Tag: commercial-space
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SpaceX catches returning rocket in mid-air, turning a fanciful idea into reality
BOCA CHICA BEACH, Texas—SpaceX accomplished a groundbreaking engineering feat Sunday when it launched the fifth test flight of its gigantic Starship rocket and then caught the booster back at the launch pad in Texas with mechanical arms seven minutes later. This achievement is the first of its kind, and it’s crucial for SpaceX’s vision of…
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Starship is about to launch on its fifth flight, and this time there’s a catch
Early Sunday morning, SpaceX will try something no one has ever done before. If all goes according to plan, around seven minutes after lifting off from South Texas, the huge stainless steel booster from SpaceX’s Starship rocket will come back to the launch pad and slow to a hover, allowing powerful mechanical arms to capture…
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SpaceX’s next Starship launch—and first catch—could happen this weekend
We may not have to wait as long as we thought for the next test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket. The world’s most powerful launcher could fly again as soon as Sunday, SpaceX says, assuming the Federal Aviation Administration grants approval. The last public statement released from the FAA suggested the agency didn’t expect to…
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SpaceX launches Europe’s Hera asteroid mission ahead of Hurricane Milton
Two years ago, a NASA spacecraft smashed into a small asteroid millions of miles from Earth to test a technique that could one day prove useful to deflect an object off a collision course with Earth. The European Space Agency launched a follow-up mission Monday to go back to the crash site and see the…
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ULA hasn’t given up on developing a long-lived cryogenic space tug
The second flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, planned for Friday morning, has a primary goal of validating the launcher’s reliability for delivering critical US military satellites to orbit. Tory Bruno, ULA’s chief executive, told reporters Wednesday that he is “supremely confident” the Vulcan rocket will succeed in accomplishing that objective. The Vulcan’s second…
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SpaceX launches mission to bring Starliner astronauts back to Earth
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov lifted off Saturday from Florida’s Space Coast aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, heading for a five-month expedition on the International Space Station. The two-man crew launched on top of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket at 1:17 pm EDT (17:17 UTC), taking advantage of a break in the…
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The war of words between SpaceX and the FAA keeps escalating
The clash between SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration escalated this week, with Elon Musk calling for the head of the federal regulator to resign after he defended the FAA’s oversight and fines levied against the commercial launch company. The FAA has said it doesn’t expect to determine whether to approve a launch license for…
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Elon Musk threatens to sue FAA after feds propose fining SpaceX $633,000
The Federal Aviation Administration alleged Tuesday that SpaceX violated its launch license requirements on two occasions last year by using an unauthorized launch control center and fuel farm at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The regulator seeks to fine SpaceX $633,009 for the alleged violations, which occurred during a Falcon 9 launch and a…
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Google backs privately funded satellite constellation for wildfire detection
Space is more accessible than ever thanks to the proliferation of small satellites and more affordable launch prices, which opened the door to bespoke applications like global pollution monitoring, crop observations, and new ways of collecting weather and climate data. Now you can add wildfire detection to the list. Satellites have observed wildfires from space…
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Navy captains don’t like abandoning ship—but with Starliner, the ship left them
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are no strangers to time away from their families. Both are retired captains in the US Navy, served in war zones, and are veterans of previous six-month stays on the International Space Station. When they launched to the space station on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5, the…