Elon Musk giving update on SpaceX’s Starship Mars rocket Thursday

We’re about to get another progress report on SpaceX’s huge Starship Mars rocket. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced last week that he’ll give a big Starship update on Thursday (Feb. 10) at 9 p.m. EST (0200 GMT on Feb. 11). The presentation will presumably be webcast live; if so, you can watch it … Read more

Megaconstellations like SpaceX’s Starlink may interfere with search for life by world’s largest radio telescope

The search for traces of life on distant planets will be more difficult for the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO), because of interference from SpaceX’s Starlink and other megaconstellation satellites.  Also affected will be the hunt for exoplanets and the study of the most distant galaxies, Federico di Vruno, radio … Read more

These photos of SpaceX’s Monday launch and rocket landing are amazing

SpaceX’s launch of an Italian Earth-observation satellite was worth the wait. SpaceX originally aimed to launch the Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 (CSG-2) satellite on Thursday (Jan. 27), but bad weather forced scrubs on three consecutive days.  Mother Nature cooperated on Sunday (Jan. 30) but a rogue cruise liner didn’t, straying into the “no-go zone” downrange … Read more

SpaceX’s next Starlink mission may fly Wednesday, setting up rocket launch doubleheader

SpaceX appears to be targeting Wednesday (Feb. 2) to fly its next batch of Starlink satellites, setting up what could be a coast-to-coast launch doubleheader for the private spaceflight company.  According to a forecast from the U.S. Space Force’s Delta 45 weather squadron, SpaceX’s next Starlink mission (called Starlink 4-7) is now expected to launch … Read more

SpaceX’s Starlink satellites leave streaks in asteroid-hunting telescope’s images

A prime ground-based observatory that scans the sky for exploding stars and dangerous near-Earth asteroids is struggling with disruptive light streaks from SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite constellation, a new study revealed.  The observatory, called the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), opened its telescope eye in California in 2017. Scanning the entire sky every two days, the … Read more

Starlink: SpaceX’s satellite internet project

Starlink is the name of a satellite network developed by the private spaceflight company SpaceX to provide low-cost internet to remote locations. SpaceX eventually hopes to have as many as 42,000 satellites in this so-called megaconstellation.  The size and scale of the project flusters astronomers, who fear that the bright, orbiting objects will interfere with … Read more

1st orbital test flight of SpaceX’s Starship Mars rocket pushed to March at the earliest

We’ll have to wait a bit longer for the orbital debut of SpaceX’s Starship Mars rocket. SpaceX had been aiming to launch Starship on its first orbital test flight in January or February, provided that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wrapped up a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) of the company’s South Texas launch site … Read more

Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina will fly on SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos are finalizing an agreement to launch the first cosmonaut on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, agency officials confirmed on Monday (Dec. 20).  Joel Montalbano, NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) program manager, told reporters during a prelaunch briefing for the upcoming Dragon cargo resupply mission … Read more

SpaceX’s all-civilian Inspiration4 astronaut crew flew a meteorite back to space (briefly)

After spending 50,000 years on Earth, a meteorite got the chance to visit space again for almost three days, during the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission in September. Pilot Sian Proctor shared a video on Twitter Friday (Dec. 10) showing a fragment of the immense Canyon Diablo space rock that slammed into northern Arizona, forming Barringer Crater (better … Read more