The traditional news media has long grappled with the challenges posed by the digital revolution, leading to a well-documented crisis in journalism. However, news organizations now face a more profound transformation driven by a generation that has grown up relying heavily on various digital media platforms.

Data from this year’s Reuters Institute Digital News Report reveals an accelerated shift towards digital, mobile, and media-rich environments. Today, news content is predominantly delivered through social media and increasingly popular video-led platforms like TikTok, rather than the perceived formal and antiquated outlets of “legacy” media such as newspapers and television.

The decline in consumption of traditional television news and print formats continues unabated, while online websites struggle to engage news users, despite the tumultuous times we live in. An essential benchmark of this shift is the preferred gateway for accessing news. Across the 46 countries surveyed in our annual report, social media has steadily gained popularity each year, often at the expense of direct access through traditional news websites or apps. Access through search engines and other aggregators has also seen a slight increase. It is crucial to note that direct connection remains strong in some markets, particularly in Northern Europe, where news interest and trust are relatively high. However, in other regions, notably parts of Asia, Latin America, and Africa, social media and aggregators dominate as the primary gateways, leaving news brands heavily reliant on third-party platforms for traffic.

A California-based startup, Varda Space Industries, co-founded by a SpaceX veteran, made an exciting announcement as it successfully deployed its inaugural satellite, W-Series 1, into orbit. The company’s mission revolves around kickstarting the mass production of materials in space, either those impossible to manufacture on Earth or those that can be developed faster and with superior quality in microgravity conditions.

Excitement filled the air as Varda tweeted, “The world’s first space factory’s solar panels have found the sun, and it’s beginning to de-tumble,” shortly after the satellite was launched aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-8 mission on Monday, June 13.

The W-Series 1 satellite is situated within Rocket Lab’s Photon platform, a satellite solution also contracted by NASA for two upcoming Mars missions. Varda’s satellite launch is a crucial step in the company’s testing campaign to determine the feasibility of leveraging its satellite solution for pharmaceutical development in space.

The company was established by Will Bruey, a former SpaceX avionics engineer, and Delian Asparouhov from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Varda’s primary objective is to enable the mass production of specific products in space. This goal has become increasingly achievable with the rise of private launch service providers like SpaceX and Rocket Lab, which have significantly enhanced accessibility to space in recent years.

In an unprecedented move, robots may soon be competing with astronauts for space-related tasks. Gitai, a Japanese robotics startup, has secured a new funding round of ¥4 billion ($30 million) to advance its mission of creating a workforce of space robots. The Tokyo-based company aims to significantly reduce the cost of space operations and minimize the risks to human life through the development of its remote-controlled space robots, as reported by Bloomberg.

The emergence of companies like SpaceX, with their partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket, has revolutionized the space industry by substantially lowering transportation costs to orbit. Gitai’s CEO, Sho Nakanose, discussed in an interview with Bloomberg TV how the company envisions the next frontier to be a substantial reduction in the cost and risk associated with space operations through the use of robotic workforces. Nakanose explained that Gitai’s robot arms and rovers have the potential to reduce operational costs for space missions by “100 times,” making them suitable for deployment on celestial bodies such as the Moon and Mars.