Fabien Apper

Did you catch it? During the last #Ariane6 launch broadcast, the commentator confirmed: “APU nominal.” Just two words, but they make us proud! Because the Auxiliary Propulsion Unit (APU) is one of the innovations on Ariane 6’s upper stage. This small multipurpose system has a significant impact, making Europe’s launcher more versatile and efficient than ever before. Its functions include: 🔹 Pressurising the tanks for reliable Vinci® engine re-ignition – up to four times 🔹 Settling propellants in microgravity with small bursts of thrust 🔹 Supporting payload separation, including satellite clusters and constellation deployments 🔹 Providing fine orbital maneuvers and additional thrust on demand 🔹 Safely de-orbiting the stage at mission’s end The APU uses a 3D-printed gas generator with advanced heat exchangers to vaporize small amounts of liquid oxygen and hydrogen and re-injects them into the tanks for the pressurisation. The result? Less helium tanks, lower mass, higher efficiency, and more mission flexibility. We build the APU’s gas generator using #3Dprinting. This allows us to reduce costs, create complex shapes in order to offer the best performances, and shorten production time – a process that enhances both our economic and technical performance. We #RocketMakers are proud to develop this unique system for European Space Agency - ESA together with our European partners, securing Europe’s independent access to space. #Innovation #SpaceIndustry #WorkInSpace

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France created a solid-state rocket engine that works without combustion — changing how we launch satellites forever In a quiet aerospace lab outside Toulouse, French engineers have developed something that may transform spaceflight from the ground up — a solid-state plasma propulsion engine that accelerates spacecraft without combustion, without moving parts, and without conventional fuel. It's not just a new engine — it's a new category of propulsion. This innovation is built on an ionized gas loop called a rotating detonation plasma disk, which uses magnetic fields to confine and spin superheated ions. Unlike chemical rockets that burn propellant in a loud, violent flame, this system moves particles using electric fields, producing quiet but continuous thrust with almost no mechanical wear. The core advantage? Precision. Because it’s electromagnetic, it can throttle, steer, or shut off instantly — crucial for satellite positioning, station-keeping, and space debris avoidance. In tests, it delivered stable thrust for over 1,000 hours with no degradation, far outpacing traditional ion thrusters. Even more impressive: it works in near vacuum, at low temperatures, and needs no ignition — meaning satellites can use it for years without refueling. The French team designed it to run on xenon, but it’s also being adapted for argon or krypton — making it cheaper and more versatile than current systems. This could drastically lower the cost of operating low-Earth orbit constellations, deep-space science probes, and even Mars-bound cargo ships. Unlike rocket launches, which are short and explosive, this tech allows long, efficient burns over months — ideal for modern space infrastructure. France’s space agency is already partnering with EU firms to integrate this engine into next-gen micro-launchers and orbital service vehicles — making combustion-free satellite propulsion a reality.

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Zipline’s autonomous drone charging stations – now at scale The company shows impressive delivery capabilities across multiple missions. Since 2014, starting with medical supply drops in Rwanda, and today, precise urban deliveries with autonomous landing and charging, no human operator needed. Zipline operates in the US, Ghana, Japan and more. Autonomous drones are about to enter #civilian_airspace, just as they already have in the military domain ✈️ High-level autonomy and supportive regulation are not a question of if, but when. And the answer is: soon

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Airbus has received the initial fuselage sections for its A350 freighter, MSN700, at its final assembly line in Toulouse, France. The central fuselage sections 15-21 as well as the forward sections 11-14 have been produced by the facility at Montoir-de-Bretagne – formerly known as Saint-Nazaire. Airbus supplies these sections through its Airbus Atlantic aerostructures division. The Montoir-de-Bretagne site assembles and equips all centre and forward A350 fuselages. According to Airbus Atlantic, the initial A350F sections have been delivered to Toulouse, the final assembly line for the cargo twinjet. #aircargo #airfreight #logistics #supplychain #freighter #airline #A350F Airbus Read more: https://lnkd.in/eRjgHxae

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𝗬𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗔𝘁𝗹𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 #𝟭 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗛𝘂𝗻𝘁! After tirelessly building a tool that automatically detects errors in agents, it was a huge milestone for us. We enjoyed a much anticipated bottle of champagne 🍾 But, we also received some keen questions. One that kept coming up: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸? It’s timely, because the usefulness of evals is being debated in AI circles right now. (This thread captures it well: https://lnkd.in/ewn53SC8). Are evals broken? Should we just rely on A/B tests? Is monitoring enough? From our experience building Atla, we’ve learned a few things: - Static evals inevitably go stale. The moment your agent changes, yesterday’s tests become less useful. - Manual trace review gets you to the heart of the issues, but it doesn’t scale when your agents are handling thousands of interactions. - What builders really need are 𝗮𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀: systems that continuously track what your agent actually does and flag anomalies. The last point is the approach Atla takes. Sashank Pisupati, PhD, our lead research engineer, wrote a blog post covering this in more detail and using an RL lens. The post explains how we’re combining production monitoring, step-level critics, and clustering recurring failures to keep evals relevant as agents evolve. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/e6XMVkrC We see this as the future of AI evaluation. Not perfect static tests. Not endless manual review. But critics that adapt as fast as your agents do. And later this week, we’ll share how these principles shaped our upgraded 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀. Stay tuned!

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Sébastien Lemaire, Chief Information Officer at Transavia France, shares why the airline selected IBS Software's iFlight - a single-source operations and crew platform - to unify operations across its Operations and Crew teams, streamline processes, and enhance decision-making. "Together with the Air France Group, we are committed to reducing CO₂ emissions by 30% by 2030, and the Tail Assignment module of iFlight will help us optimise fuel consumption across our fleet." We're proud to partner with Transavia France on its journey towards smarter operations and a more sustainable future. Our thanks to Sébastien and Estelle Bandhavong for sharing their valuable perspectives.

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