In today’s Bulldog wrapup of technology and science news:

  • Wisconsin Assembly passes $3 billion for Foxconn
  • ​NASA launches last of its longtime tracking satellites
  • NASA, PBS marking 40 years since Voyager spacecraft launches
  • HBO regains control of hacked social media accounts

The details:

  • Wisconsin Assembly passes $3 billion for Foxconn

The Wisconsin Assembly approved a $3 billion tax break Thursday with bipartisan support for Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group to build a massive display panel factory in the state, a project President Donald Trump touted as a transformational win for the U.S. economy.

Foxconn announced three weeks ago it planned to invest $10 billion in Wisconsin on the first liquid crystal display panel factory located outside of Asia. The company, which employs about 1 million people in China, said it could eventually hire 13,000 workers at the Wisconsin facility.

As part of the deal, the Wisconsin Legislature must approve the $3 billion incentive package by the end of September.

Democratic critics, who didn’t have the votes to stop the incentive package or the project, argued Thursday that the proposal should be improved to add more protections for taxpayers, workers and the environment. They also said Republicans, who control the Legislature, were moving too quickly in voting for the bill less than three weeks after it was introduced.

“Usually if you rush things, FYI, it means the deal stinks,” said Democratic Rep. Gordon Hintz, an opponent of the project who noted that Foxconn has made promises to build factories elsewhere and never followed through.

But Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos argued that the project was an “American field of dreams” that will transform the state’s economy and should not be passed up.

“I care about the future of our state,” Vos said. “We can continue to be naysayers. We can continue to find every fault. We can say, ‘Let’s not take a chance.'”

Republican Rep. Dale Kooyenga said there are aspects of the tax break proposal he opposes, but he was looking past those concerns because he views the project as a “game changer.” He compared it to Thomas Jefferson signing the Louisiana Purchase.

Gov. Scott Walker has used a more contemporary analogy: saying Foxconn could mean as much to Wisconsin’s economy as the Green Bay Packers’ signing of All-Pro defensive end Reggie White in 1993 did to the team’s turnaround.

“When you have an opportunity to bring an entire industry to Wisconsin, that offers hope to people,” Kooyenga said.

The Assembly approved the tax break bill on a bipartisan 59-30 vote, with three Democrats who are from near where the plant may locate joining 56 Republicans in support. Twenty-eight Democrats and two Republicans voted against it. The bill now heads to the Senate, also controlled by Republicans. It must pass the Senate in the same form and be signed by Walker before taking effect.

  • NASA launches last of its longtime tracking satellites

NASA launched the last of its longtime tracking and communication satellites on Friday, a vital link to astronauts in orbit as well as the Hubble Space Telescope.

The end of the era came with a morning liftoff of TDRS-M, the 13th satellite in the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite network . It rode to orbit aboard an unmanned Atlas V rocket. There were handshakes all around two hours later, when the satellite successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage.

“”We’re going to really celebrate this one,” said launch director Tim Dunn.

NASA has been launching TDRS satellites since 1983. The 22,300-mile-high constellation links ground controllers with the International Space Station and other low-orbiting craft including Hubble.

“It’s like our baby,” said NASA’s Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigation.

“People have invested their soul and their sweat into making it happen” over the decades, Younes said on the eve of launch. “This spacecraft has served us so well.”

This latest flight from Cape Canaveral was delayed two weeks after a crane hit one of the satellite’s antennas last month. Satellite maker Boeing replaced the damaged antenna and took corrective action to prevent future accidents. Worker error was blamed.

  • NASA, PBS marking 40 years since Voyager spacecraft launches

Forty years after blasting off, Earth’s most distant ambassadors — the twin Voyager spacecraft — are carrying sounds and music of our planet ever deeper into the cosmos.

Think of them as messages in bottles meant for anyone — or anything — out there.

This Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of NASA’s launch of Voyager 2, now almost 11 billion miles distant. It departed from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 20, 1977 to explore Jupiter and Saturn.

[VIDEO: Watch a video about a Voyager scientist at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs-gJs1CKBY ]

Voyager 1 followed a few weeks later and is ahead of Voyager 2. It’s humanity’s farthest spacecraft at 13 billion miles away and is the world’s only craft to reach interstellar space, the vast mostly emptiness between star systems. Voyager 2 is expected to cross that boundary during the next few years.

Each carries a 12-inch, gold-plated copper phonograph record (there were no CDs or MP3s back then) containing messages from Earth: Beethoven’s Fifth, chirping crickets, a baby’s cry, a kiss, wind and rain, a thunderous moon rocket launch, African pygmy songs, Solomon Island panpipes, a Peruvian wedding song and greetings in dozens of languages. There are also more than 100 electronic images on each record showing 20th-century life, traffic jams and all.

NASA is marking the anniversary of its back-to-back Voyager launches with tweets, reminisces and still captivating photos of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune taken by the Voyagers from 1979 through the 1980s.

  • HBO regains control of hacked social media accounts

HBO says it has regained control of its social media accounts after the latest security breach to hit the entertainment company.

The hacking group OurMine on Wednesday night took over several of HBO’s Twitter accounts, including ones for “Game of Thrones” and John Oliver’s show. The group posted that “we are just testing your security” and asked HBO to contact it for an upgrade.

HBO said in a statement Thursday that “the infringement on our social media accounts was recognized and rectified quickly.” It declined further comment.

OurMine has a history of similar hacks showing companies’ security vulnerabilities.

It caused far less damage and appeared unrelated to another group of hackers who broke into HBO’s computer network and have been doling out stolen information and unaired episodes for several weeks.