Startup Besxar, founded by former OpenAI staffer Ashley Pilipiszyn, has arranged with SpaceX to fly small canisters called 'fabships' aboard Falcon 9 boosters to test manufacturing semiconductor precursor materials in the vacuum of space. The company's first two units flew on a July Starlink mission, surviving launch and exposing wafer samples to space despite a data system glitch in one canister. Besxar has raised roughly $14 million, including a $9 million seed round led by Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC, to pursue a dozen planned test flights.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-09
SpaceX's Starship 40 flew a suborbital test from Starbase, Texas, to the Indian Ocean in about 65 minutes on July 24, deploying and later intentionally destroying 20 Starlink V3 satellites to validate the deployment system. Unlike prior test flights, this upper stage survived splashdown mostly intact, and SpaceX says retrieving and shipping it back to Texas will take several months.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-08
European space startup The Exploration Company has secured $450 million in a Series C round, which it calls the largest ever raised by a European space company. The Germany-based firm, led by former Airbus and ArianeGroup executive Hélène Huby, plans to use the funds to develop a reusable heavy-lift launcher aimed at rivaling SpaceX. The company says it already has 10 missions booked and over $2 billion in contracts, including commitments from the European Space Agency and NASA.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-08
Stoke Space Technologies has completed the first close of a $1 billion Series E funding round, led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital with participation from Y Combinator and other investors. The company says the capital will support scaling production and flight frequency of its current rocket while funding development of a larger, second-generation vehicle, bringing its total funding to $2.3 billion.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-08
Several board members from Elon Musk's companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, are directing personal funding toward psychedelic research and a startup pursuing regulatory approval for MDMA-assisted therapy. The investments span both academic studies and commercial drug-development efforts aimed at treating conditions like PTSD.
wsj.com
· 2026-09-05
Several major US space firms, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, K2, and Starcloud, have withdrawn from a French-organized space summit in Paris after a call led by a White House science and technology official. Politico first reported that the administration pressured these companies to avoid the event, which was convened by President Macron to unify French and European space strategy. Some US presence reportedly remains on the summit's agenda despite the corporate pullout.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-04
ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok all went down Thursday morning within roughly an hour of each other, though OpenAI and Anthropic did not cite any shared external cause. OpenAI blamed a routing error resolved within about 34 minutes, Anthropic reported elevated errors across several Claude models fixed within roughly three hours, and xAI said its Grok outage stemmed from a failure at its Memphis compute facility that took nearly four hours to resolve.
wired.com
· 2026-09-03
OpenAI announced it is terminating its partnership with AI coding startup Cursor, citing distrust of Elon Musk following SpaceX's $60 billion acquisition of the company. Cursor had been among OpenAI's top five revenue sources, with the partnership projected to generate more than $1 billion in annualized revenue this spring, according to people familiar with the matter.
wired.com
· 2026-09-03
Elon Musk's super PAC, America PAC, disclosed its first midterm expenditures to the FEC, spending over $800,000 across seven Senate contests and several House races. The largest chunk, more than $247,000, went to Texas to boost Republican Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico, with additional funds directed to Maine, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan and Alaska. The spending, categorized as mail advertising, marks the start of what Musk has reportedly pledged could grow to $120 million in Republican-focused election spending.
cnbc.com
· 2026-09-03
None of the 16 Rassvet satellites Russia launched in June reached their planned 870-km orbit, with several drifting as low as 300-400 km and two already re-entering the atmosphere, according to the Institute for the Study of War citing N2YO tracking data. The March batch of 16 satellites also had issues, with one lost and only 12 reaching proper altitude, undermining Bureau 1440's plan to build a Starlink competitor.
techspot.com
· 2026-09-03
NASA has directed Axiom Space to develop a lighter, less complex spacesuit variant called the Sortie Suit for the first crewed Artemis lunar landings, aiming to hit a 2028 target date at the Moon's South Pole. The decision, announced internally by Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons, will see the simplified suit used on both SpaceX and Blue Origin landers, cutting mass and easing integration with the spacecraft.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-02
Russia's Bureau 1440 has launched 32 Rassvet satellites in two batches this year, but none have reached their intended 500-mile orbit. Tracking data shows most satellites topped out near 300 miles, several stopped maneuvering entirely, and at least three have already reentered or appear headed for reentry.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-02
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