Published on: 2025-05-05 03:01:14
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 navigation satellite from United Launch Alliance's long-delayed Vulcan rocket to fly on SpaceX's Falcon 9. ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is SpaceX's chief US
Keywords: force launch space spacex ula
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-06 06:22:50
House Democrats are investigating SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's glaring conflict of interest — and specifically whether he's using his immense sway over NASA to enrich himself. In a letter sent to NASA's chief legal officer, Iris Lan, representatives Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL) and Gery Connolly (D-VA) requested information and documents to prove that Musk wasn't exploiting his influence over the agency to hand himself and his businesses government contracts, Axios reports. Critics have pointed ou
Keywords: agency letter musk nasa spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-11 14:22:00
Boldly going: The US Space Force has awarded $13.7 billion in contracts to SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin under the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 program. The contracts run through 2029 and mark the first time three companies will simultaneously handle top-priority military satellite missions – signaling a new era of competition in defense space launches. SpaceX secured the largest share of the contracts, landing $5.9 billion for 28 launches. Meanwhile, ULA snatched $5
Keywords: blue lane launches missions spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-11 16:43:21
A long-awaited launch contract for national security missions was announced by the U.S. Space Force after close of business Friday evening. The mission spreads nearly $14 billion worth of missions between Blue Origin, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA). The contract is known as Lane 2 of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3. These are firm fixed-price, indefinite-delivery contracts that will be issued in batches of missions to the launch providers over a five-year period begin
Keywords: lane launch missions space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-11 14:33:03
The US Space Force announced Friday it selected SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin for $13.7 billion in contracts to deliver the Pentagon's most critical military to orbit into the early 2030s. These missions will launch the government's heaviest national security satellites, like the National Reconnaissance Office's large bus-sized spy platforms, and deploy them into bespoke orbits. These types of launches often demand heavy-lift rockets with long-duration upper stages that can cr
Keywords: force launch military space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-12 03:00:08
SpaceX has launched its massive Starship rocket eight times and caught its Super Heavy booster three times in the giant mechanical arms of Mechazilla. Unlike Starship’s upper stage, the booster is now ready for its next steps toward achieving launch, landing, and reuse. In a post shared on Thursday, SpaceX revealed that it was prepping to launch a Super Heavy Booster that had already flown before. The booster previously lifted off and returned during the rocket’s seventh test flight on January
Keywords: booster flight launch spacex starship
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-12 06:58:17
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — SpaceX is wrapping up the latest chapter in its commercial human spaceflight endeavors with the return of Fram2. The mission carried four passengers in a unique orbit around Earth that allowed humans to pass directly over the North and South poles for the first time. Led by cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang, who is the financier of this miss
Keywords: crew fram2 mission space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-12 11:11:11
SpaceX is having trouble with Starship's upper stage after back-to-back failures, but engineers are making remarkable progress with the rocket's enormous booster. The most visible sign of SpaceX making headway with Starship's first stage—called Super Heavy—came at 9:40 am local time (10:40 am EDT; 14:40 UTC) Thursday at the company's Starbase launch site in South Texas. With an unmistakable blast of orange exhaust, SpaceX fired up a Super Heavy booster that has already ne to the edge of space.
Keywords: booster heavy rocket spacex super
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-12 17:35:29
A crew of four first-time astronauts are on their way home after spending nearly four days in a unique polar orbit. SpaceX’s Fram2 mission is set to return to Earth on Friday, and the astronauts will make their way out of the spacecraft on their own. The Fram2 crew is scheduled for splashdown on Friday, April 4 at 12:19 p.m. ET. The astronauts will ride home aboard SpaceX’s Dragon crew vehicle, which will splashdown off the coast of California. This will be the first time a crewed Dragon splash
Keywords: astronauts crew mission space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-14 23:11:28
SpaceX is having trouble with Starship's upper stage after back-to-back failures, but engineers are making remarkable progress with the rocket's enormous booster. The most visible sign of SpaceX making headway with Starship's first stage—called Super Heavy—came at 9:40 am local time (10:40 am EDT; 14:40 UTC) Thursday at the company's Starbase launch site in South Texas. With an unmistakable blast of orange exhaust, SpaceX fired up a Super Heavy booster that has already flown to the edge of spac
Keywords: booster heavy rocket spacex super
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-16 02:00:00
A host of companies have readied rockets that are comparable to SpaceX’s main launch vehicles. The list includes Rocket Lab, which aims to take on SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 with its Neutron rocket and could have its first launch in late 2025, and Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, which recently completed the first mission of a rocket it hopes will compete against SpaceX’s Starship. Some of these competitors are just starting to get rockets off the ground. And the companies could also face unu
Keywords: contracts industry rocket space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-16 15:20:18
Four space rookies are floating in a SpaceX Dragon vehicle, gazing down at Earth’s polar regions while collecting data from their unique vantage point. The Fram2 mission is off to an exciting start, pulling off some major firsts for human spaceflight. SpaceX’s Fram2 mission launched on Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The commercial mission sent a crew of four private astronauts where no other humans have flown before, orbiting Earth from above the planet’s polar regions on a
Keywords: crew mission polar space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-17 11:10:02
While listening in on the atmosphere, a team of researchers from the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) picked up unexpected disturbances caused by a SpaceX rocket plummeting through the atmosphere toward its landing site. DARPA’s AtmoSense program seeks to use Earth’s atmosphere as a global sensor by measuring acoustic and electromagnetic waves propagating through the atmosphere, and attempting to trace them back to a specific disturbance event that took place on
Keywords: atmosense atmosphere data spacex team
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-19 07:45:52
A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on Monday night, sending four amateur astronauts on an unprecedented journey around Earth’s poles. The mission is traveling where no crew has gone before, and SpaceX just revealed the first views of the planet’s chilly polar regions from above. SpaceX released a short video taken from the Dragon crew vehicle, showcasing the incredible view from the freshly launched Fram2 mission. “First views of Earth’s polar regions from Dragon,” the company wrote on X. Fram2’s fou
Keywords: crew dragon earth polar spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-19 18:07:36
NASA has officially added SpaceX's enormous Starship rocket to its roster — despite the vehicle never having completed a single successful test flight, let alone a mission. The space agency announced last week that it had awarded SpaceX a "modification under the NASA Launch Services (NLS) II contract to add Starship to their existing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch service offerings." As the agency explains, these contracts "provide a broad range of commercial launch services for NASA’s plane
Keywords: launch nasa rocket spacex starship
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-20 07:00:06
SpaceX has successfully launched the Fram2 private crewed mission on March 31 at 9:46 PM Eastern time on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. Fram2 is the first human spaceflight to explore the Earth's polar regions, which are not visible to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The crew will observe the Earth's poles through a panoramic cupola attachment from an altitude of 430 km (267 miles). SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule can fly from the North to the South Pole in around 46 minutes and F
Keywords: crew mission polar space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-20 15:33:15
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire fighter jet pilot-turned-SpaceX astronaut, has shared a photo of himself during his unusual "commute into DC" — which involved a Cessna CJ4 private jet. The entrepreneur, who is estimated to be worth $1.9 billion, was tapped late last year by president Donald Trump to lead NASA, and he's chosen to head into the nation's capital to "meet with Senators this week" in a style that feels like a perfect illustration of the billionaires now running the government. That
Keywords: agency isaacman nasa space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-21 11:35:52
Four amateur astronauts are about to venture where no other crew has gone before, orbiting Earth’s polar region to better understand how humans fare in space. SpaceX’s Fram2 mission is set for liftoff on Monday at 9:46 p.m. ET, launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission will launch a private crew of astronauts on board a Dragon spacecraft, where they will spend three to five days admiring our planet from a unique polar orbit. SpaceX will stream the launch live on its we
Keywords: astronauts crew mission space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-23 04:26:27
A new report says that SpaceX is trying to block Apple’s expansion plans for iPhone satellite messaging by pressuring the FCC to intervene. Elon Musk’s close relationship with both the White House and the FCC chair could give SpaceX a substantial advantage in an ongoing battle between the two companies for radio spectrum … Apple’s satellite messaging services Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite service first launched for the iPhone 14 back in 2022, and is now a standard feature in subsequent
Keywords: apple musk satellite service spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-05-28 10:05:33
For all his faults, Elon Musk sure knows how to keep things interesting. Yesterday, skies around the world lit up with what seems to be returning debris courtesy of Musk's private space travel company SpaceX. Specifically, the Dragon Freedom-2 Deb, a module that launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida in September of 2024 as part of a NASA mission to bring two astronauts to the International Space Station. Last week, the crew module of the Dragon returned to earth, bringing back four astronauts,
Keywords: dragon reentry space spacex trunk
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-02 13:12:52
Despite a challenging road, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is far from giving up on the company's gigantic, fully reusable Starship spacecraft. SpaceX has some extremely ambitious plans for the vehicle, from returning the first astronauts to the lunar surface to establishing the first permanent presence on Mars. And as SpaceX inches closer to successfully launching and landing a full-scale prototype, it's worth having a look back at all of the spectacular tests — and failures — that brought us here. We
Keywords: flight massive spacecraft spacex test
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-03 22:45:26
SpaceX could soon have greater control over the recreational activities of South Texas residents. The Houston Chronicle (via Gizmodo) and San Antonio Express-News report that a pair of state senate bills introduced earlier this month would give officials at the likely Starbase city the authority to decide when a nearby beach shuts down for weekday launch activities. Meanwhile, a third bill floated on Wednesday would take the company's control a step further, making it a criminal offense for peop
Keywords: beach control hinojosa spacex state
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-04 06:35:48
SpaceX’s packed rocket launch schedule may get in the way of beach days. If the company succeeds in turning its launch site into an official city, SpaceX could assume full control over road and beach closures in Boca Chica, Texas. Texas lawmakers filed legislation that would effectively grant SpaceX officials sole authority to close down roads and public beaches near the Starbase launch site in South Texas for rocket launches, ground testing, or other related activities during the week, the Hou
Keywords: beach launch spacex starbase texas
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-05 07:00:06
Welcome to Edition 7.36 of the Rocket Report! Well, after nine months, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are finally back on Earth, safe and sound. This brings to conclusion one of the stranger and more dramatic human spaceflight stories in years. We're glad they're finally home, soon to be reunited with their families. As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled ver
Keywords: kg launch launches spacecraft spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-09 01:55:38
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the US astronauts stranded for nine months on the International Space Station, finally made it home on Tuesday, March 18. They returned to Earth with the two members of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission—NASA's Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos—aboard SpaceX's Dragon Freedom spacecraft. The four crew successfully splashed down off the coast of Florida at 5:57 pm EDT. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery craft boarded Dragon Freedom and assisted the
Keywords: astronauts crew nasa space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-10 06:16:00
Welcome back! NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are home at last. They spent nine months orbiting Earth on the International Space Station. Long-term ISS missions aren't unusual, except these particular astronauts weren't planning on an extended stay. Williams and Wilmore rode to the station on a crewed Boeing Starliner test mission in June. The crew capsule encountered technical issues and was sent back to Earth without the astronauts. Their eight-day stay became a months-long st
Keywords: astronauts crew nasa space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-10 06:42:49
Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have returned to Earth after a nine-month stay on the International Space Station — a trip that lasted far longer than originally planned thanks to leaks and thruster problems on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they used to get there. Williams and Wilmore splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico in a SpaceX Dragon capsule at 5:57 p.m. ET on Tuesday, after a 17-hour return journey from the ISS. Their return marks the end of one of the stranger chapter
Keywords: astronauts boeing bring iss spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-13 06:53:08
Those stranded Starliner astronauts are finally coming back to Earth, with a touchdown expected on Tuesday evening. Coverage begins on Monday night at around 10:45PM ET, with streams available on NASA’s website and via the NASA+ app. Monday night’s stream will focus on the hatch closing and the undocking procedure. The stream will go dark until 4:45PM ET on Tuesday as the crew approaches splashdown. The arrival is scheduled for around 5:57PM ET and a live press conference is set for 7:30PM ET.
Keywords: crew et nasa spacex starliner
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-14 06:13:49
SpaceX successfully launched four people into space on Friday, beginning a mission that will give the International Space Station enough crew members to allow astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to return to Earth after their nine-month stay. The mission, known as Crew-10, will see SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft dock with the International Space Station (ISS) late Saturday. The new astronauts will overlap with the existing crew for a few days before Williams and Wilmore (along with two other
Keywords: astronauts iss spacex williams wilmore
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-14 05:51:00
Space agencies from around the world launched a total of 244 successful missions into orbit or space in 2024, which is the most in history. The US led the way with over half of those launches. Dozens of space launches are already planned for 2025. Feel like watching a liftoff? Many of them will likely be streamed by NASA or from the YouTube channels of individual companies like SpaceX. Space launches are finicky, and the dates often change with little warning. But if you're looking to keep an e
Keywords: blue launch nasa rocket spacex
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