USA DAWN: NEWS AND UPDATES

At the end of 2005, NASA lost one of its satellites. Now it has found it again, thanks to an amateur astronomer—but it needs to remember how to read its data. The Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) satellite was launched in early 2000 as part of a mission to observe the Earth’s magnetosphere, and how it’s affected by solar wind. The whole project cost around $132 million, and the mission was extended in 2002. Then IMAGE vanished three years later. An amateur astronomer spotted it a couple weeks ago, prompting NASA to take another look. On Monday, the space agency said the radio signals coming from the object seemed about right, but the signal needed analysis to confirm its origin. And on Tuesday, NASA said the data encoded in the signal indicated this was indeed IMAGE. What’s more, it’s still at least partially functional. “The NASA team has been able to read some basic housekeeping data from the spacecraft, suggesting that at least the m...

Trump downgrades the role of military advisers on his National Security Council in favor of Steve Bannon Steve Bannon will assume a seat on the National Security Council after an executive order signed by Donald Trump on Saturday. The order came as part of an effort to reshuffle and restructure the council, which usually is made up of members of the president’s Cabinet and the military, among others. The order weakened the roles played by the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, removing them as permanent members of the council’s principals committee. An administration official clarified on Sunday that  the Joint Chiefs were still invited to attend all council meetings. Bannon is the former executive chairman of the right-wing  Breitbart News  and the president’s chief strategist. He has played a major role in the week-old Trump administration, helping the president to draft a flurry of executive orders includin...