China's bold plan to knock an asteroid off course

PLUS: Anduril and Archer bring the ‘Thunder’

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. China just took a major step forward in planetary defense, detailing its effort to knock an asteroid off its course as it flies by Earth.

The mission is ambitious and will demand some serious engineering. But, if successful, it would mean a major boost for how we can protect ourselves against undetected space rocks — including potentially life-threatening ones.

In today’s tech rundown:

  • China’s plan to kick off a 98-ft asteroid

  • Anduril and Archer bring the ‘Thunder’

  • First-of-its-kind pill cuts bad cholesterol

  • Brain implant lets paralyzed man feed himself

  • Quick hits on other tech news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

SPACE TECH

Image source: Ideogram / The Rundown

The Rundown: China just detailed plans for its first planetary defense mission — slamming a projectile into a ~98-foot asteroid at over Mach 26, as it passes within roughly 4.3M miles of Earth around 2030.

The details:

  • NASA tested a similar deflection mission in 2022, but this one will strike nearly 50% faster to shift the asteroid's orbit around the Sun relative to Earth.

  • The composition of the target, 2015 XF261, is also different; it’s likely a solid rock that is smaller but tougher than the 525-foot rubble pile NASA deflected.

  • Two spacecraft will share the job: an impactor flying straight at the rock, and an observer that will swing past Venus and watch the collision and its aftermath.

  • The team will only learn the asteroid's shape, spin, and size in the final months before impact, with the projectile locking on and hitting it autonomously.

Why it matters: Teams routinely miss small asteroids until they're close. The 2013 Chelyabinsk rock that hurt 1,000+ people went undetected until it hit. If China cracks this mission, it'll be the first proof the harder half of planetary defense — deflecting a small, solid rock on purpose — actually works.

DEFENSE TECH

Image source: Anduril

The Rundown: Anduril and air taxi manufacturer Archer Aviation unveiled Thunder, an unmanned attack aircraft built to fly as a wingman alongside crewed helicopters, as cheap drones make low-altitude combat deadlier than ever.

The details:

  • Thunder lifts off vertically, then tilts its rotors to fly like a plane, launching without a runway while keeping the range and speed of fixed-wing flight.

  • A pilot assigns the aircraft objectives instead of flying it remotely, and it can navigate even without GPS using onboard sensors and computer vision.

  • The goal is to provide pilots with an autonomous wingman that could carry weapons, sensors, and supplies while sharing what it sees in real time.

  • Thunder will make its first flight in 2027, opening a defense market for Archer that skips the certification layers holding up its commercial air taxis.

Why it matters: Thunder is another step in Anduril's push to use autonomy to keep the pilots safe on the battlefield. For Archer, it's a boost for a business whose commercial air taxis have been stuck in certification for years. That said, whether crews will trust a machine to fly that fast and low right next to them remains to be seen.

HEALTH TECH

Image source: Images 2.0 / The Rundown

The Rundown: The FDA just approved Merck's Lipfendra, a first-of-its-kind pill that can significantly lower "bad" cholesterol — matching the injectable drugs that have long been out of reach for the public due to high prices.

The details:

  • Lipfendra is a once-daily pill that blocks a liver protein that keeps cholesterol in the blood, the same target as injectables that have been around for a decade.

  • In trials, it lowered bad cholesterol by nearly 60%, matching the standard first-line treatment shots in adults whose levels stayed high even on statins.

  • Fewer than 1 in 10 users had side effects, mainly dizziness or diarrhea, though the pill has to be taken on an empty stomach.

  • A month's supply will run about $300, with insurance coverage still unclear — the factor that decides whether it actually reaches more people than shots.

Why it matters: Heart disease kills 20M people a year, and high cholesterol is one of the biggest causes. Injectable versions of this drug already cut heart attacks and strokes by up to 20%, but few people ever started treatment, put off by the needle and the price. The pill fixes the needle. Now, it’s all about making it affordable.

TECH FOR GOOD

Image source: Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research

The Rundown: Three years after a paralyzed man received a brain-computer implant, researchers report that he can feed himself and drink on his own — and that his nervous system has partially rewired itself, with gains holding even when the device is off.

The details:

  • Keith Thomas, paralyzed in a 2020 accident, can now grasp and lift fragile objects, like hollow eggshells, about 90% of the time while conversing.

  • Two electrode arrays read movement signals from his brain, following which AI decodes his intent and sends electrical stimulation to forearm muscles.

  • As the muscles worked, sensors fed signals back to his brain, improving arm strength and wrist sensation — gains that stayed even when the device was off.

  • This, the researchers say, is evidence that the therapy prompted real neural repair rather than just routing around the injury.

Why it matters: Most brain-computer implants are permanent workarounds: switch off the machine and the ability vanishes. What's different here is that some of Thomas's strength and sensation stuck without it. Scaled up, that could give people back what matters most: things like feeling a loved one's hand, or wiping one’s own eyes.

QUICK HITS

Colossal Biosciences, known for its de-extinction work on the dire wolf, is reportedly seeking funding at a $20B–$30B valuation, more than doubling its value in a year.

YouTube updated its monetization policies to curb AI slop, targeting repetitive content, emotionally manipulative videos, and AI personas discussing sensitive topics.

Samsung launched its first U.S. credit card with Barclays, deepening its push to build a financial ecosystem around Samsung Wallet and challenge Apple's fintech play.

The FCC approved a California startup to test a giant mirror satellite that reflects sunlight after sunset, despite concerns over its impact on astronomy and wildlife.

Hackers breached Craneware, an accounting software company serving thousands of U.S. hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies, stealing employee, customer, and partner data.

Hugging Face revealed an autonomous AI agent breached its systems, compromising internal datasets and service credentials after exploiting a server vulnerability.

Chinese startup Xingshu Tiansuan launched the first satellites in its planned 1,000-satellite AI computing network, taking on SpaceX in the race to bring AI into orbit.

Skyroot Aerospace successfully launched India's first orbital rocket, with Vikram-1 placing satellites into orbit on its debut mission.

U.S. defense startup X-Bow launched Buckler, a sub-$100,000 drone interceptor designed to make large-scale air defense affordable.

COMMUNITY

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Rowan, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — The Rundown’s editorial team

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