LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — A former top official in U.S. nuclear weapons research at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories has died from injuries after an automobile crash in New Mexico, authorities said. He was 69.

Charles McMillan, an experimental physicist, spent nearly 23 years in various positions at Livermore in California and about 18 years at Los Alamos, where he was director for six years before retiring in 2017.

He died at a hospital after a two-vehicle crash early Friday on a stretch of road known as Main Hill, not far from the laboratory, police and the current lab director said.

“On behalf of the entire Laboratory, I would like to express deepest sympathies to the McMillan family and to the many current and former employees who worked closely with Charlie and knew him well,” lab Director Thom Mason said in a statement reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Michael Drake, president of the University of California system, issued a statement calling McMillan “an extraordinary leader, scientist and human being who made far-reaching contributions to science and technology in service to national security and the greater good.”

The Livermore laboratory, east of San Francisco, was established as a university offshoot in 1952 and is now operated by the federal government. It maintains a close relationship with campuses and Drake’s office.

McMillan joined Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2006 after his friend and mentor, Michael Anastasio, became director. McMillan served as the principal associate director for weapons programs before becoming director in 2011, the New Mexican reported.

He oversaw the lab during expansion and safety incidents, including a 2014 radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southern New Mexico attributed to a waste drum that was improperly packaged at the lab. The National Nuclear Security Administration found in 2015 that the lab violated health and safety rules and docked it more than $10 million in performance awards.

Mason pointed to McMillan’s work to develop a vaccine for HIV and new modeling to better understand climate change.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico credited McMillan with “invaluable contributions to our state, to science, and to our national security” and cited his work on supercomputing and artificial intelligence.

Nella Domenici, Heinrich’s Republican challenger for U.S. Senate, called McMillan’s death “a great loss to the scientific community and his family.”

Los Alamos police and fire officials said three people were treated for injuries and McMillan and a 22-year-old woman were hospitalized after the crash, which occurred about 5 a.m. The cause was being investigated.

Boeing’s first astronaut mission ended Friday night with an empty capsule landing and two test pilots still in space, left behind until next year because NASA judged their return too risky.

Six hours after departing the International Space Station, Starliner parachuted into New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, descending on autopilot through the desert darkness.

It was an uneventful close to a drama that began with the June launch of Boeing's long-delayed crew debut and quickly escalated into a dragged-out cliffhanger of a mission stricken by thruster failures and helium leaks. For months, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ return was in question as engineers struggled to understand the capsule’s problems.

Boeing insisted after extensive testing that Starliner was safe to bring the two home, but NASA disagreed and booked a flight with SpaceX instead. Their SpaceX ride won’t launch until the end of this month, which means they’ll be up there until February — more than eight months after blasting off on what should have been a quick trip.

Wilmore and Williams should have flown Starliner back to Earth by mid-June, a week after launching in it. But their ride to the space station was marred by the cascade of thruster trouble and helium loss, and NASA ultimately decided it was too risky to return them on Starliner.

So with fresh software updates, the fully automated capsule left with their empty seats and blue spacesuits along with some old station equipment.

“She’s on her way home,” Williams radioed as the white and blue-trimmed capsule undocked from the space station 260 miles (420 kilometers) over China and disappeared into the black void.

Williams stayed up late to see how everything turned out. “A good landing, pretty awesome,” said Boeing's Mission Control.

Cameras on the space station and a pair of NASA planes caught the capsule as a white streak coming in for the touchdown, which drew cheer.

There were some snags during reentry, including more thruster issues, but Starliner made a “bull’s-eye landing,” said NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich.

Even with the safe return, “I think we made the right decision not to have Butch and Suni on board,” Stich said at a news conference early Saturday. “All of us feel happy about the successful landing. But then there's a piece of us, all of us, that we wish it would have been the way we had planned it.”

Boeing did not participate in the Houston news briefing. But two of the company's top space and defense officials, Ted Colbert and Kay Sears, told employees in a note that they backed NASA's ruling.

"While this may not have been how we originally envisioned the test flight concluding, we support NASA’s decision for Starliner and are proud of how our team and spacecraft performed," the executives wrote.

Starliner’s crew demo capped a journey filled with delays and setbacks. After the space shuttles retired more than a decade ago, NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX for orbital taxi service. Boeing ran into so many problems on its first test flight with no one aboard in 2019 that it had to repeat it. The 2022 do-over uncovered even more flaws and the repair bill topped $1 billion.

SpaceX’s crew ferry flight later this month will be its 10th for NASA since 2020. The Dragon capsule will launch on the half-year expedition with only two astronauts since two seats are reserved for Wilmore and Williams for the return leg.

As veteran astronauts and retired Navy captains, Wilmore and Williams anticipated hurdles on the test flight. They’ve kept busy in space, helping with repairs and experiments. The two are now full-time station crew members along with the seven others on board.

Even before the pair launched on June 5 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Starliner’s propulsion system was leaking helium. The leak was small and thought to be isolated, but four more cropped up after liftoff. Then five thrusters failed. Although four of the thrusters were recovered, it gave NASA pause as to whether more malfunctions might hamper the capsule’s descent from orbit.

Boeing conducted numerous thruster tests in space and on the ground over the summer, and was convinced its spacecraft could safely bring the astronauts back. But NASA could not get comfortable with the thruster situation and went with SpaceX.

Flight controllers conducted more test firings of the capsule’s thrusters following undocking; one failed to ignite. Engineers suspect the more the thrusters are fired, the hotter they become, causing protective seals to swell and obstruct the flow of propellant. They won’t be able to examine any of the parts; the section holding the thrusters was ditched just before reentry.

Starliner will be transported in a couple weeks back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where the analyses will unfold.

NASA officials stressed that the space agency remains committed to having two competing U.S. companies transporting astronauts. The goal is for SpaceX and Boeing to take turns launching crews — one a year per company — until the space station is abandoned in 2030 right before its fiery reentry. That doesn’t give Boeing much time to catch up, but the company intends to push forward with Starliner, according to NASA.

Stich said post-landing it’s too early to know when the next Starliner flight with astronauts might occur.

“It will take a little time to determine the path forward," he said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

After a summer of turmoil, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is finally home.

The capsule undocked from the International Space Station without astronauts onboard on Friday at 6:04 p.m. ET, then spent roughly six hours flying back to Earth. Starliner successfully touched down at New Mexico’s White Sands Space Harbor at 12:01 a.m. ET.

NASA footage showed the capsule streaking across the night sky before two sets of parachutes opened to slow it down. Six landing airbags were also deployed underneath the spacecraft to cushion its landing.

For Boeing, the Starliner's successful return was likely bittersweet. Its smooth journey back suggests that the two NASA astronauts it carried to the space station could probably have flown home safely on the spacecraft. But problems with Starliner's thrusters and leaking helium, both detected soon after it launched, led the agency’s top officials to decide to call on SpaceX for the return flight instead.

“It’s important to remember this was a test mission,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for space operations, said at a news conference early Saturday after Starliner had landed.

Starliner launched NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to space in early June on the capsule’s first crewed test flight — a mission expected to last around eight days. But the Starliner then remained parked at the space station for months as engineers on the ground assessed how to safely bring it back to Earth.

After weeks of tests and analysis, NASA determined that the capsule’s propulsion system appeared stable, but the thruster issues posed too much of a risk for Starliner to return with a crew. Wilmore and Williams will remain on the space station into the new year then fly back in February on a SpaceX capsule.

The two astronauts were on hand to help with Starliner’s departure, which took place as the space station was flying 260 miles over central China.

“We have your backs, and you’ve got this,” Williams radioed to mission controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Bring her back to Earth. Good luck.”

The return journey was closely watched, as it marked the end of a dramatic few months for Boeing and NASA. The test flight was meant to demonstrate that the spacecraft could reliably ferry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit, thereby paving the way for NASA to certify Boeing to conduct regular trips to the space station.

Instead, the thruster issues became the latest major setback for Boeing’s Starliner program, which even before the launch was more than $1.5 billion over budget and years behind schedule. An uncrewed test flight to the space station, which NASA required of Boeing before its spacecraft could carry astronauts, also went awry the first time, and the company had to repeat it in 2022.

NASA officials said earlier this week that the agency is working with Boeing on modifications to Starliner’s thrusters. Additional analysis will be carried out once the vehicle is back and engineers have had a chance to evaluate how it performed.

“We’re talking to the Boeing team already about next steps,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said at the news conference.

To account for potential thruster malfunctions as Starliner began its trip home, flight controllers modified the capsule’s normal undocking process. After detaching from the space station, Starliner autonomously flew up and away from the station to protect it in case something went wrong.

Then at 11:17 p.m. ET, Starliner’s engines fired a 59-second “de-orbit burn” to slow the spacecraft and send it plummeting through Earth’s atmosphere.

From there, it was mostly smooth sailing, though there were a few “hiccups” during reentry, according to Stich. A navigation system “kind of failed off temporarily and that system was brought back on, and it was tracking just fine,” he said.

Even so, he added, "the Starliner performance in executing the entry phase has been just about flawless."

Boeing developed its Starliner spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, an initiative launched in 2011 to support privately built space vehicles in order to fill the gap left by NASA’s retired space shuttles. Rival company SpaceX developed its Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the same program and has been conducting routine flights to and from the space station since 2020.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Scientists at the Hong Kong Institute of Science and Technology have developed a new treatment that prolongs the life and efficiency of solar cells.

According to Aman Tripathi of Interesting Engineering, the researchers have created a molecular treatment for perovskite solar cells that increases their power conversion efficiency by over 20%, and it has shown an operational stability of over 1,500 hours.

While solar cells are typically made of silicon, perovskite has been gaining popularity in recent years because it is cheaper and has a higher energy efficiency than silicon. The problem is the stability and tendency to degrade more quickly than silicon counterparts.

In an effort to solve the problem, the Hong Kong research team focused on a process known as passivation, in which a chemical compound is applied to the perovskite to "reduce defects and improve their overall performance."

The project was a resounding success, according to assistant professor Lin Hen-Yuang.

"These devices reached high open-circuit voltages beyond 90% of the thermodynamic limit," Lin said in a press release on the discovery, "Benchmarking against about 1,700 sets of data from existing literature showed that their result was among the best reported to date in terms of efficiency in energy conversion."

Watch now: Alex Honnold shows off his new Rivian

On top of that, the passivation process is highly scalable, meaning it can easily be ramped up to industrial levels and can be affordably produced at that scale of production.

Solar energy is booming globally; in the U.S., solar power accounted for almost 80% of new energy production in 2024 on an industrial scale. On a smaller scale, rooftop solar panels are popping up everywhere from vodka distilleries to new-build homes. Finding a new way to improve solar panels' affordability and efficiency could help meet growing demand.

If the perovskite treatment is as effective at scale as it has been in testing, we could see a boom in more affordable, efficient, and durable panels around the world.

Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.

Sept. 6 (UPI) -- The uncrewed Boeing Starliner successfully landed in New Mexico late Friday after departing six hours earlier from the International Space Station.

The capsule left behind two astronauts -- Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams -- who must now remain in the station until February for a return home on a SpaceX capsule. NASA decided problems with Starliner's thrusters and leaking helium made it too risky of a return with humans.

Starliner landed at White Sands Space Harbor at 10:01 p.m. MDT. Ground crews welcomed the capsule with plans to return it to Florida where it launched on June 6.

The autonomous undocking from the ISS was carried out as scheduled at 4:04 p.m. MDT after the craft was unhooked from the the forward module of the station. It slowly backed away while executing a series of 12 "breakout burns" over a 5-minute span, driving it farther away from the station while flying over central China.

The Starliner oriented itself as it plunged into the Earth's atmosphere while still traveling at more than 17,000 miles per hour. The atmosphere was more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Three parachutes and thrusters slowed the craft and airbags were deployed.

Boeing is hoping to earn certification for future flights for NASA, which wants to rely on another company than Space-X and Russia's Soyuz for Space Station missions.

Starliner is the first U.S-made capsule to land on the ground instead of splashing down in the ocean.

"It's important to remember this was a test mission," Joel Montalbano, NASA's deputy associate administrator for space operations, said at a news conference after Starliner had landed.

"I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, reentry and landing," Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, said. "We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program."

NASA determined that the capsule's propulsion system appeared stable, but the thruster issues posed too much of a risk for Starliner to return with a crew.

"If we'd had a model that would have predicted what we saw tonight perfectly, yeah, it looks like an easy decision to go say we could have had a crewed flight - but we didn't have that," Stitch said.

"From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing," he said. "But then there's a piece of us, all of us, that we wish it would have been the way we had planned it. We had planned to have the mission land with Butch and Suni on board."

Its flight path went over parts of northern Mexico and southwestern New Mexico, making it visible in the night sky over those areas depending on cloud cover.

On June 5, the Boeing spacecraft took off on its first crewed flight, transporting NASA Wilmore and Williams to the space station. However, as it approached the orbiting laboratory, NASA and Boeing identified helium leaks and noted malfunctions with its reaction control thrusters.

Five of Starliner's 28 "reaction control system" thrusters abruptly stopped working en route to the space station. Four were recovered and at least one stayed out of service for the entire mission.

NASA announced last month that out of concerns for the safety of Wilmore and Williams, they will remain aboard the ISS until February while Starliner is autonomously returned to Earth without a crew.

Wilmore and Williams are now scheduled to return home aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with two other crew members assigned to NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission.

"It is time to bring Calypso home," Williams said to mission control Friday evening. "You have got this. We have your backs, and you've got this. Bring her back to Earth."

Its service module up during re-entry over the southern Pacific Ocean, while its heat shield was jettisoned at approximately 30,000 feet, exposing a series of drags and parachutes.

Instead, the thruster issues became the latest major setback for Boeing's Starliner program, which even before the launch was more than $1.5 billion over budget and years behind schedule. An uncrewed test flight to the space station, which NASA required of Boeing before its spacecraft could carry astronauts, also went awry the first time, and the company had to repeat it in 2022.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has returned to Earth empty after technical issues made it too risky to carry astronauts.

The Starliner spacecraft entered the Earth’s atmosphere after undocking from the International Space Station on Friday — without its crew. The Starliner undocked shortly after 6pm Eastern Time on Friday evening and touched down six hours later in White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico.

The craft returns without Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The NASA astronauts had traveled on the space capsule in what was supposed to be an eight-day test flight in June, but due to problems plaguing the Starliner, the pair will stay at the Space Station until February, when they will hitch a ride back to Earth with SpaceX.

Watch the Boeing Starliner’s return to Earth live.

At 9.44pm, NASA announced that Starliner’s entry cover had been closed and secured for entry. The spacecraft landed at just after midnight on 7 September.

NASA decided this month that it would be too risky to return the astronauts to Earth on the capsule because of persistent problems before, during and after its June launch, namely thruster trouble and helium leaks.

To add apparent insult to injury, Wilmore reported last weekend that the spacecraft was making “strange” pulsing sounds.

But NASA responded with an explanation, suggesting that there were no additional problems with the beleaguered capsule.

“The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner. The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback,” the space agency said.

Some have worried about the thrusters not igniting when it leaves the Space Station but NASA says there is no need for concern.

“The first thing that happens when with the hooks [detach] on the NASA docking system is there’s a couple of springs that kind of push the vehicle away,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s human space flight program, said during a Wednesday news conference. “So it will immediately have clearance.”

He added the departure poses no risk to the ISS, where the astronauts are. “So we don’t really expect any issues with the thrusters near station...And then we get away very quickly and once we’re on that trajectory, we’re safe from the space station.”

When the decision was made for SpaceX to shuttle the astronauts home, Stich admitted there was “some tension in the room.”

“Boeing believed in the model that they had created to predict thruster degradation for the rest of the flight,” Stich added. “The NASA team looked at the model and saw some limitation. It really had to do with, do we have confidence in the thrusters, and how much we could predict their degradation from undock through the deorbit burn?”

Two astronauts — Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov — are set to head to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which has already made 42 visits there, no earlier than September 24, leaving two seats available for Williams and Wilmore for their journey home.

The two astronauts stranded at the Space Station called mission control just before the capsule undocked.

“It’s time to bring Calypso home. You got this. We have your back,” Williams said.

A flight controller then thanked the pair for their “endless support over the years....We remember every setback and every revelation for you.”

Wilmore also told mission control: “Many years of great enjoyment sitting together, playing together and being involved with each other’s lives. It’s been special. Bring it home.”