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If you have the Chase Freedom Flex® (see rates and fees ) or legacy Chase Freedom®* in your wallet, take note: The third quarter's categories are now live.

Through Sept. 30, you can earn 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar spent) on electric vehicle charging, gas station purchases, select live entertainment, transit and United Way. Keep in mind that you must activate your categories by Sept. 14 to earn at these rates (on up to $1,500 in combined spending across these categories; then 1% back or 1 point per dollar spent).

Here's what you need to know about this quarter's categories.

Now live: Activate your Chase Freedom third-quarter categories

*This card is no longer available to new applicants. The information for the Chase Freedom has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Chase Freedom Q3 2026 categories

Through Sept. 30, Freedom and Freedom Flex cardholders can earn 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar spent) on up to $1,500 in combined purchases across these bonus categories (then 1% back or 1 point per dollar spent):

EV charging and gas stations

Select live entertainment

Transit

United Way

THE POINTS GUY Gas, EV charging and select live entertainment all appear regularly as quarterly categories, but this is the first time we've seen public transit and United Way appear.

Activate this quarter's categories now to unlock their bonus-earning potential. You must activate by Sept. 14.

It's simple to complete this process through your Chase account; just provide your last name, the last four digits of your card and your ZIP code.

Analyzing the Q3 bonus categories

With gas prices remaining high and many people choosing to switch to electric vehicles, it's nice to see gas and EV charging stations return as bonus categories for this quarter. Select live entertainment has appeared in the third quarter every year since 2022, aligning with summer and early fall as popular times for concerts, festivals and sporting events.

Chase now has a pattern of offering a select charity as a bonus category each quarter. This time, nonprofit charity network United Way is its choice.

DRAGANA991/GETTY IMAGES Here are the details:

Gas and EV charging : If you own a car or frequently rent cars when you travel, you should easily be able to get a lot of value out of this frequently appearing category.

Select live entertainment : The third quarter is the time to book concerts, festivals and sporting events if you haven't already. It's difficult to find cards that offer substantial bonus rewards on live entertainment, so take advantage of this category while you can. Additionally, consider stacking this category with bonuses from sites like Rakuten and Rove .

Public transit : Whether you live in a city with a solid transit system or plan to travel to a place with one, this category means your eligible Freedom card will be the best choice to swipe with every time you ride while the third-quarter categories are live. Chase's transit category is quite wide, so even tolls and parking garages will earn bonus rewards.

United Way : United Way is a network of local nonprofits around the world that aim to tackle problems that directly impact the communities they serve. If you have a United Way nonprofit in your area, you can earn bonus rewards on your charitable contributions in the third quarter.

Remember that Chase limits the 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar spent) you can earn to the first $1,500 spent in combined bonus categories each quarter. After you reach the maximum, you'll earn 1% back (or 1 point per dollar spent) on these purchases.

Chase Freedom rotating categories history

Year Quarter Bonus categories

2026 Q3 EV charging, gas stations, select live entertainment, transit and United Way

Q2 Amazon, Chase Travel℠ (elevated 9% cash back for Freedom Flex cardholders), Feeding America and Whole Foods Market

Q1 American Heart Association, dining (elevated 7% cash back for Freedom Flex cardholders) and Norwegian Cruise Line

2025 Q4

Chase Travel (elevated 9% cash back for Freedom Flex cardholders), department stores and Old Navy

PayPal (December only)

Q3 Gas and EV charging stations, Instacart and select live entertainment

Q2

Amazon and select streaming services

Internet, cable and phone services (June only)

Q1

Select grocery stores, fitness club and gym memberships, self-care and spa services, and Norwegian Cruise Line purchases

Tax preparation and insurance (March only)

2024 Q4 McDonald's (elevated 7% cash back for Freedom Flex cardholders), PayPal, pet shops and veterinarian services, and select charities

Q3 Gas and EV charging stations, movie theaters and select live entertainment

Q2 Hotels booked through Chase Travel, dining and Amazon (different earning rates depending on the card, i.e., 9%, 7% and 5%, respectively, for the Freedom Flex; 5% for all three categories for the Freedom)

Q1 Select grocery stores, fitness club and gym memberships, and self-care and spa services

2023 Q4 PayPal, select charities and wholesale clubs

Q3 Gas and EV charging stations, and select live entertainment

Q2 Amazon and Lowe's

Q1 Grocery stores, gym memberships and fitness clubs, and Target

2022 Q4 PayPal and Walmart

Q3 Gas stations, rental cars, movie theaters and select live entertainment

Q2 Amazon and select streaming services

Q1 Grocery stores and eBay

2021 Q4 PayPal and Walmart

Q3 Grocery stores and select streaming services

Q2 Gas stations and home improvement stores

Q1 Wholesale clubs, select streaming services and internet, cable and phone services

2020 Q4 PayPal and Walmart

Q3 Amazon and Whole Foods Market

Q2 Grocery stores, gym memberships and fitness clubs, and select streaming services

Q1 Gas stations, internet, cable and phone services, and select streaming services

2019 Q4 Chase Pay, PayPal and department stores

Q3 Gas stations and select streaming services

Q2 Grocery stores and home improvement

Q1 Gas stations, drugstores and tolls

2018 Q4 Wholesale clubs, department stores and Chase Pay

Q3 Lyft, Walgreens and gas stations

Q2 Groceries, PayPal and Chase Pay

Q1 Mobile wallets, gas stations and internet, cable and phone service merchants

2017 Q4 Walmart and department stores

Q3 Restaurants and movie theaters

Q2 Grocery stores and drugstores

Q1 Gas stations and local commuter transportation

2016 Q4 Wholesale clubs, drugstores and department stores

Q3 Restaurants and wholesale clubs

Q2 Grocery stores and wholesale clubs

Q1 Gas stations and local commuter transportation

2015 Q4 Amazon, Zappos, Audible and Diapers.com

Q3 Gas stations and Kohl's

Q2 Restaurants, Bed Bath & Beyond, H&M and Overstock

Q1 Grocery stores, movie theaters and Starbucks

2014 Q4 Amazon, Zappos and department stores

Q3 Gas stations and Kohl's

Q2 Restaurants and Lowe's

Q1 Gas stations, movie theaters and Starbucks

Chase Freedom bonus categories FAQs

How do rotating categories work?

Each quarter, Chase announces a group of bonus categories that will earn 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar) throughout the upcoming three-month period (on up to $1,500 in combined spending each quarter).

Generally, these categories are announced halfway through the month before the new quarter starts to give cardmembers time to activate new categories beforehand. However, you can activate your categories until midway through the last month of the quarter.

The categories tend to repeat periodically. For instance, grocery stores , restaurants and gas stations are all common categories you'll notice frequently pop up on the bonus calendar. So, depending on the categories and whether you can maximize them, these two cards can offer quite a nice chunk of cash back or bonus points over the year.

How much cash back can I earn each quarter?

Chase limits the 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar) to the first $1,500 spent in combined bonus categories each quarter you activate the bonus.

While that may not sound like a lot, that cash back adds up over time. Maximizing the cash-back categories each quarter, you'll earn $75 in cash back quarterly and up to $300 per year. For a no-annual-fee credit card , that's a lot of value.

ROCKAA/GETTY IMAGES Alternatively, suppose you have a card that earns transferable Chase Ultimate Rewards points, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (see rates and fees ). In that case, you can combine the rewards from your Chase Freedom or Freedom Flex card with those you earn from your more premium Ultimate Rewards-earning card. By doing this, your rewards become fully transferable .

If you combine rewards this way, your $300 in bonus cash back would be worth 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points. TPG's July 2026 valuations peg Chase points at 2.05 cents apiece, making the 30,000 points you can earn in a year worth $615.

How do I activate my 5% categories each quarter?

You can head to Chase's site to activate your 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar) categories for this quarter. You can also register through the Chase mobile app.

Here's how to register:

Head to the Chase bonus activation page , or log into your Chase account.

Enter your last name, the last four digits of your card number and your billing ZIP code. If you don't have your card on hand, log in to your Chase account to retrieve these digits.

Click "Activate your 5%" to register.

If you have multiple Chase Freedom cards, make sure to register each one.

Save a screenshot of your activation in case of any issues later, though you should also receive a "You're Activated!" confirmation email.

Can I have both the Chase Freedom and the Chase Freedom Flex to double my earning potential?

Yes, you can have both cards. So, if you already have the Chase Freedom and want to add the Chase Freedom Flex to your wallet, you're free to do so.

Remember that the original Freedom card is no longer open to new applicants. If you'd rather only have one, though, the Freedom Flex is available as a product change.

Of course, you'll also want to ensure you're eligible for a new Chase card .

How do I maximize my Freedom and Freedom Flex cards?

The most important thing is to activate your card to earn 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar) each quarter in the specific categories and then use your card for purchases in those categories.

You can set up a recurring reminder in your calendar or sign up for the TPG newsletter . (We send out a reminder when it's time to activate every quarter, plus tips and tricks for how to maximize your card strategy and score some excellent award redemptions .)

WIPHOP SATHAWIRAWONG/GETTY IMAGES In addition to the rotating bonus categories, the Freedom Flex accrues 5% cash back on all other travel booked through Chase Travel , 3% cash back on drugstore purchases, 3% cash back on dining (including eligible delivery services) and 1% unlimited cash back on all other purchases.

Better yet, when paired with a Chase credit card that earns fully transferable Ultimate Rewards points, such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve® (see rates and fees ) or the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the Chase Freedom Flex's 5% cash back effectively becomes 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar. You can learn all about this in our guide detailing the Chase Trifecta .

Bottom line

If you're a Chase Freedom or Freedom Flex cardholder, you'll earn 5% cash back (or 5 points per dollar spent) on electric vehicle charging, gas station purchases, select live entertainment, transit and United Way from now through Sept. 30.

Activate these categories before Sept. 14 so you don't miss out on any bonus rewards. And remember that Chase limits your quarterly bonus category earnings to the first $1,500 of combined spending each quarter.

To learn more, read our full review of the Chase Freedom Flex .

Apply here: Chase Freedom Flex

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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TL;DR

Over the past 24 hours, more user reports claiming connectivity issues on Pixel phones have surfaced.

This has become a regular occurrence, with new reports cropping up periodically, typically around updates.

Google recommends resetting connectivity settings on affected devices.

Pixel phones are having connectivity problems again. Over the last 24 hours or so, several users have taken to Reddit to say their phones are failing to connect in the internet in various ways.

It’s not clear how or if these issues are actually related. We’ve clocked three separate posts about connectivity problems from the past day: a Pixel 10 user who says their phone keeps flip-flopping between Wi-Fi and mobile data; another who says they keep losing mobile data; and a 7a owner who was able to resolve their issue by resetting connectivity settings.

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“Imagine the scenario; one of our Havoc hypersonic missiles loaded on an F-15EX Eagle with a mission profile locked-in and ready to go. This new missile is designed for low-cost and high-effect – it’s very difficult for an adversary to track in flight,” explains Chris Spagnoletti, chief executive officer of Ursa Major, as he discusses the company’s expanding hypersonics activities. Part of a company strategy to help overcome critical Department of War munitions shortages, Ursa Major’s Havoc was unveiled in early 2026. With a unique 3D-printed propulsion system, Havoc has been envisioned as a hypersonic missile that aims to re-write the rulebook for these types of weapons.

Ursa Major’s ambitious vision comes at a time of something of a renaissance in U.S. aerospace development and defense manufacturing, with newer firms establishing major positions within a rapidly evolving marketplace. These fresh takes on cutting-edge defense technologies also come as the United States celebrates its 250th birthday and looks back on a history of unlikely up-starts changing the world with new ideas and ways of doing business. It’s in this same spirit that Ursa Major looks to stake its claim.

Ursa Major’s Affordable Rapid Missile demonstrator, powered by the company’s Draper liquid rocket engine. U.S. Army via Ursa Major

The firm is evolving from a propulsion provider into a prime contractor and integrator with a keen focus on hypersonics and solving a need for affordable high-speed missiles at scale for the U.S. and its allies. In recent operations, the U.S. has fired a vast number of standoff air-to-ground weapons including more than 850 Tomahawks cruise missiles in the recent war with Iran and hundreds of high-end interceptors , stressing a system that’s been constrained by prolonged replenishment timelines.

Spagnoletti says he strongly believes that hypersonic missiles are “the most important and pressing issue within critical munitions, with solid rocket motors coming close behind.” The company’s approach to design and production in both of these areas means Spagnoletti sees Ursa Major as being “well positioned to solve” these pressing requirements for the U.S. military.

“We are innovating on manufacturability and on new munition systems,” he continues. “It’s all under the umbrella of scalable munitions. Ursa Major’s founders really focused on developing very complicated propulsion systems, but with a strong propensity on design for manufacturability – essentially developing very high performing rocket engines as low-cost and as reliably as possible.”

Ursa Major has produced hundreds of engines and motors and accumulated more than 135,000 seconds of hotfire test time in under a decade. From its very beginnings the company has innovated through advanced manufacturing techniques that have evolved to leverage AI-enabled 3D-printing, specifically metal printing. “We’re looking at the problem set, and the landscape here is about how we can help the United States catch up as quickly as possible. We don’t just want a “me too” product, because we find there’s a lot of that in this space. This is about finding real answers to the desperate need to replenish our critical munitions fast,” says Spagnoletti.

Solid rocket motors in high demand

Having started out with liquid rocket engines, Ursa Major increasingly saw a burgeoning requirement for solid rocket motors (SRMs) for munitions, which Spagnoletti says have remained tied to traditional manufacturing approaches. Ursa Major says its approach to SRM manufacturing is designed to complement and strengthen the broader defense industrial base by providing flexible manufacturing capacity, common architectures, and modernized production methods.

Ursa Major’s manufacturing approach fundamentally changes how SRMs are designed and built using additive manufacturing, modular tooling, and software-backed production cells. This enables rapid switching between SRM variants without expensive retooling, which reduces production timelines and increases flexibility.

Ursa Major makes significant use of additive manufacturing across its engines. Ursa Major

In addition, Ursa Major’s highly-loaded grain technology increases motor performance and range without increasing motor size. By leveraging common architectures and using a limited set of qualified propellants, it says it can reduce qualification timelines and simplify production across multiple variants. The company’s energetics (solid propellent grain) strategy aims to expand domestic propellant capacity and reduce dependence on fragile supply chains, while using reliable mix, cast, and cure processes.

“Both in the liquid rocket engine side, and in solid rocket motors, the approach from the outset is deeply embedded in our culture; how we design, how we build, how we scale,” says Nick Doucette, co-founder and vice president of strategic operations for Ursa Major. “We came at the manufacturing problems from a completely different direction. We started out building liquid rocket engines, which were – to a degree – supporting the launch industry. That approach allowed us to develop new platforms that use new types of fuels or higher performance rates and lower costs.”

“From the start it helped support a growing launch industry, but very quickly it started to find its way into the hypersonics community as our engines, products, and performance points really started to solve some interesting problems. As we leaned heavily into the hypersonics needs, we realized that the early Ursa Major approach in manufacturing and the types of tech that we’re using are really solving some of the actual problems, and that led to our solid rocket motor programs.”

When building solid rocket motors, the inert part of the manufacturing leverages additive manufacturing heavily – Ursa Major avoids fixed tooling. “For example, after we qualify a motor, say a specific diameter booster, and then the government comes back to us and says that the adversaries have adapted. Now they want slightly different thrust, or maybe get additional range. We’ve already thought about that, our manufacturing line doesn’t need to change. We can use the same manufacturing line and adapt it,” explains Spagnoletti.

Solid rocket motor testing. Ursa Major

“We kept the energetics formulation essentially the same – it’s tried and true and it has been munition-tested for years – but we looked at the problem from the manufacturability of the entirety of the system. From a contracting point of view, this gives the government a lot more flexibility and to be as agile as the adversary. This has been happening on the development side for the past three years, working with several primes and the U.S. Navy. They’re inherently leveraging our ability to turn things fast, and now that’s translating into contracts for us.”

“The Navy really understood our approach to manufacturing,” adds Doucette. “They challenged us to apply our approach with liquid rockets to the solid rocket motor industry. To look at the problems and peel back the onion on solid rocket motors. What we found is that the choke point actually lies the metallic components that make what we call the inert tube section, that then gets packed with the energetics. The energetics are difficult for sure, but what actually chokes the supply chain is the 36-plus months to make the metallic tube structures. To compound the problem, all these production lines of the last 30, 40, 50 years are designed around one platform. Can you imagine an automotive company that has a huge expensive factory but only ever makes one car model! I mean, it would economically go out of business.”

“We have demonstrated that, by looking at the steps to make a solid rocket motor, be it metal printing the end domes or how we do the internal features and make the actual case to how we in some cases load the highly-loaded grain to get more performance, we can do all of it on the same production line for any motor between two inches and 22 inches in diameter. The same equipment, the same people, the same factory footprint. If we want to scale, we just copy paste the factory. If the demand signal changes in a year – which if recent conflicts give us any indication they probably will – that factory can switch over to a different munition. We just stop making one size and tool up for the new size in a matter of months.”

Ursa Major’s primary 93-acre corporate headquarters is located in Berthoud, about an hour north of Denver, Colorado. Here the company has the facilities to test its liquid rocket engines on site and it also designs, develops, and manufactures here. “Our main building is really split in half,” explains Spagnoletti. “On one side we have liquid rocket engine manufacturing and development to power hypersonics, and on the other behind a steel rolling door are the solid rocket motor development and low-rate production as part of our replenishment of critical munitions.”

Live fire testing of a small diameter solid rocket motor. Ursa Major

“At the Colorado site, we’re actually grinding, mixing, casting, curing thousands of pounds of energetics per year for our solid rocket motors, with a lot of automation built-in to not only protect the people but also to make the process more consistent. We have another site for our high volume solid rocket motor production – it needs a lot of space – and we are targeting to manufacture hundreds of thousands of pounds of energetics for use in various shapes and sizes by the middle of 2027.”

The company has expanded with more than 400 acres for SRM production in Galeton, Colorado.

Solid rocket motors of all sizes

Nick Doucette already sees the solid rocket motor work evolving. “We will eventually boost-power our Havoc system with our solid rocket motors. Remember, we got into SRMs due to seeing the critical munition needs, with an open door for manufacturing innovation and a problem we want to help solve. So we’ve built a manufacturing approach and we are now building a multitude of different size classes for different customers.”

The smallest SRM that Ursa Major is actively working on is for the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System , or APKWS, from BAE Systems. “This currently uses a very dated motor and there’s been a lot of need in the industry to essentially innovate on that motor,” explains Doucette. “So we’ve been working extensively with both BAE Systems and the U.S. Air Force on that particular platform, especially with highly loaded grain, and we see a very promising future there.”

Doucette explains that Ursa Major has already made several hundred 2.75-inch motors for testing and development. This will be an extended range version of the motor, packing a significantly larger amount of energetic material into the same size rocket casing.

A common modular solid rocket motor in test. Ursa Major

In 2024, Ursa Major won a contract with the Naval Energetics Systems and Technologies (NEST) program to develop and test a new design to apply its SRM manufacturing processes to the Mk104 dual-thrust rocket motor that powers the U.S. Navy Standard Missile 2 (SM-2), used for surface-to-air defense, and the SM-6 anti-air , land, and sea missile.

Trusted solid rocket motor providers are in limited supply, and the versatility of Ursa Major’s production process opens up a raft of potential opportunities, particularly in the missile defense space. The 10-14-inch range is what Doucette calls a “sweet spot” for interceptor missiles.

Asked about air-to-air missiles, Doucette says: “of course, we’re looking at it. There’s been a lot of conversations around how Ursa Major would approach the problem, but we have a lot going on already, so we’re making sure we don’t try to swallow the whole critical munitions list at once.”

“Most of these larger hypersonic weapons are all boosted,” adds Doucette. “These have a booster in the back end, and we have additionally completed internal work to develop that 22-inch diameter SRM capability. So now we can do anything from 2-inch to 22-inch on that same production line using our common modular manufacturing approach.”

Unleashing Havoc

Ursa Major’s parallel efforts in hypersonics brings the story full circle. Alongside the solid rocket motors business, hypersonic missiles have become a critical part of the company’s efforts, as Nick Doucette picks up the story.

“There’s two specific products that Ursa Major makes in the hypersonics realm right now. The first is an engine that’s liquid oxygen-powered with rocket fuel. We call it Hadley, and we’ve had that for the better part of a decade. Hadley powers the Stratolaunch hypersonic Talon A testbed , for example. We don’t make the vehicle, we just provide the engine and support services, and Hadley has flown 10 times now.”

The Talon A testbed, powered by the Hadley engine. Ursa Major

“The challenge with Hadley is that it uses cryogenic liquid oxygen, which presents a whole suite of issues from a tactical perspective. A military user can’t sit and wait for the propellant to get cold, like you do with liquid oxygen. We needed to make a similar engine, slightly lower thrust, a little smaller, but essentially in the same packaging, make it storable and most importantly, make it tactical, so that you can drop it from a plane or shoot it vertically from a ship. So we switched from liquid oxygen to hydrogen peroxide.”

“The catch there was that the only way we were able to do that in the right packaging, tightness, and density, was to use 3D-printing. Fast-forward through six years of insane additive development and the Draper engine became a reality. It simply would not have been possible without massive advances in the additive world because of the complexity of what we’re doing geometrically. It’s a really challenging thing to do.”

Draper is a 4,000-pound-thrust engine that is powered by hydrogen peroxide and rocket fuel. Its use of non-cryogenic storable propellants enables long-duration storage, rapid deployment, and operational flexibility in real-world conditions. Its massive potential drove Ursa Major to search for a suitable hypersonic vehicle design to match it with.

“We strongly believed that Draper introduced a differentiating threat vector for any adversary,” Doucette continues. “China has had boost-glide hypersonics for a decade. Other hypersonic designs use a scramjet, which are costly and complex. Draper opened up hypersonic performance, where you have a wide range of trajectories and adaptability as well as other really creative mechanisms that, to be honest, the adversaries don’t have. I mean it’s wildly different, which we see as being a very valuable asset to the national security arsenal.

The Draper engine, which is powered by hydrogen peroxide and rocket fuel. Ursa Major

“The concept of using a liquid rocket engine for a hypersonic weapon is absolutely game changing. Draper can be throttled – unlike solid rocket motors that use a pre-mixed propellant and oxidizer that cannot be controlled once ignited – plus it’s designed to be more safely stored than other liquid rocket engines, providing the tactical storage capabilities that are typical of a solid rocket motor.”

Doucette says that Ursa Major looked to find a partner for the vehicle itself, but concluded that none were suitable, particularly when it came to moving fast. The decision was made to go it alone in-house with an air vehicle. The result is Havoc, which is designed like other hypersonic programs to fly in excess of mach 5, and intended to be launched in a variety of ways; as a single-stage from an aircraft or ground-launched with added booster stages. It’s also designed to run out at circa $3-million apiece. “We entered a rapid campaign in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory and we went from concept to flight-ready in about six months,” Doucette says.

Hypersonic missiles currently in testing with the USAF include the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), which is a boost-glide hypersonic system, with rocket boost and an unpowered glide vehicle inside. The Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile , or HACM, also features rocket boosters, but with an air-breathing scramjet second stage vehicle. Both are limited to operations in the Earth’s atmosphere – whereas Havoc can operate either in or above the atmosphere.

An artist’s rendition of Havoc. Ursa Major

“With regard to propulsion in aerospace defense, there’s three main types; air-breathing, solid powered, and liquid powered,” Doucette explains. “In the world of hypersonics, specifically, we’re talking about fast-moving, somewhat unpredictable, missile systems that are moving at over five times the speed of sound. You have the same propulsion methods, but liquid fuel has never really been introduced.”

“The air-breathing hypersonic weapons are typically scramjets and ramjets, which the U.S. has been developing for a very long time. They’re expensive and exquisite, but very long range.

A hotfire test of Draper. Ursa Major

“China has something in the order of 600-700 operational boost-glide systems in its arsenal right now. This is not new to them. They’ve been practicing, watching, and rehearsing.” Doucette warns that the U.S. fielding a boost-glide or scramjet hypersonic weapon may not really change the dynamic, which is why Ursa Major’s argument for its liquid-powered weapon is so strong.

“The novelty of being liquid-powered is that it carries its own oxidizer and fuel, which means it can go anywhere – in the atmosphere, out of the atmosphere, high, low. A solid rocket can technically do the same thing, but the big difference with the liquid system is that it can turn on and off an infinite number of times. A solid is going where it’s going, but a liquid could be on one trajectory and a split second later turn it off, then instantaneously head on a different trajectory because you can maneuver it from a powered vector perspective. Draper is also fully throttleable down to 10% all the way up to 100%.”

There are currently no competing systems that have the ability to bridge the gap between running in atmosphere and out of atmosphere with such a degree of throttle control. Ursa Major is currently the only company with a hypersonic vehicle and experience in the liquid-powered hypersonic realm. It has twice ground-launched from a rail what it calls “Havoc Block 0” in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory, under its Affordable Rapid Missile Demonstrator (ARMD) program. These demonstrator flights have been designed as multi-domain tests. “The great thing about Havoc is that we can alter the wings, add our solid rocket motor boost system, and it means we can ground launch, VLS [vertical launch system] launch, or air-launch,” Doucette says.

A flight test of the Draper-powered Affordable Rapid Missile Demonstrator. Ursa Major

“Havoc provides something the Department of War has not previously seen,” adds Chris Spagnoletti. “Having a mid- and long-range tactical weapon that can deep throttle, turn on and off at will, is agnostic to atmosphere, rapidly change vector, accelerate and de-celerate, skim the sea, fly outside the atmosphere – this really opens up the aperture of what a munition can do. This is very tough for conventional systems to figure out what it’s intending to do.”

Rapidly scaling production

Spagnoletti says Ursa Major’s hypersonic program can scale quickly because of the company’s additive manufacturing and AI-driven manufacturing processes. Draper’s liquid propellant also has additional advantages when it comes to production. “We can drain the fuel, bring them into a facility, and that now-inert system doesn’t need massive keep-out distances,” explains Spagnoletti. “So, say in a 100,000 square foot building, we can produce 500 full-up missile systems per year inert, then fuel them right before we ship them or at the operational location.”

“Some companies are advocating for things like multi-year contracts, and that really matters to them because they’re setting up rigid long-term production lines. We’ve flipped that on its head where if a customer decides in say five years they want this weapon to look different, we have a common modular approach that we can swap things out. Most of the aerospace systems I’ve worked on in my career have long five or 10-year windows. Design, build, qualify – they don’t want to make hardware changes because it’s going to take ages and cost a lot of money to modify and qualify those systems. They’re inherently resistant to change, not because they don’t want to help and adapt, but because the system allows a massive amount of inertia, production lines have rigid tooling and processes, they can’t adapt. What’s different about Ursa Major is, again, that we design for manufacturability and leverage advanced manufacturing.’

In addition to its Colorado facilities mentioned earlier, Ursa Major also has a plant in Youngstown, Ohio, which is a center of excellence for 3D-printing, they then ship to Berthoud for final assembly and test. A lot of parts and components are manufactured in house, including valves, tanks, pressurization systems, avionics, but it does have dependency on some external suppliers where appropriate. “We have some really strong partnerships where we can’t bring things in-house. We’re such experts in additive manufacturing that we know when not to do it.”

“Importantly, we are not reducing costs by using the cheapest parts. In my 36 years in the aerospace industry, when it comes to building a critical munition, I know the devil’s in the details – it has to work every time and there’s only so cheap you can go before you start to sacrifice reliability. Some of our competitors are trying to achieve a lower cost hypersonic system, which is great, but those are typically salvo weapons where you just launch a lot of them. The Havoc missile system is more of a strategic asset.”

Ursa Major’s adaptable additive manufacturing process is known as Lynx. Ursa Major

Ursa Major is making significant moves in the U.S. military’s missile stockpile recapitalization effort. It has opened up versatile methods of producing solid rocket motors, and it has demonstrated the functionality of Havoc with the Air Force Research Laboratory, including the concept of operations with the liquid rocket. Spagnoletti points out that the U.S. used to use liquid rockets prior to the advent of solid rocket motors. Use of additive manufacturing and 3D-printing is always in the conversation too, it’s how this company can scale its innovations fast.

The next major milestone it’s driving towards is a follow-on demonstration phase for Havoc – a boosted, full hypersonic flight. “We’re pushing for that in 2027,” says Spagnoletti.

As America marks its 250th year, the dream of a hypersonic missile with a 3D-printed engine that can be delivered in large quantities at an affordable price could materialize into another significant landmark in the story of American defense innovation. At least that’s Ursa Major’s goal, and it appears to look more promising by the day.

The post 3D-Printing Engines To Power Hypersonic Weapons Is Fast Becoming A Reality appeared first on TWZ .

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What a journey! Jamir Nazir, one of the three finalists for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize who were accused of using AI to create their work, has won the overall prize .

ICYMI:

Accusations began swirling online in May shortly after the Commonwealth Foundation announced the five regional winners who would go on to compete for the overall prize.

Readers, writers , and even an AI expert pointed to what they believed were “obvious markers of AI writing” in the nominated stories.

Citing concerns about “editorial integrity,” Granta Magazine, which has published the winning stories for more than a decade, ended its partnership with the Prize.

But! The Commonwealth Foundation cleared Nazir and his fellow finalists last week after a month-long investigation that, notably, did not incorporate AI-detection software.

Nazir, who has not commented on the allegations, discusses his inspiration and writing process in a short film released by the Commonwealth Foundation.

It’s just about impossible to prove a negative where AI is concerned.

The linguistic tics like em dashes and “not X, but Y” constructions that can indicate a work was AI-generated have their origins in the human-generated works large language models were trained on.

Showing your work with notes, drafts, and other documentation is about to become important for writers and could figure into future award selection processes.

See for yourself. You can read Nazir’s winning story, “The Serpent in the Grove,” along with the other regional winners, at Granta.

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SpaceX is offering half-price Starlink for some users in Memphis

Reisdents near an xAI data center are eligible for the offer

The company is being sued for pollution caused by its infrastructure

Here's one way to try and overcome local opposition to your energy-hungry, water-sucking, AI-feeding data centers: offer residents some sweeteners in return for having the infrastructure built in their backyard.

As Bloomberg reports, SpaceX is now giving out half-price Starlink subscriptions to those around the Memphis, Tennessee area, where the company operates existing Colossus data centers and "continues to invest in the Memphis area".

There will be no upfront hardware costs for new customers, and the discounts can be shared with "nearby" friends and family through a referral. However, if you change address and move out of the area, you lose your discount.

While 'appeasing local residents' isn't explicitly mentioned in the SpaceX statement , it doesn't take much reading between the lines. If you live around Memphis or neighboring Southaven, you can see if your address is in an eligible part of the area by looking up the location online .

Pollution problems

He's trying to gain favor but I doubt there's even enough users here for this to work. from r/Starlink

The data centers in this region are primarily for SpaceX subsidiary xAI, and the company is currently being sued for violating the Clean Air Act: it's claimed that the methane gas turbines powering the Colossus data centers don't have the required permissions.

"As we shared since xAI started operating in Memphis, our homes, churches, and playgrounds will not be sacrifice zones for Big Tech’s convenience," says Abre’ Conner, a director at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

It remains to be seen whether half-price internet changes the mood of those affected: the discount might also be known "as the please don't stop us from running illegal natural gas turbines discount" quips one user on Reddit ,

Discounted Starlink packages aren't the only commitment xAI is making though. The company has also said it will resume work on a waste water recycling plant from next year , which will provide clean water for the data centers and local authorities, though it isn't clear why work was halted to begin with.

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Categorically, I cannot afford to buy my own Steam Machine . Much to my chagrin, the most basic 512 GB model still costs $1,049 . Even Valve's own engineers wish their game box was cheaper . Thankfully, a French retailer is stepping in to try and do what even Valve could not: offer a compact PC for very slightly less than a grand.

LDLC has unveiled its own compact gaming PC, even going as far as to initially dub it the 'Stim Machine.' The retailer has since dropped this name in favour of the less ire-tempting ' LDLC PC box ' (via VideoCardz ). Though no longer available to buy, the 500 GB model used standard PC components and went for €1,000 as a kit you would need to assemble yourself.

A pre-built model was also briefly available. This went for €1,040, a price point directly comparable to how much the Steam Machine is selling for in Europe. The compact desktop even came with a tutorial on how to install SteamOS, though obviously that's not a hoop you would have to jump through to get the Steam Machine up and running.

So, what was the 'Stim Machine' offering beyond a potentially sub-1,000 euro price tag with some assembly required? For a start, the specs sheet includes a more recent RDNA 4 GPU in the cheap and (mostly) cheerful AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT. This GPU has a few extra compute units (and a much newer architecture) compared to the Steam Machine's semi-custom RDNA 3 card.

The LDLC PC Box has a Ryzen 5 8400F processor, whereas Valve's offering enjoys a similar, semi-custom AMD Zen 4 6C / 12T chip. So far, so comparable. Thanks to its standard Mini-ITX motherboard, the LDLC PC Box also has 16 GB of upgradeable DDR5 memory, as well as 500 GB of NVMe storage with two additional SATA slots on top. The Steam Machine also features a single 512 GB internal SSD, plus a MicroSD slot.

While achieving such comparable specs for less than a grand is impressive, that's still a whole lot of Euros for a relatively low amount of gaming horsepower ( thanks, memory supply crisis ). In other words, even if LDLC's PC Box was still available to buy and I was based in France, it's still a little rich for my blood. Ah well, I'll just hit repeat on Daft Punk's 2005 banger —that's almost just as good, right?