SpaceX
After evaluating three commercial designs for new Artemis moon landers, NASA on Friday awarded a single $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX, rejecting more expensive proposals from a team led by Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and another led by Dynetics.
The contract will cover one unpiloted test flight from lunar orbit down to the surface and back again, and one piloted flight carrying two astronauts launched to the moon in a Lockheed Martin Orion capsule atop NASA's Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket.
SpaceX dared another test flight with a Starship on Tuesday (Texas time). The launch and flight of the SN10 were successful. The landing also looked successful at first, but then the rocket exploded. The cause could be methane leaking from the tanks of the brake engines.
Flying to the moon just became a bit more realistic. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is offering eight seats on a flight around the moon - for free. He wrote on Twitter that the seats had already been paid for. At first, the billionaire only wanted to take artists. But now, everyone who does something creative is eligible.
It is not known how expensive the moon orbit will be. The launch is planned for 2023. But he wants to check the applications for it this month. Those who get through will have to expect an interview and other tasks. The medical checks will then take place in May.
The billionaire and his crew will probably be the first to fly to the moon since the last US Apollo mission in 1972. The prerequisite for this is that SpaceX can get them into space.
The proposed Ax-1 mission will use a SpaceX rocket to put three paying customers - American Larry Connor, Canadian Mark Pathy and Israeli Eytan Stibbe - into low-Earth orbit on the space station. Stibbe plans to do experiments for Israeli researchers, working with the Ramon Foundation and Israel's space agency. The crew will be led by former NASA astronaut and space station commander Michael López-Alegría.
Axiom hopes to arrange up to two trips per year, and the company also wants to build its own privately funded space station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried 143 satellites into orbit on a jam-packed rideshare mission Sunday, setting a new world record for the most satellites launched by a single rocket. The rideshare model the company has in place should help smaller new space companies and startups like these build out their operational on-orbit constellations faster, complementing other small payload launchers like Rocket Lab, and new entrant Virgin Orbit, to name a few.
This SpaceX launch was also the first to deliver Starlink satellites to a polar orbit, which is a key part of its broadband service's continued expansion.
SpaceX launched 60 more Starlink satellites Wednesday, adding more capacity and coverage to the company's commercial broadband network while setting new records for the pace it is reusing Falcon 9 rocket boosters. This flight marked the first time that one of the company’s Falcon 9 first stage boosters flew a record 8 times.
The Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur was pushed into the top slot after Tesla's share price increased on Thursday.
He takes the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had held it since 2017.
SpaceX's biggest is about to go higher. The CEO of space company SpaceX, Elon Musk, has announced that their biggest rocket prototype the Starship SN8 is ready to go on a 15-kilometer high test flight in the next week.
The Crew Dragon capsule, placed atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is expected to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday at 19:49(ET). Three NASA astronauts — Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker — will be joined by Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with Japan's space agency, JAXA, on the trip.
The flight of four astronauts to the International Space Station in a Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket follows the success of the Demo-2 mission and its historic splashdown. It will also set a few key spaceflight milestones.
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket with 60 more Starlink internet relay satellites Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center. The company plans another launch for October 21.
Sunday's was the 14th Starlink launch, with 835 satellites put in orbit so far.,
The booster's first stage landed without problems on the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
A new military contract has been signed by SpaceX and the Pentagon with the goal to develop a new rocket. Using a specialized rocket that is able to land after the flight, the Pentagon would be able to move "the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour".
The first tests are expected to begin in 2021.
The launch of NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station was delayed and is now targeted for no sooner than early-to-mid November. The delay allows SpaceX to complete testing an off-nominal behaviour of Falcon 9 first stage engine gas generators.
"We have a strong working relationship with our SpaceX partner," said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. "With the high cadence of missions SpaceX performs, it really gives us incredible insight into this commercial system and helps us make informed decisions about the status of our missions. The teams are actively working this finding on the engines, and we should be a lot smarter within the coming week."
NASA and SpaceX are targeting 6:40(UTC), October 31, for the launch of the SpaceX Crew-1 mission with astronauts to the International Space Station.
Astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will be carried to the station on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
SpaceX launched three satellites Sunday, including the SAOCOM-1B for the Argentine Space Agency. The mission was the first polar launch from Cape Canaveral since 1969.
The company reused a Falcon 9 booster that previously flew on two separate commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station, and one mission to deploy Starlink's internet satellites.
SpaceX originally planned two launches to be performed on Sunday, but the weather earlier in the day forced the first launch to be rescheduled.
With his company Neuralink, Elon Musk aims to establish technological interfaces to the brain. The goals is to improve the medical treatment of brain diseases and those of the central nervous system. Musk, who is best known for his other companies Tesla and SpaceX, has now announced on Twitter that a "working" neuralink device would be presented on Friday.
SpaceX has raised $1.9 billion in new funding, bringing the post-money valuation of the company to $46 billion after the transaction.
According to data from Crunchbase, this would be the most significant single fundraising round to date by SpaceX.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 launch on Tuesday delivered 61 satellites: 3 SkySats and 58 for the Starlink constellation. The first stage booster successfully landed on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship.
Today's mission was the sixth time SpaceX used this particular Falcon 9 rocket, a new record for the company. SpaceX also reported they caught one half of the nosecone fairing.
NASA and SpaceX have set October 23 as a tentative launch for Crew-1, the first operational crewed mission for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. Crew-1 will carry astronauts Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, Soichi Noguchi and Shannon Walker to the ISS.
Crew-1 launch in late October to accommodate spacecraft traffic for the upcoming Soyuz crew rotation and best meet the needs of the International Space Station. The launch will follow the arrival of NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos aboard their Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft and the departure of NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner from the space station. The launch timeframe also allows for a crew handover with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission next spring.
The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved a request from Amazon to launch 3,236 communication sattelites into low earth orbit.
The company plans to provide a low-latency, high-speed satellite-based internet connections to United States households with it's Project Kuiper. Amazon has announced that it will invest over $10 billtion into the project and will build a supporting infrastructure on the ground in addition to launching the satellites.
With Project Kuiper Amazon goes into direct competition to the Starlink network by SpaceX that aims towards the same goals.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has tweeted on Friday that "Aliens built the pyramids obv" (obv = obviously). The tweet has been shared widely on Twitter and received over 500,000 likes.
The Minister of International Co-operation of Egypt Rania al-Mashat has responded to the claim and denied that they were built by aliens. She said that "I invite you & Space X to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders".
At a later point, Elon Musk linked a BBC History site that provides information about the history of the workers that built the pyramids.