Author: starpathwp-production
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European Union grants US request to restrict satellite images of Iran War region
The European Union has begun delaying the release of satellite images showing shipping lanes near the Strait of Hormuz by 24 hours. The move comes in response to an earlier US government request and coincides with the Trump administration ramping up the war with Iran once again. The unusual change in the free and open…
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SpaceX Declines Falcon 9 Bookings Beyond 2028 to Steer Customers Toward Starship
The decision represents one of the most aggressive product-transition bets in aerospace history. Falcon 9 is the world’s most-flown orbital rocket and a proven revenue engine. Declining paying customers on a working vehicle in favor of one still in its test-flight phase is a move without real precedent at this scale. Starship’s most recent test,…
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NASA Awards CAPSTONE 02 to Advanced Space for Cislunar Navigation Demonstration
The mission builds on the original CAPSTONE, short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, which became the first U.S. commercial mission to the Moon and the first spacecraft to operate in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, a nearly stable orbit maintained by the gravitational pull of both the Earth and the Moon.…
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NASA Sends Google’s Gemma Language Model Into Orbit Aboard a Satellite
The move reflects growing interest in running AI directly onboard spacecraft rather than relying on ground stations to process information after it is transmitted back to Earth. The latency of deep space communication makes onboard processing increasingly attractive for future missions, where waiting for instructions from the ground can slow operations. Google’s Gemma large language…
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Anduril in Talks for Funding Round That Could Value It Near $100 Billion
The talks come as Anduril has posted booming military sales and drawn investor enthusiasm around its suite of drones, software and missiles amid the U.S. conflict with Iran. Just two months ago, the company doubled its valuation to $61 billion in a $5 billion funding round led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The funding…
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Super Heavy-Starship rocket chalks up mostly successful test flight
SpaceX’s Super Heavy-Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, blasts off on the program’s 13th test flight in another critical milestone for Elon Musk’s rocket company. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.SpaceX launched it’s 13th Super Heavy-Starship rocket Friday, with the giant booster chalking up an on-target but “hard” splashdown off the Texas Gulf Coast while the…
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Alphabet Reveals $94.1 Billion SpaceX Stake Following Historic IPO
The disclosure comes just weeks after SpaceX completed its historic public offering. SpaceX began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX on June 12th after pricing its IPO at $135 per share. The offering ultimately raised approximately $85.7 billion after underwriters exercised their full allotment, making it one of the largest public listings ever completed.…
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Sun Holds 55 Percent More Silver Than Earlier Estimates, Uppsala Study Finds
The Sun is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with heavier elements such as carbon, iron, and silver accounting for only 1.5 percent of its mass. Despite these small quantities, these elements are valuable to astronomers because they preserve clues about the chemical development of the cosmos. Earlier estimates of the Sun’s silver content…
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Critical NASA Deep Space ground station in Spain evacuated due to wildfires
In a historic first, all six radio frequency antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex – part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) – carried out a test to receive data from the agency’s Voyager 1 spacecraft at the same time on April 20, 2024. Known as “arraying,” combining the receiving power of several…
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Juno Measures Europa’s Ice Shell at 29 Kilometers, Deepening the Case for a Thick Crust
Juno was built primarily to investigate Jupiter, not to map Europa’s interior. Its Microwave Radiometer, or MWR, was designed to look beneath Jupiter’s clouds by measuring microwave emission at six frequencies. On 29 September 2022, the spacecraft passed within about 360 kilometers of Europa and collected measurements across roughly half of the moon’s surface. The…