Tag: Elon Musk
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How the Trump-Musk feud could change the equation for SpaceX and industry rivals
Elon Musk and President Donald Trump were all smiles at a farewell news briefing on May 30, but it didn’t take long for their relationship to turn sour. (White House Photo / Molly Riley) The rapidly escalating spat between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, definitely adds to the challenges facing…
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SpaceX Starship Loses Attitude Control During Test Flight, Marking Third Consecutive Uncontrolled Reentry
SpaceX’s Starship vehicle experienced a loss of attitude control after reaching space during its May 27 test flight, resulting in an uncontrolled reentry and the third consecutive failure to achieve a controlled splashdown. The vehicle lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas at 7:36 p.m. Eastern time. The launch was briefly delayed due to…
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White House Withdraws Jared Isaacman’s NASA Administrator Nomination Amid Political Concerns
The White House has withdrawn Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator, adding uncertainty to the agency at a time when it faces proposed deep budget cuts. The announcement came in a statement from White House spokesperson Liz Huston, who said a new nominee aligned with President Trump’s “America First” agenda will be named soon.…
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SpaceX may have solved one problem only to find more on latest Starship flight
SpaceX made some progress on another test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket Tuesday, finally overcoming technical problems that plagued the program’s two previous launches. But minutes into the mission, SpaceX’s Starship lost control as it cruised through space, then tumbled back into the atmosphere somewhere over the Indian Ocean nearly an hour after…
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Elon Musk: There is an 80 percent chance Starship’s engine bay issues are solved
On Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours before a launch attempt of the ninth flight test of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, Elon Musk spoke with Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger to talk about where his space company goes from here. In recent weeks, Musk has dialed back his focus on politics and said he…
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“What the hell are you doing?” How I learned to interview astronauts, scientists, and billionaires
I recently wrote a story about the wild ride of the Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station last summer. It was based largely on an interview with the commander of the mission, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore. His account of Starliner’s thruster failures—and his desperate efforts to keep the vehicle flying on course—was riveting. In…
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Here are the reasons SpaceX won nearly all recent military launch contracts
In the last week, the US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $5.9 billion deal to make Elon Musk’s space company the Pentagon’s leading launch provider, and then it assigned the vast majority of this year’s most lucrative launch contracts to SpaceX. On top of these actions, the Space Force reassigned the launch of a GPS…
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The Starship program hits another speed bump with second consecutive failure
SpaceX’s Starship launcher spun out of control minutes after liftoff Thursday, showering fiery debris over the Bahamas and dealing another setback to Elon Musk’s rocket program after a failure under similar circumstances less than two months ago. Starship and its Super Heavy booster, loaded with millions of pounds of methane and liquid oxygen propellants, lumbered…
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Butch Wilmore says Elon Musk is “absolutely factual” on Dragon’s delayed return
Three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut are due to return home on a Crew Dragon spacecraft in a couple of weeks. For two of the crew members, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, it has been a long, strange trip. To recap: Wilmore and Williams launch on the first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft…
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It seems the FAA office overseeing SpaceX’s Starship probe still has some bite
The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s gigantic Starship rocket came to a disappointing end a little more than two weeks ago. The in-flight failure of the rocket’s upper stage, or ship, about eight minutes after launch on January 16 rained debris over the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Atlantic Ocean. Amateur videos recorded from…