbital missions. Indeed, Ship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, just like Super Heavy; SpaceX eventually intends to catch it with the chopstick arms as well, and will likely try to do so on a test flight in the near future. Flight 6 also tested modifications to Ship's heat shield, which protects the vehicle during reentry to Earth's atmosphere.

Ranga Dias, a physics professor who made headlines with claims that he had discovered a room-temperature superconductor and then was found to have engaged in research misconduct, is no longer employed by the University of Rochester. WSJ: A spokeswoman for the university confirmed on Monday that Dias is out but declined to comment on the terms of his departure. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Rochester President Sarah Mangelsdorf had called for terminating his position in an August letter to the chair and vice chair of the university's Board of Trustees.

Dias leaves the university after years of accusations that he had misrepresented data in multiple papers. He is a senior author on at least five papers retracted in just over two years. One of those, which identified a material that functioned as a superconductor at room temperature, was pulled by the journal Nature after several co-authors told the journal that Dias had misrepresented information in the paper. Dias didn't respond to requests for comment. He has previously denied manipulating or misrepresenting data.

His departure follows a monthslong university investigation completed in February that was led by three outside experts who reviewed documents and data from Dias's laboratory computers and interviewed Dias and his collaborators. The investigative panel found evidence of misconduct in four papers in which Dias is a senior author and in a grant proposal he submitted to the National Science Foundation. Then-provost David Figlio accepted the conclusions and referred his case to a faculty committee "for potential removal." Dias sued the university in February claiming that the probe into his work was biased and didn't follow university policies.

India plans to build a moon-orbiting space station by 2040 that will support crewed missions to the moon and serve as a hub for scientific research. Space Magazine reports: If all goes according to plan, the lunar space station will be completed around the same time the nation's astronauts land on the moon, with construction of a permanent base on the surface before 2050. The lunar space station appears to be the third and final phase of India's moon exploration efforts. [...]

The lunar space station may be similar to the one India plans to build in Earth orbit, known as the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, or BAS. The development of this station's first module, BAS-1, was greenlit by the Indian government in September. Officials have said the first module will be launched to low Earth orbit by 2028, and the entire station will be operational by 2035.

Dr. Adam Rodman, a Boston-based internal medicine expert, helped design a study testing 50 licensed physicians to see whether ChatGPT improved their diagnoses, reports the New York TImes. The results? "Doctors who were given ChatGPT-4 along with conventional resources did only slightly better than doctors who did not have access to the bot.

"And, to the researchers' surprise, ChatGPT alone outperformed the doctors." [ChatGPT-4] scored an average of 90 percent when diagnosing a medical condition from a case report and explaining its reasoning. Doctors randomly assigned to use the chatbot got an average score of 76 percent. Those randomly assigned not to use it had an average score of 74 percent.

The study showed more than just the chatbot's superior performance. It unveiled doctors' sometimes unwavering belief in a diagnosis they made, even when a chatbot potentially suggests a better one.

And the study illustrated that while doctors are being exposed to the tools of artificial intelligence for their work, few know how to exploit the abilities of chatbots. As a result, they failed to take advantage of A.I. systems' ability to solve complex diagnostic problems and offer explanations for their diagnoses. A.I. systems should be "doctor extenders," Dr. Rodman said, offering valuable second opinions on diagnoses.
"The results were similar across subgroups of different training levels and experience with the chatbot," the study concludes. "These results suggest that access alone to LLMs will not improve overall physician diagnostic reasoning in practice.

"These findings are particularly relevant now that many health systems offer Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant chatbots that physicians can use in clinical settings, often with no to minimal training on how to use these tools."

Nyx is a new reusable space capsule that "safely and affordably carries cargo to and from space stations," according to the web page of its European-based manufacturer, The Exploration Company, "launching from any heavy launcher worldwide."

And the company "just closed a large funding round to further its mission of building Europe's first reusable space capsule," reports TechCrunch — pointing out that right now, "Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States." The $160 million Series B round will fund the continued development of the Nyx spacecraft, which will be capable of carrying 3,000 kilograms of cargo to and from Earth. The company, which was founded three years ago by aerospace engineers Hélène Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine, is aiming to conduct Nyx's maiden flight to and from the International Space Station in 2028.

"We are the first company in the world where this is for the first time mainly funded by private investors," Huby said in a recent interview. This is in contrast to SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which she said was "mainly funded by NASA." The new funding, which was led by Balderton Capital and Plural, brings the startup's total funding to date to over $208 million. The Series B also included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, NGP Capital, and two sovereign European funds, French Tech Souveraineté and DeepTech & Climate Fonds. "We've been able to deliver on promises in the past three years," Huby said. "We've been able to meet our cash target ever quarter ... The investors, they could see that we basically can deliver on time, on cost, on quality."

The startup has made traction with the European Space Agency, which has recognized the need to foster native space launch and transportation capabilities... It's a promising start, but equally promising is the traction The Exploration Company is seeing on the commercial side. Around 90% of the startup's $770 million contract backlog has come from private station developers Vast, Axiom Space, and Starlab, according to recent reporting...

The second sub-scale demonstrator mission, called Mission Possible, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 next year.
TechCrunch quotes Huby as saying "I highly respect what SpaceX has been able to achieve.We are trying to learn as much as possible from that, we are inspired by what they have achieved."

In a CNBC interview, Huby says "It's a big market, and it's growing about a bit more than 10% per year because more nations want to fly their astronauts and more nations want to go to the moon. So there is an increased demand for sending people to stations, sending cargo to stations."

"Join us on our mission to democratize access to space," says a home-page link to the company's recruiting page — with a link further down titled "Book a mission."