Orbital missions will unlock the next phase of Starship's development, providing better data on the performance of the spacecraft's heat shield and allowing for tests of in-orbit refueling, which will be essential for missions to Mars. Save this storyIt has been two weeks since SpaceX's last Starship test flight, and engineers have diagnosed issues with its heat shield, identified improvements, and developed a preliminary plan for the next time the ship heads into space. Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX executive in charge of build and flight reliability, presented the findings Monday at the American Astronautical Society's Glenn Space Technology Symposium in Cleveland. The rocket lifted off on August 26 from SpaceX's launch pad in Starbase, Texas, just north of the US-Mexico border. It was the 10th full-scale test flight of SpaceX's Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage, combining to form the world's largest rocket. There were a couple of overarching objectives on the August 26 test flight.

The Japanese government passed a bill Tuesday to introduce new rules for next-generation mobility, such as unmanned self-driving vehicles, automated delivery robots and electric kick scooters. The bill to revise the current road traffic law was approved at a plenary meeting of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, following its passage at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, last week. Under the revised law, a license system will be introduced for operators of transport services using unmanned vehicles with Level 4 autonomy, which requires no driver in the remotely monitored vehicle within a limited area. Such vehicles are expected to be used for residents in depopulated areas. The new rules obligate the operators of unmanned vehicles to prepare a system to ensure that staff would be sent out to the site of any accidents.