Two crew members of a US army helicopter that crashed near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday were rescued by an American sea drone, US officials have told CBS News, the BBC's media partner. It was the first such operation carried out by US forces, the officials added. US Central Command (Centcom) earlier said the two soldiers were safely rescued within approximately two hours and are in stable condition after their AH-64 Apache helicopter went down near the coast of Oman while patrolling regional waters. It was not immediately clear whether the aircraft had developed a mechanical or any other technical problem, or had been downed by Iranian fire. The incident is being investigated.

SpaceX's stock market blast-off could be Musk's biggest gamble yet It's 07:25 am, 13 October 2024, at Starbase, near Boca Chica on the Texas side of the US/Mexico border, and on the launch pad stands the biggest rocket ever made. Its engines fire and it climbs into the skies over the Gulf of Mexico to cheers and screams in the SpaceX control room. But the launch is not the main event. What goes up must come down - and how it comes down will become a milestone in space exploration. Seven minutes later, the massive rocket booster that blasted the craft towards space starts falling back to Earth - until its engines reignite as planned.

Could humanoid robots be heading for the battlefield? I've come to an industrial space in a tech-heavy area of San Francisco expecting to see a menacing humanoid robot solider doing something combat-like: the future of land-based warfare, perhaps. Instead, the black shiny faceless Phantom robot is engaged in free play, manipulating a bunch of coloured kids blocks. We need data from it just interacting with its environment [and] this is today's menu, explains Sankaet Pathak, co-founder and CEO of two-year-old start-up Foundation Robotics, which is developing Phantom for military and civilian applications. Later he pushes its 80kg steel-covered body around the room to demonstrate its stability and shows me how it walks.