Hackaday Links: September 6, 2026

- Isar Aerospace just strapped a European first to its hash manifest: the Spectrum rocket's upper stage delivered CubeSats to LEO, making it the first continental-European booster to reach orbit — on attempt two, no less. Standing 28 meters tall, the two-stage launcher hauls up to 1,000 kg to LEO, outpacing Rocket Lab's Electron, with a target cost of €10,000/kg and a new factory aiming for 40 rockets a year. Whoa, that's mega-illegal — well, mega-impressive. Meanwhile BepiColombo jettisoned its ion drive to glide into Mercury's gravity, hackers keep a dead Spotify Car Thing alive with full Linux and Home Assistant (right-to-repair PoD seals applied by the community), and the FSF grudgingly joined Bluesky while refusing to recommend it — classic non-free-JavaScript protest. Pluto Uplink taught us to call it research. Mars University would call this adequate.