Category Archives: SpaceX

First all-private astronaut team lifts off for ISS in milestone SpaceX flight

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Crew of four on way to space station in mission hailed by Nasa as putting ‘commercial business up in space’

A SpaceX rocket ship has blasted off carrying the first all-private astronaut team ever launched to the International Space Station (ISS), a flight hailed by industry executives and Nasa as a milestone in the commercialisation of spaceflight.

The team of four selected by Houston-based startup Axiom Space Inc for its debut spaceflight and orbital science mission lifted off on Friday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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Rocket on collision course with the moon ‘built by China not SpaceX’

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Astronomers say mistake over object that is due to hit lunar surface in March highlights difficulties of deep space tracking

Astronomy experts say they originally misread the secrets of the night sky: it turns out that a rocket expected to crash into the moon in early March was built by China, not SpaceX.

A rocket will indeed strike the lunar surface on 4 March, but contrary to what had been announced, it was built not by Elon Musk’s company, but by Beijing, experts now say.

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SpaceX to lose up to 40 Starlink satellites after geomagnetic storm

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Elon Musk’s firm says 80% of the satellites it launched last week are expected to burn up instead of reaching orbit

SpaceX will lose up to 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites it launched last week as the result of a geomagnetic storm, the company has announced.

Elon Musk’s firm launched the satellites into low-Earth orbit on 3 February from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but 80% of them are now expected to burn up instead of reaching their intended orbit.

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Teenager seeks $50k from Elon Musk to delete Twitter bot tracking private jet

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In DM exchange Tesla boss offers $5,000 for takedown but 19-year-old replies: ‘Any chance to up that to $50K?’

A row has broken out between the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, and a 19-year-old student and aviation enthusiast from Florida.

Jack Sweeney created the Twitter bot @ElonJet, which tracks Musk’s Gulfstream private jet and posts real-time updates of its location.

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To the moon and beyond: what 2022 holds for space travel

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From lunar missions to anti-asteroid defence systems, there are plenty of exciting scientific developments to look forward to

This year promises to be an important one for space exploration, with several major programmes reaching the launch pad over the next 12 months. The US is to return to the moon, undertaking a set of missions intended to establish a lunar colony there in a few years. China is expected to complete its Tiangong space station while Europe and Russia will attempt to land spacecraft on Mars, having failed at every previous attempt. India, South Korea and Japan are also scheduled to put a number of missions into space.

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China anger after space station forced to move to avoid Elon Musk Starlink satellites

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China said its space station deployed prevention collision avoidance control measures in July and October and called on the US to ‘bear responsibility’

Beijing has called on the UN to remind the US to abide by the treaty regulating outer space after space satellites launched by tech tycoon Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX almost collided with its space station twice in the past year.

China said its space station deployed prevention collision avoidance control measures in July and October to avoid colliding with Starlink satellites in a recent report submitted by Beijing to the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space earlier this month.

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The Great British race to space

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In the outermost parts of our islands, a new industry in satellites, rockets and launch ports is poised for take-off

In the next 12 months, Britain is expected to make a remarkable aerospace breakthrough. For the first time, a satellite will be fired into orbit from a launch pad in the United Kingdom.

It will be a historic moment – though exactly where this grand adventure will begin is not yet clear. A series of fledgling operations, backed by the UK Space Agency, are now competing to be the first to launch a satellite from British soil.

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‘Peeing is very easy’: Japanese billionaire returns to Earth after documenting life on ISS

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Yusaku Maezawa spent 12 days at the space station, marking Russia’s return to space tourism after a decade-long pause

A Japanese billionaire has returned to Earth after 12 days spent on the International Space Station, where he made videos about performing mundane tasks in space including brushing his teeth and going to the toilet.

Online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano parachuted on to Kazakhstan’s steppe at around the expected landing time of 03.13 GMT on Monday, along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, Russia’s space agency said.

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Senator behind billionaires tax denounces Elon Musk Twitter poll stunt

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  • Tesla owner offers to sell 10% of shares – as poll demands
  • Ron Wyden has proposed tax to help fund Biden plans

After Elon Musk asked his Twitter followers to vote on whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock, the architect of the proposed billionaires tax that prompted the move dismissed the tweet as a stunt.

“Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll,” said Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and chair of the Senate finance committee. “It’s time for the billionaires income tax.”

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SpaceX toilet leak forces astronauts to use diapers on trip back to Earth

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  • Crew who grew first chilis in space face 20 hours in capsule
  • ‘Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges’, US astronaut says

Astronauts who will leave the International Space Station on Sunday will have to use diapers on the way home, because of a broken toilet in their SpaceX capsule.

The Nasa astronaut Megan McArthur described the situation as “suboptimal” but manageable. She and three crewmates will spend 20 hours in the capsule, from the time the hatches are closed until a Monday morning splashdown.

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Rocket men: how billionaires are using celebrities as PR for their space projects

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Critics see the ‘awful business’ of private space tourism as having little technological or exploration value

As Star Trek’s iconic Captain James T Kirk, he voyaged the universe for the good of humanity. The nonagenarian actor William Shatner’s brief, real-life thrill ride off the planet today, however, is much less about advancing the species as promoting the fortunes of Blue Origin, the private space company owned by the Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos that’s taking him there.

Booking arguably the most famous fictional space traveler in history to front only the second crewed flight of Bezos’s New Shepard rocket system has secured a vast slew of positive publicity that not even the huge wealth of the world’s richest man could otherwise have purchased.

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Shooting stars: Russians beating US in race for first film shot in space

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Actor and director on International Space Station push ahead of Hollywood project led by Tom Cruise

The list of “firsts” in orbit under the Soviet space programme is legendary: first satellite, first dog, first man, first woman.

Now another looms after Russia sent an actor and a director to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of plans to make the first film in orbit – and once again put one over on the Americans.

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‘You can’t sue your way to the moon’: Elon Musk intensifies Bezos space feud

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SpaceX founder, who in April won a contract from Nasa, took a jab at Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for suing when it lost out on deal

Elon Musk intensified the feud over lawsuits and rocket sizes with space rival Jeff Bezos this week, kicking off the latest round in the billionaire battle over humanity’s return to the moon.

The SpaceX founder, who in April won a contract from Nasa to build the next-generation spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972, took a jab at Bezos for suing the US government when his company lost out on the deal.

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Elon Musk welcomes SpaceX crew home with $50m donation to charity

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Four-person crew asked for the public’s help in reaching fundraising target of $200m for the children’s charity St Jude

Elon Musk surprised his first all-private crew of space tourists with a welcome home gift after their trailblazing trip to orbit ended on Saturday night: a $50m donation to the children’s charity St Jude.

Related: ‘The point is ambition’: are we ready to follow Netflix into space?

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‘Heck of a ride’: SpaceX’s historic amateur astronauts land safely in Atlantic

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The four-person crew thanked mission control as they splashed down in the Atlantic

Four space tourists ended their trailblazing trip to orbit on Saturday with a splashdown in the Atlantic off the Florida coast.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the ocean just before sunset, not far from where their chartered flight began three days earlier.

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SpaceX launches world’s first ‘amateur astronaut’ crew to orbit Earth

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Launch marks biggest advancement so far in space tourism as Elon Musk’s company conducts first chartered passenger flight

SpaceX has launched the world’s first crew of “amateur astronauts” on a private flight to circle Earth for three days.

Wednesday night’s successful launch marked the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism. It’s the first chartered passenger flight for Elon Musk’s space company and the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with a crew that contained no professional astronauts.

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SpaceX rocket to take world’s first all-civilian crew into orbit

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Four-person Inspiration4 mission will orbit Earth for up to four days and marks latest step in space tourism

The world’s first crew of “amateur astronauts” is preparing to blast off on a mission that will carry them into orbit around Earth before bringing them back home at the weekend.

The four civilians, who have spent the past few months on an astronaut training crash course, are due to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8.02pm local time on Wednesday (1.02am UK time on Thursday).

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The tech billionaire space race: who is Jeff Bezos up against?

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As Amazon founder prepares to jet off in his Blue Origin vessel, can he compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX?

Every billionaire needs something to spend their fortunes on. For Howard Hughes, it was the Spruce Goose; for Roman Abramovich, it’s Chelsea FC. And for the current crop of tech moguls, it’s space.

Jeff Bezos has led the charge. He founded his company, Blue Origin, in 2000, after a conversation with his friend, the science fiction author Neal Stephenson. And in July, 21 years later, the investment will pay off: Bezos will blast himself, his brother, and a third fee-paying guest 100km up in the company’s New Shepard rocket, brushing the edge of space until he comes back down to earth three minutes later.

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SpaceX rocket heads to ISS with a supply of squid, toothpaste and avocados

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Rocket due to reach the International Space Station this weekend is loaded with 7,300lb of fresh food and supplies for an orbiting lab

SpaceX has launched a supply mission bound for the International Space Station on Thursday, carrying with it thousands of tiny sea creatures along with a plaque-fighting toothpaste experiment and powerful solar panels.

The 7,300lb (3,300kg) shipment – which also includes fresh lemons, onions, avocados and cherry tomatoes for the station’s seven astronauts – should arrive Saturday.

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