Enlarge / Workers perform a fit check with Starship (above) and the Super Heavy booster. (credit: Elon Musk/Twitter) Nearly a century ago, humans built skyward for the first time at an unprecedented rate. It was the age of skyscrapers. During the half-century before 1920, the US population doubled. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution […]
Enlarge (credit: SpaceX ) SpaceX says that Starlink user terminals with regard to moving vehicles will be ruggedized to withstand “harsh environments” with extreme levels of heat and cold. SpaceX has been seeking Federal Communications Commission permission to deploy terminals on moving vehicles since March and provided new details on its plan in an application […]
Enlarge / Jeff Bezos holds aviation glasses that belonged to Amelia Earhart at a press conference about his flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard on July 20, 2021, in Van Horn, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | Joe Raedle) The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) today rejected Blue Origin’s attempt to block the lunar-landing contract that […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | LdF) The Federal Communications Commission wants SpaceX to give up a portion of the $885.51 million in broadband funding it was awarded in a reverse auction in December 2020. SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband division was one of the biggest winners in the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) grants announced […]
Enlarge / Artist’s impression of low-Earth-orbit satellites like those launched by SpaceX and OneWeb. (credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / P. Marenfeld) A UK government agency is worried that OneWeb, SpaceX’s Starlink, and similar low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite-broadband systems could block each others’ signals. Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, proposed new rules today […]
Enlarge / Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith (black hat) walks with Jeff Bezos after his flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard into space. (credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Shaun Bezos published an open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Monday morning and offered to pay more than $2 billion to get the agency’s Human Landing […]
Enlarge / 60 Starlink satellites stacked for launch at SpaceX facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (credit: SpaceX) SpaceX can keep launching broadband satellites despite a lawsuit filed by Viasat, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. Viasat sued the Federal Communications Commission in May and asked judges for a stay that would halt SpaceX’s ongoing launches of […]
Enlarge / VSS Unity burns its rocket motor on July 11, 2021. (credit: Virgin Galactic) Welcome to Edition 4.07 of the Rocket Report! Looking back to Virgin Galactic’s flight and ahead to Blue Origin, we’re continuing to experience a very special moment in human spaceflight history this week, with final preparations underway for Jeff Bezos […]
Enlarge / A Super Heavy booster rolled out of SpaceX’s production facilities in South Texas earlier this month. (credit: Elon Musk ) SpaceX seems to have gone a long time without launching—or blowing up—a rocket at its South Texas launch site. A little more than two months have passed since the company launched its SN15 […]
Liftoff! SpaceX and the 45th Space Launch Delta find a hole in the weather to get the Transporter-2 mission off the ground. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ] SpaceX launched its 20th Falcon 9 rocket of the year on Wednesday, and the booster lofting the Transporter-2 mission completed yet another successful flight to orbit. This launch continues to […]