Category Archives: SpaceX

Private moon lander lifts off aiming for first US lunar touchdown in 52 years

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Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander sets off on SpaceX rocket from Cape Canaveral on weeklong journey

A moon lander built by the Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines was launched from Florida early on Thursday on a mission to conduct the first US lunar touchdown in more than a half century and the first by a privately owned spacecraft.

The Nova-C lander, nicknamed Odysseus, lifted off shortly after 1am EST atop a Falcon 9 rocket flown by Elon Musk’s SpaceX from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

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South Korea launches first military spy satellite, intensifying space race with Pyongyang

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Seoul’s satellite was launched into orbit on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets

A SpaceX rocket has launched South Korea’s first military spy satellite, intensifying a space race on the peninsula after Pyongyang launched its own first surveillance satellite last week.

Seoul’s reconnaissance satellite, carried by one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, lifted off from the Vandenberg US Space Force Base in California at 10.19am local time on Friday.

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SpaceX’s Starship grounded pending improvements after launch explosion

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Regulators insist on 63 corrective steps after world’s largest and most powerful rocket blew up on debut in April

SpaceX’s Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, must stay grounded until the company takes dozens of corrective actions after the rocket’s April debut ended in an explosion, federal regulators said on Friday.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it closed its investigation into SpaceX’s failed debut of Starship. The agency is requiring SpaceX to take 63 corrective steps and to apply for a modified FAA license before launching again.

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US sues Elon Musk’s SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees

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Justice department alleges rocket company refused to consider asylum seekers and refugees for jobs because of citizenship status

The US justice department on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and asylum seekers.

SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status” from at least September 2018 to May 2022, according to the justice department.

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Euclid telescope lifts off in search of the secrets of dark universe

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European Space Agency mission launches on SpaceX rocket from Florida to shed light on dark energy and dark matter

A European-built orbital satellite was launched into space on Saturday from Florida on a mission to shed new light on dark energy and dark matter, the mysterious cosmic forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.

The Euclid telescope, named for the ancient Greek mathematician known as the “father of geometry”, was carried in the cargo bay of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which blasted off about 11am EDT (1500 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force station. A live stream of the liftoff was shown on Nasa TV.

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A 14-year-old Santa Clara University graduate is SpaceX’s newest hire

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Kairan Quazi, the youngest graduate in the school’s history, will start at the company’s satellite internet division Starlink in July

Kairan Quazi is years away from legally being able to watch an R-rated movie at the theater by himself or buy a drink at the bar, but he’s about to get a college degree and start a job at SpaceX.

Other than that, the 14-year-old insists he’s had a fairly normal academic journey.

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Twitter and Tesla’s interests at odds in Elon Musk’s quiet China visit

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The world’s richest person lapsed into an unusual silence on social media during his trip to the electric carmaker’s second largest market

Followers of Elon Musk didn’t know what to expect from his trip to China. Would he speak about Tesla, a company with a large market and manufacturing footprint there? Or SpaceX, with its symbiotic relationship with the American state? Or even Twitter, the social network he bought because “free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy”?

The one thing no one expected: silence.

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Debris blast from SpaceX rocket launch faces environmental scrutiny

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The most powerful rocket ever built destroyed its launchpad and sent a plume of concrete dust and rubble into the air

While the spectacle of SpaceX’s new Starship rocket blowing up over the Gulf of Mexico riveted the public’s attention, it was the explosive nature of the launch at ground level that was drawing heightened scrutiny from the government this week.

The shattering force of last Thursday’s launch in south Texas sent a cloud of pulverized concrete raining over a small town nearby, federal regulators said, raising fresh questions about the environmental impact of ramped-up launch operations at the site.

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SpaceX Starship test flight cancelled minutes before blast-off

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Elon Musk says launch of most powerful rocket ever built called off due to ‘pressurisation’ issue

The largest and most powerful rocket ever built was readied and fuelled for its first test flight on Monday, but SpaceX cancelled the launch minutes before blasting off after discovering a “pressurisation” problem.

“A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today,” the SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, said on Twitter. Minutes later, the launch was officially abandoned, with operators ending the countdown 40 seconds before lift-off.

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Fury in Ukraine as Elon Musk’s SpaceX limits Starlink use for drones

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SpaceX says satellite communications service ‘never, never meant to be weaponised’

A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”.

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Elon Musk says SpaceX will keep funding Starlink internet in Ukraine

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World’s richest man’s company previously said it could not pay for satellite internet in country indefinitely

Elon Musk on Saturday announced that his company would continue to pay for Starlink satellite internet in Ukraine, a day after suggesting he could not keep funding the project, which he said was losing around $20m a month.

“The hell with it,” the world’s richest man wrote on Twitter. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX says it can no longer fund Starlink internet in Ukraine

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Firm reportedly asks US government to pick up bill as relationship between Musk and Kyiv breaks down

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has said it cannot afford to continue to donate satellite internet to Ukraine and has asked the US government to pick up the bill, according to a report, as the relationship between the billionaire and Kyiv breaks down.

“We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote, in a letter seen by CNN.

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‘Like an alien obelisk’: space debris found in Snowy Mountains paddock believed to be from SpaceX mission

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Astrophysicist Brad Tucker says he often gets calls from people who think they’ve found space junk but the scorched metal found by two farmers is ‘very real’

The Australian Space Agency is investigating space debris found in farmland in the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW, after being notified by an astrophysicist who believes it to be from a SpaceX mission.

Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University, says he often gets calls from people who believe they’ve found space junk – and they are normally easy to rule out.

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Spirals of blue light in New Zealand night sky leave stargazers ‘kind of freaking out’

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Social media abuzz with pictures and theories about formations thought to be from exhaust plume of SpaceX rocket

New Zealand stargazers were left puzzled and awed by strange, spiralling light formations in the night sky on Sunday night.

Around 7.25pm Alasdair Burns, a stargazing guide on Stewart Island/Rakiura, received a text from a friend: go outside and look at the sky. “As soon as we actually went outside, it was very obvious what it was he was referring to,” Burns said.

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Elon Musk denies he sexually harassed attendant on private jet in 2016

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Billionaire says report is ‘utterly untrue’ after allegation he paid $250k in 2018 to settle claim

Elon Musk has denied claims in a news report that he sexually harassed a flight attendant on a private jet in 2016, calling the accusations “utterly untrue”.

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Musk, paid the female attendant $250,000 (£200,000) in a severance settlement after a sexual misconduct claim against the world’s richest person, according to the news website Business Insider.

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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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