this is bbc news. the headlines: the memphis police department has disbanded the so—called scorpion special unit, whose officers are accused of murdering tyree nichols. the 29 —year—old black man was kicked and punched by five policemen who are also black. they've now been sacked and face multiple charges. including murder. a special meeting of israel's security cabinet has approved measures in response to the killing of seven people outside a synagogue in east jerusalem by a palestiniaun gunman. family members of attackers are set to lose their residency and health insurance rights. the former nato general, who will be the next czech president, has described the election outcome as a victory for the values

of truth, dignity and respect. in a speech to cheering supporters in prague, petre pavel said it was time to return those values to politics. now on bbc news — click. this week we are trying to get to space. which is even harder than it sounds. lara messes up the house. oh, no, i spilt my coffee! and then clears up. mind the cat, though. and fancy a drink? we are saving water...

cheers. ...and trying to save nick from himself. oh, no, he is getting a tattoo. there is no going back from this. lara: it is a pretty i spectacular view from earth's orbit. spencer: and there many things that have that view these days. a couple of space stations and thousands of satellites. and more and more companies want to put stuff up there. did you know that the closer you are to the equator, the easier it is to get things up to the right speed to go into orbit? ah. that is because that is where the earth is spinning fastest, so as you launch, it gives you an extra whang. and that is why the uk space port is way down south in cornwall. yeah, and that is why it was there, earlier in the year, virgin orbit attempted the first satellite launch from uk soil. marc cieslak: the uk's first functioning spaceport is here in cornwall. we are creating a huge cluster of space technology.

global value of the space economy somewhere in the region of $360 billion. to the uk it is 16.5 billion pounds every single year. newquay airport normally normally hosts small passenger and private aircraft, it's now home to spaceport cornwall. rockets will not launch from the ground here, though. private companies instead will take advantage of the runway which is one of the longest in britain, and ideal for an innovative method of satellite deployment via a rocket called launcher 1, courtesy of a company called virgin orbit. it's no ordinary rocket launch. this converted 7a7 carries a rocket underneath its wing which has nine microsatellites inside. the aircraft will take off from here and fly out over the atlantic and ascended to an altitude of 35,000 feet where the rocket will detach and blast off to the edge of space and deliver its payload. the bbc has been granted

exclusive access on board cosmic girl. this aircraft used to be a virgin atlantic airliner but it has been specially modified so it can launch rockets. in its former life, this cabin would have been filled with rows and rows of passenger seats, as well as galleys and bulkheads, and they used to even have a bar on these aircraft. all that has been stripped out to save weight and weight—saving is really, really important if you want to launch rockets. squadron leader, matthew �*stanny�* stannard, is on loan to virgin orbit from the royal air force. he has alread played a role in three successful rocket launches from cosmic girl over the mojave desert in the united states. can you take us through a mission and how it works? we get airborne from the runway behind us, and head out to what is called a race track, the point where we will

drop the rocket. that phase is called captive carry, we're just looking after the rocket, making sure it is healthy, using launch engineers in the back and mission control on the ground. we commence a flux about 26, so if you are a passenger on this aeroplane, you feel yourself being pushed down slightly down on the seat, and we go to about 35 degrees, nose up. and what we do is we try to transfer energy from the aeroplane to the rocket. by us going for that, the moment the rocket comes off it's heading off to where we want it to and not wasting any fuel. when we get to about 35 degrees nose up, we get to the right speed, and then the copilot will press the button to release the rocket. at that point the aeroplane is all the way over to the right side, and we're going to watch the rocket head to space. our system is portable. it's an airplane with a rocket and a few skids with equipment on it. so we can move it anywhere. we can enable space launch anywhere, any airport that can handle a 747. there is a growing space

economy here in the uk. the uk has been one of the leaders in small satellites, which is where the satellite market has drifted to. some people may argue that there are many problems, going on down here on earth, lots of massive economic problems going on on terra firma, why should government and nations, why should people be concerned with what is happening in space? if you look at the discussion about climate change, how do we know about climate change? because we have seen from space, changes in our atmosphere. we can detect the chemical compositions. we're looking at where the pollution sources are now. methane is now being detected for the first time. while cosmic girl is changing the way satellites are launched into the heavens, this spaceport here in newquay could change the economy in this particular part of the world. the local council here has invested £5.6 million,

and overall, the spaceport has a £20 million pricetag. it is a gamble for an area where mining and fishing were the traditional industries, now replaced by tourism. we're creating 150 directjobs related to this amazing facility that we have built here at spaceport cornwall, and we plan to create another 240 jobs in the supply chain. this is in a high—tech futuristic innovative sector. we are trying to bring a new industry to cornwall to develop jobs in a new way, and develop the skills base as well. the low—earth orbit economy as i describe it is definitely one that is growing. there were 1700 small satellites launched into low earth orbit last year. orbit�*s maiden uk flight took place injanuary nine, 2023. the plan was for launcher1 to deploy nine micro satellites into orbit. things did not work out like that though. after a successful takeoff, the rocket launched from cosmic girl, and as it reached space it all looked good, but at an altitude of 180 kilometres the rocket experienced an anomaly,

and the mission abruptly ended. its satellites never achieved orbit and the rocket components fell back to earth in what is described as an approved safety corridor. cosmic girl landed safely. orbit�*s next launch will be back over the mojave desert. it is investigating what went wrong in the skies above the uk and the company says it hopes to attempt another uk launch later this year. the uk space race is now on. two conventional vertical rocket launch facilities are being built in scotland. the prize of getting a satellite into orbit from uk soil is still up for grabs. that was marc. of course you know what the most famous thing in orbit around the earth is, don't you? the moon. ok, faircall. what's the second most famous thing in orbit around the earth? the international space station. exactly, there it is, and recently i was lucky enough to meet the man in charge of the lab that's on board. the international space station

has been in operation for over 20 years. since 2005, we've also a had a national laboratory and the national laboratory enables access to microgravity and the continuous observation of earth from space for companies all across the world. and what sort of things can you do in microgravity that are usefulfor us down here on earth? a lot of fun stuff. you see the astronauts play with water and m&ms and those all have at their heart fundamental differences in the physical behaviour of objects in that environment. those translate down to real—world benefits for those who seek to design new materials. our portfolio includes advanced materials research where folks are looking to better understand the ways that physics work in the absence of gravity, which can lead to improvements in engine design, combustion, fluid

systems and engine design, heat and thermal transfer. as a large part of our portfolio we also have medical devices, medical discovery. getting to space is getting cheaper, right? absolutely. lift off! there is, for the first time in human history, there is reliable frequent access to space. it is cheaper, it is not in the realm of cheap yet, not quite like calling up an uber or a lyft to get a ride, but it is heading in that direction. so as each of these companies perfect their technologies and these new approaches with reusable space flight hardware, cost continues to come down. that speaks also to launch opportunities here on earth. the more sites where we can launch crew and cargo and tourists to space, the better off we all are. how long does the iss have left, and what comes next? the international space station now has international support to operate through to 2030, and that will be over 30 years of continuous operations in space, so things are starting to aage. we have replaced parts of it as we have gone along, but some of the systems are nearing the end of their lifetimes.

the us and partner nations are already working on stations to supplement the activities of the international space station, and commercial companies are working with nasa to design and build new platforms. some of those will interact with the international space station and others will fly completely on their own. the goal is that by 2030 when the iss has reached end—of—life, there will be multiple commercial destinations in space that can fill all the wonderful niches that the iss does. and what happens to the iss after it is left by the last human? it will come home. so it will not be parked anywhere? the plan right now is to have it burn up and target it so it goes into a very specific location in the indian ocean known as point nemo. if you have your own deep submersible, you can visit what's left of it at the bottom

of point nemo in 2032, 2031. james cameron, if you are watching, that is one for you. michael, thank you. i appreciate it. lara: time for a look at this week's tech news. microsoft rolled back a network change which had left tens of thousands of users unable to access its services worldwide. outlook, teams and xbox live were all reported to have not been working. the disruption came on the same week as the company announced a multibillion investment in al. microsoft is extending its partnership with openai whose chatgpt provides convincingly human responses to questions. it is also a really big deal because it will push google to commercialise ai a lot faster and i think the biggest impact will be in how much it pushes google.

boston dynamics�* atlas robot can run, jump, pick up and now throw heavy objects. one day, it might even be able to help out in the construction industry. although the robot has already done a backflip, the team has said that this new technology is a step forward. the world's largest pest control group is now using facial recognition to track rats and assess how to deal with them. rentokil has been developing the technology along with vodafone for 18 months, where it tracks the rodents�* habits and streams real—time analysis. while on our recent us travels i got hands on with some of the latest kit hoping to make your house a smart home. for some of us wanting to smarten up our homes, we do not want to add a lot more devices.

certainly not ones that look obvious. so the mui board here is based around the idea of calm technology, something that has functionality without being in your face. when it is launched later this year, it will be based on the matter platform that can be connected to different smart home devices and then you have the choice of which ones you want listed when you bring it to life. you could have a weather forecast, if you want to set a timer for your lights to go off you can do that by drawing a line here and you can see the time going up and then watching the line disappear as the lights go out. i don't know about you but i cannot start my day without coffee. so this is of particular interest to me. it may look like an ordinary pod machine but the morning is all about making gourmet coffee and getting it just right. using this dial you can select the temperature, pressure and amount of coffee

that you are making. there are a couple of presets but otherwise you can be absolutely specific about what you are after and you can also do that within the app. and if you were wondering how you will know what settings to use, an assortment of coffees from around the world have their instructions programmed in. there is momo coffee which was roasted in korea. it should be brewed at 92 degrees. let's put a pod in. this one will vary the pressure depending on what the coffee needs. sometimes it has slow pressure at the beginning and builds up towards the end. and now for the big test. the flavour. the taste is intense, kind of nutty. without comparing it to making one in my regular pod machine i guess it is tricky to say. oh, no, i spilt my coffee! lucky i have this robotic vacuum and mop here. florio, do your thing. florio: robot is repositioning.

like other similar robo cleaners, this mop and vacuum in one maps out its route, using what it calls neural vision navigation. so some cameras and sensors collect data for an algorithm to make sense of. it then sends a floorplan to your phone where you can make sure it right and set any rules you may want to for each room. oh, kitty, you will be all right on the floor won't you? and of course, it has the obligatory obstacle avoidance. it managed to move really closely around her without even stroking her fur. it also has a dynamic scrubbing function, the equivalent of a bit of elbow grease, and when it detects a carpet or a rug it will automatically lift up the wet clean function by two centimetres

and moved to vacuuming. what is different about this device is there is no dirty water that needs to be cleaned out and in fact it automatically changes the pads on the mop. and you can even assign it to do that room by room. meanwhile, it is time for some food. i'll be needing these, as i will be testing the pronto pressure cooker which also has an airfry attachment which goes on top. this is actuallyjust an aesthetic prototype at the moment so it doesn't do anything, but the idea is when there is a working one it will make the food crispy as well. the whole system is connected, there is a device here as well as the option to use the mobile phone app, but there is a whole range of recipes and you can even have live cooking lessons. so whilst for the sake of filming i have just put this to the test by making some saute potatoes its multiple cooking modes mean you can bake bread or roast a chicken, saving the energy of a full oven. and it is done. in this particular instance it is probably not really any more useful than a frying pan,

in fact probably more hassle — at least there is a lot of versatility in what you can do here. and it still looks tasty. so whether it is for eating, drinking, resting or cleaning, there are some of the latest devices that you never knew you needed. any excuse to drink more coffee! i don't know what you are talking about. but while i have been swigging more caffeine, paul carter has been looking at ways to save water. las vegas in nevada is a city of contradiction. famous for its excess, it is also known for being based slap bang in the middle of a landscape like this. desert. and that means that saving water is critical to its survival. so where better to come to see some companies showcase their latest solutions to help save some of our most precious resource. dutch company hydraloop

has created a syste, that recycles water within homes and businesses. our slogan is be wise, use water twice. the units treat what is known as grey water, so it can be safely reused again for other purposes. grey water is lightly contaminated water from a bath, the shower and the washing machine. this particular model is designed for use in small homes. prices start at around 2000 us dollars per unit. it is integrated with the toilet flushing. this is the first interview i have ever conducted next to a toilet, by the way. we use six techniques, they are all organic, the shower water comes in here and flows in this tank. anything heavier than will actually collect here, and get routed through the sewer. anything that is lighter will float up, we pushed air into the system whereby the water here goes up and here is a skimmer. anything like hair or anything floating goes here and this is again automatically sent into the sewer. then what do we do? this blue one here. we inject millions

of air bubbles. the suspended solids make the water the kind of milky colour, they stick on the skin of the air bubble. i don't know if you know about this, like a dutch beer, i am from the netherlands, they pull the beer and then the guy goes... skim the top off. that is what we do here. it is our vision that within ten years' time, no house or building will be built without its own decentralised water recycling system. that is one way of saving water inside the home. but what about outside? canadian company oto created an app—connected smart sprinkler to help its users conserve water while watering their gardens. all that is needed is a hose and a wi—fi connection. the oto system is weather intelligent, which means it will skip when it is raining or windy, it will put down the minimum amount of water required to take care of your plants.

shall we switch it on and see what it can do? cool yeah. i love how much i am trusting this to not come around and spray us. it is very accurate, which is good. users can also set different zones for the sprinkler to water using the smart phone app. once you select the area of the zone, oto will zig—zag to fill it in. let's set up a new zone. let's call it the bbc zone. you are basically setting the perimeter of your zone. it's like setting waypoints, really. like now i can edit this point and ijust press edit and then it will go right there. oh wow! laughs. and still not got us wet. oto lawn claims its technology can halve water consumption from garden watering. one device cost 500 us dollars but more than one may be needed depending on the size of your garden. the un suggests that demand for water could increase by as much as 30% by 2030,

driven by changes in temperature, usage changes and population. what may appear as niche applications now may yet turn out to be some of the most critical in the decades to come. and from water to a different sort of liquid — beer. which means this is a job for nick kwak. other people did want to do it but somehow nickjust got there first. what's your tipple, your brew of choice? your poison? if you are like me, anything wet is usually the answer. hello, sir! i'd like a beer please. today i am tasting three beers each with their own unique flavour profiles as part of a beer recommendation system by silicon valley based aromyx. when i am drinking the beer the tablet and camera

is analysing my facial expression, so it is looking if i am having a good time drinking it or if i am hating the beer. then it has an ai algorithm on the backend which comes up with my own personalised recommendation. cheers! did you get that? to be fair i have had a couple. the system cleverly recommends beers you may have never tried before based on your video response, just on these three very different ones. to be able to do it, the company took loads of different beers, in this case around 40, and tested them on human nose and mouth cells in their lab in an attempt to digitise taste. we expose them to the product sample over a three—day process and based on how intensive that reaction is, they light up. we measure that light and that gives us the unique barcode so to speak for the taste or smell, and then we put them in a imaginary 3d cube of flavour and we say,

the ipa is over here and the stout is over here and the flavour of orange beer is over here. how similar or dissimilar are they to each other on a bunch of different vectors. when someone comes up here and we identify their unique preferences, we're looking back at the model and the 3d space to say well, you like flavours right over here, let's recommend things that are close to that and we won't recommend over here because it is the opposite of what you like. the ai does the hard work so you don't have to do. which personally i am rather devastated about. why would you need something like this? surely people know what they want to drink when they go out. you do know what you like to drink but there is a whole world of beer out there that you have never had before. the craft beer space has exploded tremendously in the past few decades. the number of amazing breweries you can go to. now you go to a bar and you're looking at a list a mile long. give me three beers to choose from, i can do that quickly. give me 100, i will walk away. i'd accept the challenge, to be honest. we appreciate you taking that challenge on. someone's got to do it.

cheers. after a few more hours of intense interrogation, i thought it would be a good idea to get some ink. there is no going back from this. prinker is a pain—free temporary tattoo printer. that is for you, lara and spen! luckily, what happens in vegas, stays in vegas. nick! i thought we were forever. heartbroken. that's all we have time for. thanks for watching, see you soon. hello. after an uneventful first half of the weekend weather—wise, sunday does look set to bring something a little livelier, with some stronger winds and some outbreaks of rain for some, particularly across the northern half of the uk.

the reason — an area of low pressure pushing to the north of scotland, this frontal system which will eventually bring some outbreaks of rain. and plenty of isobars on the chart. that always shows that we will have some brisk winds. so a breezier day, really, across the board. a lot of cloud to start off in the south of england and south wales. some of that will break up, and actually for england and wales, we will see some spells of sunshine through the day. but winds really picking up across parts of northern england, particularly gusty conditions over the pennines and just to the east of the pennines as well. rather windy for this north coast of northern ireland and more broadly across scotland. strongest winds of all in the far north of scotland, gusting to 65 miles per hour. and this band of rain here pushing its way southwards and eastwards. but just ahead of that, a particularly mild feel, 12 or 13 degrees in parts of eastern scotland, and actually a fairly mild day generally. now, as we go through sunday night, we'll push this band of cloud and rain southwards. much of the rain will fizzle. behind it, a mix of clear spells and showers with some slightly colder air tucking in. some of the showers could be wintry

over high ground in scotland. it probably will be too windy for us to see anything much, though, in the way of frost. and then into monday, we see this little bump in the isobars here, this little ridge of high pressure building its way in. so that means, actually, plenty of dry weather, some spells of sunshine. those early showers in the north—east should tend to ease off, but we will bring more cloud in from the west as the day wears on. a little bit of rain with that, temperatures of eight, nine or ten degrees. now, as we look ahead to tuesday, we will see some spells of sunshine. but particularly through northern england, northern ireland and scotland, there will be some showers, these falling as sleet or snow over high ground, but perhaps even to low levels in parts of scotland, where the winds will once again be strengthening. very gusty conditions the further north you are through tuesday afternoon. temperatures north to south, seven to 12 degrees. and then as we head into tuesday night, well, there's uncertainty

about the detail of this, but we could well see a really deep area of low pressure pushing close to the north of scotland. and that could bring some very windy, even stormy, conditions for some, particularly in the far north.

this is bbc news, i'm monika plaha. our top stories: memphis police disbands the so—called scorpion special unit, whose officers are accused of murdering tire nichols. israel's security cabinet agrees new measures in response to the deadly attack on a synagogue in east jerusalem. a former head of the czech republic's armed forces wins the race to be the country's next president. can novak djokovic equal the record for tennis grand slam wins? we'll be looking ahead to the australian open final. and doing the monster mash in bulgaria, a tradition to ward off evil spirits that's made a covid come back.