The Pentagon inspector general's office rejected a bipartisan group of nine senators' request to investigate reported restrictions on SpaceX's Starlink and Starshield services used by Ukraine's military. Ukraine had reported that drones lost satellite connectivity above 161 km/h (100 mph) for about 10 days earlier this month before the limit was lifted. Inspector General Platte Moring told senators the Air Force and Space Force were better positioned to address the questions raised.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-29
In an X post, Elon Musk said saving money for the distant future is 'pointless' given what he called the coming of 'super intelligent abundance.' Musk, whose net worth has topped roughly $900 billion following SpaceX's IPO, made the remark without elaborating on specifics.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-29
A report examines how SpaceX's relationship with NASA and the US government has shifted over roughly 25 years, from the company needing federal contracts to survive to NASA now depending heavily on SpaceX for launches and crew transport. Former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver said she still struggles to envision a future where SpaceX stops flying its Dragon and Falcon vehicles for the agency, even as evidence points toward a partial separation.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-29
A decade after SpaceX first successfully landed a reusable Falcon 9 booster in December 2015, reusable rockets have removed launch access as the industry's main bottleneck. The constraint has shifted toward manufacturing enough satellites, securing sufficient funding, and finding enough paying customers.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-29
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency is speeding up its Artemis program, reaffirming plans to launch Artemis 3 next summer as a docking-practice mission in Earth orbit, with Artemis 4 slated for 2028 to put astronauts back on the lunar surface for a week. NASA has not yet chosen between SpaceX's and Blue Origin's lunar landers for the eventual landing mission. Isaacman said the agency is cutting meetings and bureaucratic delay, citing the Apollo program's rapid pace as a model.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-29
Virgin Galactic unveiled the name of its first next-generation Delta-class suborbital spacecraft, Apeiron, chosen through a public vote. The announcement comes as the US has gone roughly 10 months without a commercial space tourism flight, following the retirement of Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity in mid-2024, the pause of Blue Origin's New Shepard program, and SpaceX winding down its free-flying Crew Dragon missions.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-28
Vladimir Putin told the Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow that he regularly communicates with Elon Musk to coordinate so Russia's Rassvet satellite internet project and SpaceX's Starlink do not interfere with each other in orbit. Putin called Musk a 'real genius,' while Russia's embassy in South Africa described Rassvet, which has only a few dozen satellites compared with Starlink's roughly 13,000, as Russia's early-stage alternative to Starlink.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-10-28
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Elon Musk a 'real genius' and said Russia is in close contact with Musk on satellite-related issues. Putin described the contact as part of broader coordination with American partners, without detailing the scope or nature of the cooperation.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-10-28
Analysts are weighing whether frontier AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic can generate enough revenue to justify their enormous spending, even as Wall Street braces for what could be among the largest IPOs ever. SpaceX has already gone public, and both AI companies are expected to follow, drawing intense investor interest.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-28
Anthropic has outlined a market-opportunity estimate of roughly $40 trillion, basing the figure on the total economic value generated by knowledge workers globally. The number, reportedly shared by the company, surpasses the market-opportunity estimate SpaceX put forward earlier this year.
wsj.com
· 2026-10-28
A Los Angeles non-profit, the Planetary Sunshade Institute, has published a report compiling research from engineers and climate scientists, including contributors linked to NASA, on building a giant sunshade between Earth and the Sun to cool the planet. The report estimates construction could become feasible within 20 to 40 years, contingent on development of heavy-lift rockets capable of carrying millions of tonnes of material into deep space. The study follows a social-media post by Elon Musk suggesting satellites could 'solve global warming' for a billion years, though SpaceX did not confirm any involvement in such research.
nature.com
· 2026-10-28
Security researchers say they have detected signs of a large-scale surveillance operation directed at users of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service. The findings point to monitoring activity concentrated in countries where Starlink access is officially banned or restricted.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-10-27
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