The United States has confirmed for the first time the deployment of a weapon in Earth’s orbit, drawing sharp condemnation from China as both nations reject calls from leading AI executives to slow frontier model development, while China successfully launched ten satellites aboard a Zhuque-2E rocket and SpaceX delayed its fourteenth Starship test flight to September 22.
Space News
- The United States has publicly acknowledged the deployment of a space weapon in Earth’s orbit, marking the first such confirmation from Washington, which prompted China to urge the US to “stop preparing for war” in space .
- China successfully launched a Zhuque-2E Y7 carrier rocket from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone at 2:26 p.m. Beijing Time on September 15, deploying ten networking satellites into their designated orbits for a planned mega-constellation .
- SpaceX’s fourteenth Starship test flight has been delayed to September 22 at the earliest, with the launch window set from 07:15 to 09:14 Texas time; Elon Musk stated there will be no attempt to catch the booster stage with the launch tower’s “chopsticks” during this flight due to risk considerations .
- The Starship Flight 14 mission is expected to conduct the first orbital flight around Earth, reaching approximately 275 kilometers altitude, completing about six orbits over roughly 10 hours before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile, and will deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites for the first time .
Artificial Intelligence News
- US President Donald Trump pushed back against growing calls for tighter AI regulation, stating on Truth Social that “the only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG and SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT,” and describing AI risk warnings as a “hoax” .
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a 3,800-word essay calling for a coordinated slowdown of AI development, receiving public support from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis; the proposal includes mandatory independent audits of frontier models .
- Vice President JD Vance expressed skepticism about AI executives seeking government regulation, saying he feels “a little bit weird” about frontier AI companies “begging the government to regulate them” .
- China dismissed the AI slowdown calls as “fearmongering” and “vicious competition,” with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun stating that such rhetoric disrupts global governance processes and benefits no party .
- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, stated that robots will not take over the world and that AI companies could voluntarily slow or pace their development if they believed their operations were getting out of control .
- Three US senators are working on legislation that would require AI companies to demonstrate reasonable precautions to prevent their tools from causing harm, while House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump is expected to meet AI executives this week or early next week .
