AST is building Blacklift, a 20-ton, three-stage rocket with two
reusable lower stages, to launch up to five stacked BlueBirds per
flight from late
Sign Up [1] |Advertise [2]|View Online [3]
TLDR
TLDR HARDWARE 2026-11-09
📱
HEADLINES AND LAUNCHES
AST SPACEMOBILE IS BUILDING ITS OWN REUSABLE ROCKET, BLACKLIFT, TO
LAUNCH ITS BLUEBIRD SATELLITES (2 MINUTE READ) [4]
AST is building Blacklift, a 20-ton, three-stage rocket with two
reusable lower stages, to launch up to five stacked BlueBirds per
flight from late 2028. It sized the vehicle around its own
constellation after launch delays, including a New Glenn failure,
slowed deployment, though it keeps outside launch deals for 100+
satellites. The engines come from Firefly: 27 Miranda and 9 Vira for
the first three rockets, plus a license to build them itself, in a
deal valued above $1.3 billion.
NVIDIA'S BOARD OPENS AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO JENSEN HUANG
AFTER HE ADMITS AN AFFAIR WITH A WOMAN US OFFICIALS SUSPECT OF SPYING
FOR CHINA (3 MINUTE READ) [5]
Huang told employees he was unfaithful and said he supports the
probe, which independent directors and outside counsel will oversee,
and Nvidia says he stays on as CEO. The spy allegations against Alice
Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, which is accused of smuggling $2B of
chips, remain reported assessments, not proven, and China has called
them unsubstantiated.
🔨
ENGINEERING AND APPLICATIONS
YANGWANG'S U9 XTREME HITS 503 KM/H (312.65 MPH), A ONE-WAY RECORD, ON
TUNED REAR-WING ANGLE, DAMPING, AND TIRE PRESSURE (2 MINUTE READ) [6]
BYD's electric hypercar, driven by Marc Basseng on a closed Abu Dhabi
highway, is the first production car that can accelerate past 500
km/h. Four motors make about 2,220 kW and spin to 30,000 rpm, on
custom Giti semi-slick tires. After early runs topped out near 490
km/h, engineers adjusted rear-wing angle, rebound damping in the
suspension software, and tire pressures.
NASA'S MOON BASE AWARDS USE A “BUY NOW, PAYLOAD LATER” LAUNCH
MODEL AND REUSE MARS ROVER SPARES FOR PROMISE (3 MINUTE READ) [7]
NASA's six VADR launch task orders (about 400M and drill about 1 m
for ice. The CLPS 2 lander contract targets 2 to 6 metric ton landers.
The miniCAST power-and-comms tower combines Redwire's roll-out solar
arrays, which retract during landings to avoid dust, with wireless
power transfer and storage.
🧠
RESEARCH AND PROTOTYPES
REACH 8 MILLION TECH PROFESSIONALS READING TLDR (SPONSOR) [8]
Ads get ignored on social media but not in TLDR! Reach hardware
engineers and makers where they actually pay attention. Learn more
about sponsorship opportunities [8].
PHYSICISTS USED ELECTRICAL NOISE TO SHOW ELECTRONS IN A
HIGH-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTOR PAIR UP EARLIER THAN EXPECTED (4
MINUTE READ) [9]
Superconductors carry current when electrons team up in pairs, but in
cuprates (compounds containing copper in an anionic state), scientists
couldn't tell if the pairs form early or just don't exist until the
material gets cold enough. The team measured electrical noise, which
gets louder when charge moves in pairs, and found the extra noise
appearing early. That suggests the pairs are already there and are
just failing to move together, which could be what limits how warm
cuprates can superconduct.
BOSTON DYNAMICS' STRETCH GEN 2 CUTS INTERNAL CABLING 81% AND SWAPS A
SWERVE DRIVE IN ABOUT AN HOUR (3 MINUTE READ) [10]
Using data from 100,000+ operating hours, Boston Dynamics redesigned
its trailer-unloading robot around downtime. It cut internal cabling
81% (about half a mile of wire), switched to automotive-grade
connectors, and added continuous-rotation joints that no longer hit
hard stops. A full swerve drive swap drops from a day to about an
hour. It unloads up to 1,000 cases per hour (varies with weight and
stacking) and fast-charges to 90% in about 75 minutes.
🎁
MISCELLANEOUS
TSMC DENIES REPORTS THAT IT IS PLANNING 3D DRAM FOR NVIDIA (2 MINUTE
READ) [11]
The Information reported that TSMC began planning 3D DRAM production,
possibly by converting an existing fab, to give Nvidia a fourth memory
source, but TSMC says it stays a pure-play logic foundry with no plans
to make commodity memory. The engineering case against it is that 3D
DRAM, which stacks memory cells vertically, is years out even for
Micron, whose roadmap has at least four more planar nodes first, and
TSMC has no competitive planar DRAM process to build on.
GROQ SEEKS A SERIES B AT AN $8B VALUATION, MORE THAN DOUBLE AUGUST'S,
AS IT SHIFTS FROM CHIPS TO INFERENCE DATA CENTERS (2 MINUTE READ) [12]
Groq, which used to build inference chips and now operates data
centers selling inference capacity, is pitching investors a Series B
at $8 billion before new money, versus $3.15 billion in August.
Executive chairman Alex Davis criticizes rivals' reliance on debt and
projects revenue up eightfold next year and $2 billion in EBITDA by
2028. The pitch comes as listed neoclouds like CoreWeave and Nebius
sell off on debt concerns.
⚡
QUICK LINKS
SIX PALLETS OF NVIDIA HARDWARE WORTH $11.4M VANISHED ON A TRUCK FROM
OAKLAND TO FORT WORTH (3 MINUTE READ) [13]
A truck carrying six pallets of Nvidia hardware valued at $11.4
million left Oakland on August 29 and was lost near San Bernardino
County.
TAU ROBOTICS' TELEOPERATED HUMANOID CLEANED A REPORTER'S APARTMENT
WHILE LOGGING HUMAN-PILOTED MOTIONS AS TRAINING DATA FOR FUTURE
AUTONOMY (3 MINUTE READ) [14]
Tau's 4.5-foot robots are piloted remotely over head and wrist
cameras and use 3D-printed claws, so the company has done only a
couple hundred cleanings, though it claims vacuuming and mopping
already run autonomously.
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS REPORTEDLY WEIGHING FOUR SEALED-POD
UNDERWATER DATA CENTERS OFF MAINE AND ALASKA, BUILDING ON MICROSOFT'S
TEST THAT SAW 87% FEWER SERVER FAILURES (3 MINUTE READ) [15]
Submerging sealed pods could cut cooling costs and sidestep the
community opposition that land sites face.
OMARCHY 4.5 INSTALLS NATIVELY ON M1 TO M3 AND NEO MACBOOKS, ITS FIRST
NON-X86 RELEASE, BUILT ON ASAHI LINUX (2 MINUTE READ) [16]
Omarchy, an Arch-based Hyprland desktop distro, shipped 4.5 with
Apple Silicon as a primary target through the Omarchy M team via a
dual-boot installer.
Want to advertise in TLDR? 📰
If your company is interested in reaching an audience of hardware professionals and decision makers, you may want to ADVERTISE WITH US
[17].
Want to work at TLDR? 💼
APPLY HERE [18], CREATE YOUR OWN ROLE [19] or send a friend's resume
to
jobs@tldr.tech and get $1k if we hire them! TLDR is one of INC.'S
BEST BOOTSTRAPPED BUSINESSES [20] of 2025.
If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email!
Thanks for reading,
Andrew Tan [21], Adi Nikumbh [22], Kshitij Sudan [23], & Kat Scott
[24]
Manage your subscriptions [25] to our other newsletters on tech,
startups, and programming. Or if TLDR Hardware isn't for you, please unsubscribe [26].
Links:
------
[1]
https://tldr.tech/hardware?utm_source=tldrhardware
[2]
https://advertise.tldr.tech/?utm_source=tldrhardware&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=advertisetopnav
[3]
https://a.tldrnewsletter.com/web-version?ep=1&lc=48ce571c-d4e0-11f0-8279-1f6dc2dca83a&p=9288fec6-dc04-11f1-8f2e-61d1837a6e25&pt=campaign&t=1794234183&s=bfb06909a452e5193be44eea566f5a8aee31cabca6de67db30aa241612101162
[4]
https://links.tldrnewsletter.com/V7x50K
[5]
https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/08/business/nvidia-investigation-ceo-jensen-huang?utm_source=tldrhardware
[6]
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a74361623/yangwang-u9-xtreme-top-speed-records-312-mph/?utm_source=tldrhardware
[7]
https://payloadspace.com/nasa-unveils-moon-base-awards-at-max-power/?utm_source=tldrhardware
[8]
https://advertise.tldr.tech/?utm_source=tldrhardware&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=secondary11092026&sp=CRYAZDckct4R0J85RnSJuT6S
[9]
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/11/physicists-listened-to-electrical-noise-to-crack-a-superconductor-mystery?utm_source=tldrhardware
[10]
https://bostondynamics.com/news/boston-dynamics-launches-next-generation-stretch-robot/?utm_source=tldrhardware
[11]
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/tsmc-denies-exploring-3d-dram-at-nvidias-request-advanced-memory-tech-is-still-years-from-market-viability?utm_source=tldrhardware
[12]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-06/neocloud-groq-aims-to-double-value-to-8-billion-amid-ai-selloff?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc5NDIwNDY2NiwiZXhwIjoxNzk0ODA5NDY2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUTzM3UlNLR0lGUTEwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI0NUZGMzc2RThENDg0NzYxQTkwQ0JEMzc4OTMzQjg2RiJ9.7tMgeqZbv9m_RgTwxmWEgppudAXOMpGObKr1euqpOLY
[13]
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/11/nvidia-hardware-worth-11-4m-vanished-between-oakland-and-texas?utm_source=tldrhardware
[14]
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/11/06/1148090/i-watched-a-humanoid-robot-clean-my-apartment-it-felt-like-a-taste-of-the-future?utm_source=tldrhardware
[15]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/nov/07/underwater-datacenters-great-lakes-trump?utm_source=tldrhardware
[16]
https://links.tldrnewsletter.com/LjzQzO
[17]
https://advertise.tldr.tech/?utm_source=tldrhardware&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=advertisecta
[18]
https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tldr.tech
[19]
https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tldr.tech/c227b917-a6a4-40ce-8950-d3e165357871 [20]
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7401699691039830016/ [21]
https://twitter.com/andrewztan
[22]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adinikumbh
[23]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kshitij-sudan/
[24]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherineascott/
[25]
https://tldr.tech/hardware/manage?email=tldrnewsletter%40synchro.net
[26]
https://a.tldrnewsletter.com/unsubscribe?ep=1&l=516aef72-d5bc-11ee-9229-6b70acf0ae94&lc=48ce571c-d4e0-11f0-8279-1f6dc2dca83a&p=9288fec6-dc04-11f1-8f2e-61d1837a6e25&pt=campaign&pv=5&spa=1794232853&t=1794234183&s=af80c50d65b2d617f7ddabf9b368c4ec8940703769f8f80be0eacb954f855371
---
■ Synchronet ■ Vertrauen ■ Home of Synchronet ■ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net