On a brisk December day, junior high school students in Fuzhou, southeast China, converged at a country park to study the thoughts of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Unfurling a red banner that declared their outing a “walking classroom of politics and ideology,” they sought enlightenment by retracing the footsteps Xi took on his 2021 visit to the neighborhood, according to a state-affiliated local news outlet.

Another group of youngsters in the northern coastal city of Tianjin toured a fort to reflect on “the tragic history of Chinese people’s resistance to foreign aggression.”

The trips are part of a ramping up of nationalist education in China in recent years – now codified into a sweeping new law that came into effect earlier this week.

That “Patriotic Education Law,” aimed at “enhancing national unity,” mandates that love of the country and the ruling Chinese Communist Party be incorporated into work and study for everyone – from the youngest children to workers and professionals across all sectors.

It is meant to help China “unify thoughts” and “gather the strength of the people for the great cause of building a strong country and national rejuvenation,” a Chinese propaganda official told a news briefing last month.

The push for a love of country and the Communist Party is far from new in China, where patriotism and propaganda have been an integral part of education, company culture and life since the People’s Republic was founded nearly 75 years ago.

And Chinese nationalism has thrived under Xi, the country’s most authoritarian leader in decades, who has pledged to “rejuvenate” China to a place of power and prominence globally and encouraged a combative, “wolf warrior” diplomacy amid rising tensions with the West.

Ultra-nationalism has flourished on social media, where anyone perceived as slighting China – from live-streamers and comedians to foreign brands – will face a fierce backlash and boycotts.

The new rules mark the latest expansion of Xi’s efforts to deepen the party’s presence in all aspects of public and private life.

But this time, they also follow years of stringent Covid-19 controls in China, which ended late in 2022 after young people across the country took to the streets in unprecedented protests against Xi’s government and its rules.

They also come as the economy slumps and youth unemployment has reached a record high – raising the potential for more discontent.

Experts said Beijing may see the new legal framework as a way to drum up nationalism and consolidate power to ensure social stability amid the challenges ahead.

China has long relied on its people to buy into its vision like an unwritten “social contact,” but it is now “in for a bumpy ride in the coming years,” said Jonathan Sullivan, an associate professor specializing in Chinese politics at the University of Nottingham.

“There could be challenges to that if there’s a protracted economic downturn … they’re doing the work to make sure the politically correct way of thinking is completely locked down, consolidating beyond doubt that the party’s way is the only way for China, and that if you love China, you ought to love the party,” he said.

That message has been hammered home in once outspoken Hong Kong following the huge democracy protests that erupted there in 2019.

Since then, Beijing has made clear it wants a new generation of patriots incubated in the city, rolling out patriotic education rules and political restrictions that forbid anyone deemed unpatriotic from standing for office.

The introduction of the law also coincides with the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China this coming October 1. Officials will be under pressure to ensure a celebration of patriotism – and to stamp out any possibility for dissent.

Patriotic curriculum for all walks of life

Under the law, professionals – from scientists to athletes – should be nurtured to profess “patriotic feelings and behavior that bring glory to the country.”

Local authorities are required to leverage cultural assets, such as museums and traditional Chinese festivals, to “enhance feelings for the country and family,” and step-up patriotic education through news reports, broadcasting and movies.

Religious bodies should also “strengthen religious staff and followers’” patriotic sentiment and their awareness of the rule of law – a stipulation in line with China’s push to “sinicize” and tighten its control over religion.

The latest legislation follows a 2016 directive from the Ministry of Education to introduce across-the-board patriotic education at each stage and in every aspect of schooling, which plays a major part in the new unified law.

It also follows past efforts, such as smartphone apps for people to “learn about new socialist thought” – including a lesson on how “Grandpa Xi led us into the new era” – and for adults to read up and take quizzes on Xi’s latest theories.

The latter was deemed a success in terms of downloads – as all 90 million Communist Party members were ordered to use it alongside many employees of state-owned enterprises.

The new rules affirm that patriotic education will be blended into school subjects and teaching materials “at all grades and all types of institutions,” while parents at home are required to guide their children and encourage them to take part in patriotic activities.

“(This has to do) with Xi’s consolidation of power. He wants patriotic education to start early,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

He said the move is aimed at cultivating a loyal mindset toward Xi from a young age, while also sending a message to the wider public that Beijing’s focus is now on consolidating Xi’s power following the economic boom of the past decade.

The new law also orders cultural establishments such as museums and libraries to be turned into venues of patriotic education activities and tourist destinations into places that “inspire patriotism.”

Schools are required to organize trips for students to visit these sites, which officials call “walking classrooms of politics and ideology.”

Such trips were not uncommon in the past, but the law now officially imposes a legal mandate for schools to do so.

China has other legislation aimed at stamping out unpatriotic behavior, such as banning the desecration of national flags and insults to soldiers. And under Xi in recent years, any dissent in China – even in the form of online comments that don’t toe the party line – is enough to land people in trouble with authorities.

But the latest law appears to hint at the introduction of penalties for acts not already punishable under existing laws, according to Ye Ruiping, senior law lecturer from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

For example, it states that behaviors “advocating, glorifying and denying acts of invasion, wars and massacres” and “damaging patriotic education facilities” could be subject to punishments, she said.

The first Indian solar observatory has successfully reached its intended orbit, the country’s Space Research Organisation announced Saturday, as India seeks to cement its status as an emerging space superpower.

The Aditya-L1 spacecraft safely arrived at Lagrange Point L1, the position in space with unobstructed views of the sun located about 1.5 million kilometers (almost a million miles) from Earth, paving the way for scientists to enhance their study of the Sun-Earth System.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi applauded the “extraordinary feat” in a post on X on Saturday, adding that this “is a testament to the relentless dedication of our scientists in realizing among the most complex and intricate space missions.”

The Aditya-L1 launched on September 2, less than two weeks after the ISRO made a historic landing of its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the moon’s South Pole.

The spacecraft is equipped with seven scientific instruments, four of which will be trained directly on the sun while the others will study solar wind particles and magnetic fields passing through at Lagrange Point L1.

The main goals of the mission include studying the sun’s upper atmosphere and various solar phenomena, such as coronal mass ejections — or massive expulsions of plasma from the sun’s outermost layer.

The information gleaned from Aditya-L1’s experiments will provide a clearer picture of space weather, or the term used to describe the magnetic waves rippling through our solar system. Space storms can have an impact on Earth when they reach our atmosphere, occasionally affecting satellites, radio communications and even power grids, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

India’s Aditya-L1 will add to information gathered on other missions designed to study the sun, including NASA’s ongoing Parker Solar Probe that in 2021 became the first spacecraft to “touch” the sun.

Docked in the South Atlantic port of Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, is an unusual vessel making a very special voyage. The 106-year-old, three-masted sailing ship “Oosterschelde” is on a two-year journey retracing the footsteps of British naturalist Charles Darwin, almost 200 years after he embarked on his famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle that did much to inspire his theory of evolution.

Oosterschelde departed from Plymouth in England last August, and is traveling a simplified version of Darwin’s route, from England to Australia. The ship is making landfall at 32 ports around the world, including key locations where Darwin visited, such as the Galapagos Islands and the Falkland Islands; its mission — to empower young conservationists.

The Darwin200 Global Voyage was cofounded by Stewart McPherson, a British geographer and natural history writer, inspired by a meeting over 10 years ago with Fred Burton, a conservationist on the Cayman Islands who instigated a project to save the blue iguana species.

“He refused to let it fall off the cliff of extinction and single-handedly saved this amazing animal,” said McPherson. “It proves that … it’s within our power to save many of these incredible species.”

“I’ve always loved Charles Darwin and his work, and obviously Darwin changed the world with his mind … The main message of Darwin200 is that it’s not too late.
It’s still within our power to change the world of tomorrow for the better,” added McPherson.

Darwin Leaders

The ship carries a specialized team of eight, including an ornithologist, science educator, marine biologist and a journalist, and a further seven crew members including sailors.

Joining the crew while they are at each port are groups of “Darwin Leaders,” chosen for their passion for nature conservation and efforts to protect the planet. A total of 200 will take part in a week-long conservation leadership training program at different legs of the voyage.

“We partner them with an amazing local conservation project in which they learn a great deal to take back to their home countries and use for the future,” said McPherson.  

Joseph Roy, a Darwin Leader from India, traveled to Brazil to join the ship for a week while it was docked at Rio de Janeiro, in November. Having grown up around wildlife in the southern Indian state of Kerala, he has a long-held interest in conservation. Currently, he is studying for a Master’s in Ecology at the University of Glasgow and The Scottish Centre for Ecology.

“The wild calms me in a way that keeps me positive about the world, so I always try to observe nature as much as I can,” he said. “I feel like science is the one solution which can solve any problem on the planet.”

Roy’s conservation project focused on the reintroduction of howler monkeys in the Tijuca Forest, in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro. Ultimately, he aims to apply the insights and research from the project to his own work on reintroducing the lion-tailed macaque species in India. According to Roy, only 3,000 individuals are left in the wild.

“I’m generally curious about everything … [so] I try to speak with everyone about what they’re doing,” said Roy. “From how they bred [the howler monkeys] to how they monitor their health … I try to collect as much knowledge [as I can to take back home].”

Global classroom

For Dr. Sarah Darwin, a researcher at Berlin Natural History Museum, great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin, and key supporter of Darwin200, the project provides hope of a more positive future for the planet.

But the initiative aims to inspire a lot more people than just the 200 Darwin Leaders. A variety of free outreach activities, dubbed the “world’s most exciting classroom,” are being provided during the voyage for students, teachers and individuals across the world, intended to encourage curiosity and a passion for learning. This includes online interactive experiments, live lectures and interviews with conservationists and wildlife experts.

McPherson hopes these activities, along with the project itself, will empower young leaders to drive change, creating a “ripple effect” that, much like Darwin’s work, will be felt for decades to come.

Police in Australia have dismantled what they believe is a smuggling ring that was attempting to export native lizards and reptiles worth more than 1.2 million Australian dollars ($800,000) to Hong Kong.

Three men, aged 54, 59 and 31, and one woman, aged 41, were arrested in Sydney as part of the investigation, New South Wales Police said in a statement published Monday.

The operation began in September 2023, when nine packages containing 59 live lizards were stopped en route to Hong Kong.

All four suspected members of the group are scheduled to appear in court in January.

“Police will allege in court the criminal group were catching live lizards and native Australian reptiles to export for profit to Hong Kong,” the police statement said.

“The animals were kept in poor conditions and bound in small containers when they were packaged to be sent,” it added.

Police said officers found a total 257 lizards and three snakes during the investigation, both in packages and in addresses used by the group.

The reptiles “were taken to various zoos and wildlife parks for examination by a vet before being released back to the wild,” the statement added.

Police estimate the lizards were worth around 5,000 Australian dollars ($3,350) each, making a total of approximately 1.285 million Australian dollars ($860,000).

The police didn’t say why the lizards were being allegedly smuggled, but Hong Kong has long been considered a hub for illicit wildlife trade due to its busy port and status as a gateway into mainland China.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Hong Kong also says that “exotic pets are becoming increasingly popular” in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

“Rare species of turtles and tortoises, snakes, lizards, parrots, sugar gliders, hedgehogs, scorpions and many others, are traded as pets,” the charity says on its website.

A towering new rocket has taken flight, carrying what could be the first commercial lander to touch down on the moon — and the first lunar landing mission to launch from the United States since 1972.

The Vulcan Centaur rocket, a never-before-flown model developed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, roared to life at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:18 a.m. ET Monday. The launch vehicle soared through space for nearly an hour, expending its fuel as it ripped away from Earth’s gravity and sent the lunar lander, called Peregrine, on its way to the moon.

Just after 3 a.m. ET, the Peregrine spacecraft separated from the rocket and began its slow journey to the lunar surface. If all goes according to plan, the lander could touch down on the moon on February 23.

What’s on board

Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic Technology developed the Peregrine lander — named after the falcon that is the fastest-flying bird in the world — under a contract with NASA.

“It’s a dream … For 16 years we’ve been pushing for this moment today,” Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said during a webcast of the launch. “And along the way, we had a lot of hard challenges that we had to overcome and a lot of people doubted us along the way. But our team and the people that supported us believed in the mission, and they created this beautiful moment that we’re seeing today.”

The space agency paid Astrobotic $108 million to develop Peregrine and fly NASA’s science experiments to the lunar surface.

But the space agency is just one customer among many for this mission.

Of the 20 payloads that Peregrine will carry to the moon, five are NASA science instruments. The other 15 come from a range of customers.

Some are additional science payloads from nations such as Mexico, while others include a robotics experiment from a private UK-based company and trinkets or mementos that the German shipping company DHL put together.

Peregrine is also carrying human remains on behalf of two commercial space burial companies — Elysium Space and Celestis — a move that’s sparked opposition from Navajo Nation, the largest group of Native Americans in the United States. The group contends that allowing the remains to touch down on the lunar surface would be an affront to many Indigenous cultures, which regard the moon as sacred. Celestis offers to carry ashes to the moon for prices starting at more than $10,000, according to the company’s website.

The five NASA-sponsored experiments include two instruments to monitor the radiation environment, “helping us better prepare to send crewed missions back to the moon,” said Paul Niles, NASA’s project scientist for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the arm of NASA that provided funding for Peregrine, during a Thursday news briefing. Other instruments will analyze the makeup of the lunar soil, looking for water and hydroxyl molecules. NASA will also study the moon’s super-thin atmosphere.

Once on the moon’s surface, Peregrine is expected to operate for up to 10 days before its landing site is plunged into darkness — making it too cold to go on.

Also on board the Vulcan Centaur rocket, packed separately from the Peregrine lander, was another payload from the space burial company Celestis.

The object, on a mission dubbed the Enterprise Flight, contains 265 capsules with human remains as well as DNA samples from former US presidents John F. Kennedy, George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower.

The remains also include “the creator and several cast members of the original Star Trek television series, as well as an Apollo-era astronaut, together with people from all walks of life, interests, and vocations,” according to the company’s website.

The Apollo astronaut whose remains are aboard the Enterprise Flight is Philip Chapman, who was selected for the astronaut corps in 1967 but never flew to space. He died in 2021.

The Enterprise Flight payload is headed for deep space where it will spend eternity orbiting the sun.

A new rocket

The excitement of an impending lunar landing attempt aside, the launch of ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket was an event in its own right.

The rocket is one of the most highly anticipated new vehicles to take flight in years. If the rocket’s mission is successful, it could be a game-changer for ULA and the broader launch industry.

ULA was formed in 2006 in response to the US military’s need to keep both Boeing’s Delta and Lockheed Martin’s Atlas rockets operational. But the launch industry looks far different today than it did nearly two decades ago, and in the meantime SpaceX has emerged as a dominant force that undercuts ULA on price.

ULA and its CEO, Tory Bruno, envision Vulcan Centaur will replace its Atlas and Delta rockets. Vulcan Centaur already has about 70 missions lined up, according to Bruno.

ULA has a pristine launch record with practically no failed missions. Vulcan Centaur builds on the success of ULA’s Atlas rockets by using essentially the same upper stage — the portion of the rocket that powers a spacecraft to orbital speeds after the initial liftoff.

But a major change was made to the rocket’s first stage, the bottom portion that gives it the initial burst of power off the launchpad.

Vulcan Centaur was propelled by two side boosters as well as two US-made rocket engines — which the Jeff Bezos-funded company Blue Origin developed — at the base of its first-stage booster, replacing Russian-made engines that powered the Atlas rockets. ULA’s reliance on Russian engines became politically unpopular as tensions between the United States and Russia have grown in recent years.

Vulcan Centaur’s debut was already years overdue, though it’s common in the aerospace industry for companies to blow past deadlines.

ULA encountered lengthy delays awaiting Blue Origin’s new engines. And a Vulcan Centaur upper stage was inadvertently destroyed on a test stand last year.

Despite those setbacks, Bruno said in November that development of Vulcan Centaur has been one of the “more orderly and well-executed development programs that I’ve worked on in my very long career in the aerospace industry.”

In the moments after liftoff, the rocket appeared to be operating as intended.

Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right fanatic who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage in Norway in 2011, appeared in a court set up in his prison on Monday to launch a legal bid to end his years in isolation.

Wearing a black suit, white shirt and brown tie, Breivik said nothing and made no gesture as he entered the hearing, set up in the gym of the high-security jail 70 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the capital Oslo.

The 44-year-old sat impassively while his lawyer laid out his argument that the conditions of his detention violated his human rights.

“He has been isolated for about 12 years,” lawyer Oeystein Storrvik, told the hearing. “He is only in contact with professionals, not with other inmates.”

In earlier court filings, Storrvik had argued the isolation had left Breivik suicidal and dependent on the anti-depression medication Prozac.

Breivik, who emailed out copies of a manifesto before his attacks setting out his theories, is suing the state and also asking the court to lift restrictions on his correspondence with the outside world.

He killed eight people with a car bomb in Oslo then gunned down 69 others, most of them teenagers, at a Labour Party youth camp in Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity.

His case has been a grim test for a country that is still shaken to its core by the horror of his acts but has also long taken pride in the rehabilitation efforts of its justice system.

Breivik spends his time in a dedicated section of Ringerike prison, the third prison where he has been held. His separated section includes a training room, a kitchen, a TV room and a bathroom, pictures from a visit last month by news agency NTB showed.

He is allowed to keep three budgerigars as pets who fly freely in the area, NTB reported.

Lawyers representing the justice ministry say Breivik must be kept apart the rest of the prison population because of the continuing security threat he poses.

They said in their court filing his isolation was “relative” given he has contacts with guards, a priest, health professionals and, until recently, an outside volunteer whom Breivik no longer wishes to see.

He also sees two inmates for an hour every other week, the lawyers said.

Control over Breivik’s contacts with the outside world is justified by the risk that will inspire others to commit violent acts, the lawyers argue.

“Specifically, this applies to contacts with far-right circles, including people who wish to establish contact with Breivik as a result of the terrorist acts on 22 July 2011,” they said in the filing.

Breivik was cited as an inspiration by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019.

Breivik is serving a 21-year sentence – the longest a Norwegian court can impose – which can be extended for as long as he is deemed a threat to society.

His prison is on the shore of the Tyrifjorden lake, where the island of Utoeya, the site of Breivik’s shooting spree, lies.

Breivik also sued the state in 2016, arguing it was breaching the European Convention on Human Rights, including sections saying no one should be subject to “torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

He initially won the case but that was overturned on appeal a year later before any restrictions were lifted.

In the new case, the judge’s verdict – there is no jury – will be issued in coming weeks.

Russia has begun to evacuate residents from the border region of Belgorod following a surge in deadly Ukrainian strikes.

Approximately 300 residents of Belgorod city “decided to temporarily move” to accommodation centers in cities elsewhere in the region, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Monday.

Gladkov on Friday offered to help any Belgorod residents worried by the recent spate of Ukrainian attacks on the region, which borders northeastern Ukraine, in a rare admission of the dangers posed by a once-distant war from which Russia has sought to isolate its citizens.

Kyiv resumed its targeting of the Russian region after Moscow on December 29 unleashed its biggest air attack on Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion. The next day, retaliatory Ukrainian strikes on Belgorod killed at least 25 people, prompting more waves of Russian strikes in a bloody start to the new year.

In Monday’s message, Gladkov said his office had received 1,300 applications to send children from Belgorod to school camps in other regions, and that his colleagues from the regions of Voronezh, Kaluga, Tambov, and Yaroslavl – some distance from Belgorod – are “ready to help us.”

Belgorod authorities have begun restoration works following the recent Ukrainian shelling attacks, Gladkov said, and promised to update residents on the progress of these efforts.

Russia launched another wave of air strikes across Ukraine on Monday morning, killing at least four people and injuring 38, Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement. The attacks targeted Kharkiv region in the east of the country, Dnipropetrovsk in the center, Zaporizhzhia further south and Khmelnytskyi in the west.

Ukraine has consistently targeted Russian regions near the border, but its December 30 attack on Belgorod is thought to be one of the single deadliest incidents reported.

The strikes came after Russia fired 158 drones and missiles, including hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, at civilian targets across Ukraine, killing at least 47 people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had used “nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal” in the “terrorist strikes,” to which he pledged Ukraine’s military would respond.

The deadly strikes on Belgorod, while not comparable to the destruction wrought on Ukraine, are the latest in a series of efforts by Ukraine to bring the war home to Russians.

“People realized there really is a war going on and it’s come now to Belgorod, maybe not for the first time but the most grave and frightening,” a Belgorod resident told Reuters in the wake of the December 30 strike.

In the wake of the attack, Gladkov said Friday he had received messages on social media from residents saying: “We are scared, help us go to a safe place.”

Friday was the first time the top Belgorod official had offered publicly to relocate large groups of the local population affected by the war. Evacuation efforts continued over the weekend into Monday, with some residents reportedly traveling nearly 100 miles away from their homes.

Also on Friday, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence claimed to have made an incursion into Belgorod region, where its troops destroyed a Russian stronghold and mined the roads used by Russians in Grayvoronsky district.

The Defense Intelligence said it had obtained information that the “top Russian military leadership” had planned an inspection of Russian positions in the area after personnel had complained about “poor service conditions.” In response, Ukraine planned a “special operation” which it said had inflicted losses in the enemy, without providing casualty figures.

The relative peace in Belgorod compared to Ukraine’s neighboring Kharkiv region has on a number of occasions been shattered. The most dramatic instance came in May 2023, when the Freedom of Russia Legion – a group of anti-Putin Russian nationals who are aligned with the Ukrainian army – mounted a surprise attack on the region, temporarily taking control of a border post and giving the world dramatic images of Russians taking up arms against the Kremlin.

When a rocket makes its inaugural liftoff attempt on Monday, it will carry nothing less than the first lunar lander to launch from the United States since NASA’s final Apollo mission in 1972.

The stakes are high.

The success of the rocket, developed by the joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing called United Launch Alliance, is crucial to that company’s future and its desire to chip away at SpaceX’s dominance in the commercial launch industry.

The lunar lander, built by small Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic Technology, could become the first commercially developed spacecraft to make a soft landing on the moon.

NASA has sponsored the development of a small fleet of such privately developed lunar landers — aiming to use them to give the US a presence on the moon amid a new international space race that began heating up in 2023.

And while the NASA program does not hinge on a single lander making a successful touchdown, this first robotic mission could set the tone and pace for the space agency’s renewed efforts to explore the moon robotically before it tries to return astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade.

Astrobotic’s robotic lunar lander, Peregrine, is scheduled to launch aboard the ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:18 a.m. ET Monday.

Recent forecasts showed about an 85% chance the weather will be clear for takeoff. Backup launch opportunities are also available over the next few days.

The path ahead

Experts across the space industry, including Astrobotic CEO John Thornton, have likened the odds of successfully landing any spacecraft on the moon to flipping a coin.

That said, Thornton added, “we’ve put everything that we can into this mission.”

Landing on the moon is a complex endeavor.

If the launch takes off as scheduled Monday, Vulcan Centaur will propel the lunar lander en route to the moon — placing it into what’s called a trans-lunar injection orbit. That involves a precisely timed engine burn that will push the Peregrine lander onto a path in Earth’ orbit that will allow it to sync up with the moon some 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles) away.

From there, beginning about an hour after launch, the Peregrine lander will separate from the rocket and forge its own path, using onboard thrusters to place itself on a precise course toward the moon.

After reaching the moon, Peregrine — named for the falcon that is the fastest-flying bird in the world — will spend some time in lunar orbit before attempting a touchdown on February 23.

The target landing site is a patch of the moon’s near-side surface that stretches a few kilometers wide, Thornton said, but the lander will test technology that could provide a more precise landing zone on future missions.

The final moments before the spacecraft reaches the lunar surface will be the most crucial. Two failed lunar landing attempts last year, one by a Japan-based company and another by Russia, foreshadowed the difficulty of maintaining precise control over a vehicle as it swoops in for a touchdown, with both efforts crashing into the moon.

A new space race

This mission will mark the first lunar landing attempt — robotic or crewed — for the US in five decades.

And the mission comes amid a renewed international push to explore the moon.

While both the Japan-based company Ispace and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency failed in their lunar landing attempts last year, India’s Chandrayaan-3 made a safe landing in August. With that success, India became the fourth nation — after China, the former Soviet Union and the United States — to put a vehicle on the moon.

So far in the 21st century, only India and China have made soft landings.

The Japan Exploration Aerospace Agency, or JAXA, could complete its first lunar landing this month, using its “Moon Sniper” spacecraft that’s already been en route for months.

But NASA is hoping to swiftly catch up using the commercially developed robotic landers it has sponsored. Apart from Peregrine, the space agency has contracts with Texas-based companies Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines. The latter could launch its lunar lander as soon as mid-February.

Those contracts, all part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, aim to drastically drive down the cost of building a lunar lander — especially in comparison to the multibillion-dollar effort that it took to create the Apollo-era lander.

Peregrine and the other CLPS landers are designed to be far cheaper, with NASA agreeing to pay its partner companies only a single fix-priced contract.

(Astrobotic’s contract for this mission, for example, totaled $108 million, which was more than NASA initially promised. But agency officials said the contract was renegotiated amid the pandemic.)

Other robotic moon missions for CLPS could take off later in 2024, including a golf cart-size rover aboard a different lunar lander for Astrobotic called Griffin.

This rover will peruse the lunar south pole for water ice — a search that’s a key feature of the 21st-century space race. Water ice could be used for sustaining colonies of future astronauts or converted into rocket fuel for missions deeper into space.

A cornerstone of NASA’s lunar efforts will be to pave the way for humans to return to the surface under the Artemis program. NASA aims to send astronauts on a mission to fly by the moon as soon as late 2024 before returning humans to the surface later this decade.

Peregrine’s science

For this mission, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander is heading for a lunar region called Sinus Viscositatis, otherwise known as the “Bay of Stickiness.”

The name is an homage to the nearby Gruithuisen Domes, a unique lunar feature that scientists suspect was formed by sticky magma.

The Peregrine lander will carry 10 science payloads, five of which are NASA-sponsored experiments. They include two instruments that will monitor the radiation environment, “helping us better prepare to send crewed missions back to the moon,” said Paul Niles, NASA’s project scientist for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, during a Thursday press briefing.

Other instruments sent by the space agency will analyze the makeup of the lunar soil, looking for water and hydroxyl molecules. NASA will also study the moon’s super-thin atmosphere.

Thornton said the Peregrine vehicle will operate for about 10 days on the moon’s surface until the region is plunged into lunar night, a period when it will be too cold for instruments to operate.

Human remains and mementos

While NASA is the primary financial backer of the mission, the space agency is just one customer involved.

Also on board Peregrine will be science experiments and commercial cargo from other nations, including Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

Astrobotic partnered with German shipping company DHL, for example, to take small mementos to space, including “photographs and novels to student work and a piece of Mount Everest.”

Notably, Peregrine will also carry human remains on behalf of two commercial space burial companies — Elysium Space and Celestis — a move that’s sparked opposition from Navajo Nation, the largest group of Native Americans in the United States.

The group contends that allowing the remains to touch down on the lunar surface would be an affront to many Indigenous cultures, which regard the moon as sacred. Celestis offered to carry ashes to the moon for prices starting at around $13,000, according to its website.

The most difficult hurdle to overcome during Astrobotic’s journey, he noted, was convincing people that a Pittsburgh-based company of fewer than 300 people was capable of creating a lunar lander at all.

“We got loads of people that doubted us and laughed at us along the way,” he said.

But Thornton is hopeful that success will lead to a burgeoning lunar economy, helping NASA achieve its goals while also inspiring the commercial sector to pursue possibilities on the moon.

The governor of the Russian region of Belgorod has promised to help relocate civilians worried by a recent spate of deadly Ukrainian attacks, a rare admission of the dangers posed by a once distant war that has overwhelmingly impacted Ukrainians.

Belgorod – which adjoins northern Ukraine – has seen waves of Ukrainian strikes. Last Saturday, at least 25 people were killed by an attack on the city of Belgorod itself.

Ukraine has consistently targeted Russian regions near the border, but the December 30 attack on Belgorod is thought to be one of the single deadliest incidents reported. It followed the largest Russian aerial assault of the conflict killed at least 47 people in Ukraine.

“People realized there really is a war going on and it’s come now to Belgorod, maybe not for the first time but the most grave and frightening,” one local told Reuters in the wake of the strike on Belgorod.

Directly addressing Belgorod residents, Gladkov said: “I see several requests on social networks where you write: ‘We are scared, help us go to a safe place.’”

“Of course we will help! Several families have already been transported. We do everything that depends on us,” Gladkov added.

The governor said his office had previously relocated people whose homes in the region’s Shebekinsky district were damaged by shelling. In this instance a small group of residents were provided shelter whilst their homes were repaired.

Friday is the first time the top Belgorod official has offered publicly to relocate large groups of the local population impacted by the war. Residents looking to be relocated will also be expected to travel much longer distances, this time up to 87 miles.

In his video message, Gladkov instructed concerned residents to get in touch with the city administration to let it know they are “ready to leave.”

The governor said “comfortable buses” were on standby on Friday to transport residents to the cities of Stary Oskol and Gubkin where they would be lodged in “warm and safe rooms.”

Stary Oskol is roughly 87 miles from Belgorod while Gubkin is 74 miles from Belgorod.

“You will be there for as long as necessary. If there are not enough places in our temporary accommodation centers in our region, I will turn to my colleagues, governors of other regions, so that they can help us,” Gladkov told civilians.

The governor said he had received “dozens of calls” from his colleagues in neighboring regions offering to “help all of you, dear residents of the Belgorod region.”

One Belgorod local, a business owner, told Reuters how his business had dried up as a result of the fighting. “I come to work, wait for customers but there is no one. I sit for three or four hours and close.”

In another development, Ukraine’s intelligence agency said that it had destroyed a Russian military stronghold in Belgorod Friday after successfully making an incursion.

During the incursion, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine claimed to have destroyed one of the Russian strongholds and mined the road used by Russians in Grayvoronsky district.

When blistering extreme heat gripped India’s capital this summer, Ramesh says he felt faint but had no option other than to keep on toiling under the burning sun to provide for his family.

Ramesh lives with his parents, three brothers, a sister-in-law, and three children, in a congested suburb in western Delhi, a city that has made headlines in recent years as mercury levels regularly climb to dangerous levels.

And as temperatures topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) this June – closing schools, damaging crops and putting pressure on energy supplies – the heat was making his family sick too.

Ramesh, who goes by one name, says he borrowed $35 – nearly half of his monthly salary – from relatives to buy a second-hand air conditioner for his home.

“It makes a noise, sometimes it releases dust,” he said. But he cannot do without it.

By 2050, India will be among the first places where temperatures will cross survivability limits, according to climate experts. And within that time frame, the demand for air conditioners (AC) in the country is also expected to rise nine-fold, outpacing all other appliances, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Ramesh’s predicament encapsulates the paradox facing the world’s most populous country of 1.4 billion: The hotter and wealthier India gets, the more Indians will use AC. And the more they use AC, the hotter the country will become.

India emits nearly 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year based on data collected by the European Union – contributing about 7% of global emissions. The United States, by comparison, causes 13% of CO2 emissions, despite having a quarter of India’s population.

This raises a question of fairness that climate scientists have often asked: should people in the developing world shoulder the cost of reducing emissions, despite being among those least responsible for rising greenhouse gases?

At the COP28 climate talks in Dubai that concluded recently, India wasn’t among the list of countries that signed a pledge to cut their emissions from cooling systems. Addressing the opening session of the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said all developing countries must be given “a fair share in the global carbon budget.”

Nonetheless India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies, is on the front line of the climate crisis. And it finds itself in a tough position. How can it balance its development while ensuring environmental protection?

Rising heat

Vast swathes of India’s population remain reliant on AC for their physical and mental wellbeing. And the country’s more tropical southern regions remain hot year-round.

Over the past five decades, the country has experienced more than 700 heat wave events claiming more than 17,000 lives, according to a 2021 study of extreme weather in the Weather and Climate Extremes journal. This June alone, temperatures in some parts of the country soared to 47 degrees Celsius (116 Fahrenheit), killing at least 44 people and sickening hundreds with heat-related illnesses.

And by 2030, India may account for 34 million of a projected 80 million global job losses from heat stress, according to a World Bank report in December 2022.

This puts millions of people at risk in a country where more than 50% of the workforce is employed in agriculture. And as incomes steadily rise, all while urban populations explode, AC ownership has grown at a remarkable rate.

Electricity consumption in India from cooling – which includes AC and refrigerators – increased 21% between 2019 and 2022, according to the IEA. By 2050, India’s total electricity demand from residential air conditioners will exceed total electricity consumption in all of Africa today, it added.

But this demand is also exacerbating the global climate crisis.

Like refrigerators, many air conditioners today use a class of coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are harmful greenhouse gases. And even more problematically, air conditioners tend to use large amounts of electricity, generated by the burning of fossil fuels.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that – if not reined in – air conditioning-related greenhouse gas emissions could account for up to a 0.5 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures by the end of the century.

India’s dilemma

India is still grappling with widespread poverty, while spending billions to upgrade its transport and urban infrastructure, as it faces longstanding challenges to improve living standards.

And limiting cooling-related emissions might be seen as a possible barrier to the country’s economic growth, experts say.

During the recent COP summit, 63 countries – including the US, Kenya and Canada – signed a pledge to cut their emissions from cooling systems by 68%, along with several other targets, by 2050. India was not among the group.

Despite this, Brian Dean, head of energy efficiency and cooling at Sustainable Energy for All, which helped to develop the agreement, said India has shown “important international leadership on cooling.”

“While it has not joined the Global Cooling Pledge yet, important progress on sustainable cooling has been made domestically and international partners hope that India considers joining in the future,” he said.

Under the United Nations’ 2016 Kigali Amendment, many countries including India are phasing out HFCs and replacing them with more climate friendly options, such as hydrofluoroolefins, or HFOs.

Similar moves have worked in the past. The Kigali Amendment is an update to the Montreal Protocol that helped to phase out ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, in the 1980s.

Still, countries that lack access to adequate cooling need help to meet the cost of energy improvement, according to Radhika Khosla, associate professor at Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment.

“Cooling is now on the global agenda,” she said. “But the hard work must begin to ensure everyone can stay cool without further heating the planet.”

Planting trees to absorb sunlight, water bodies, courtyards that promote cooling and clever ventilation are among the more sustainable “passive cooling strategies” suggested by Khosla.

Installing ceiling fans in buildings can reduce household energy consumption for cooling by more than 20%, she added.

“If successful, passive cooling measures could curb the demand for cooling by 24% by 2050, saving $3 trillion and negating greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide,” she said.

Cooling plan

India has also promised to reduce its power demand for cooling purposes by 20-25% by 2038 under its own cooling action plan announced in 2019, while still focusing on developing and implementing cost-effective solutions that align with its economic goals.

Dean calls it “one of the first comprehensive national Cooling Action Plans to be developed globally.”

It was, he said, “an important moment for emphasizing the need to proactively and urgently address cooling demand growth, including in agriculture where sustainable cold chains can prevent food loss and improve nutritional outcomes.”

Renewable energy is also growing faster in India than in any other major economy, and data shows it’s on track to meet its emission reduction targets, according to Leena Nandan, India’s secretary for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

India remains proactive in finding climate solutions, despite not being a major contributor to the crisis, she told reporters during the COP28 summit.

“We have gone on to scale up our climate ambitions,” she said.

But India’s AC boom has been visible in almost every urban corner of the country.

Hundreds of construction sites are scattered throughout the capital, where laborers toil to build gleaming high-rise towers to house New Delhi’s burgeoning middle class.

Penta Anil Kumar, a businessman who lives in Lajpat Nagar, a bustling south Delhi neighborhood, said he is aware of the harmful emissions released from his air conditioner, and deliberately bought an energy efficient model able to meet his cooling needs.

“While I know the use of air conditioners is contributing to higher temperatures, I also know I cannot do much else,” he said.

But Kumar is among those more fortunate who can afford a more expensive AC model.

Ghasiram, a 65-year-old laborer from Delhi’s Rohini neighborhood, paid a contractor $36 to secure a second-hand AC unit for his family. But this is more than what he earns in a month.

Ghasiram, who goes by one name, said he didn’t know emissions from his AC were partly fueling rising temperatures. But he is suffering from the consequences.

“The heat has gotten worse over the years,” he said. “When I need to step out to work in the heat, I feel nervous. I prefer to not go out.”