Category Archives: Spacex

Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP) has delivered the Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) satellite to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for integration ahead of SpaceXs Transporter-5 mission.

PTD-3 is a 6-unit (6U) cubesat built and integrated by Terran Orbital to host and support launch and on-orbit operations of the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload funded by NASAs Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program and developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL). The TBIRD mission is the second mission in the PTD series funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program in NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate.

The mission will demonstrate a space-to-ground data transfer capability at orders of magnitude faster than previously demonstrated technologies. This technology could open doors to large volume data communications and data accessibility for advanced space exploration delivering multiple terabytes of data per day to a single ground station.

Each PTD mission consists of a 6U cubesat weighing approximately 12 kilograms and measuring 36 cm 23 cm 10 cm. Each PTD spacecraft will also be equipped with deployable solar arrays that can provide a peak power of 120 watts while on-orbit.

Terran Orbital is thrilled to deliver pioneering satellite solutions that are changing the space landscape, said Terran Orbital Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Marc Bell. PTD-3 will not only disrupt the way our Earth receives data, but also fine-tune future mission capabilities. We look forward to fostering our relationships with NASA, MITLL, and SpaceX as we continue to deliver groundbreaking technologies.

Terran Orbital is a leading manufacturer of ssmallsats primarily serving the United States aerospace and defense industry. Terran Orbital provides end-to-end satellite solutions by combining satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations, and in-orbit support to meet the needs of the most demanding military, civil, and commercial customers. Learn more at http://www.terranorbital.com.

See the original post:

Terran Orbital Delivers The PTD-3 Satellite To Cape Canaveral SFS For Integration Into The SpaceX Transporter-5 Mission SatNews - SatNews

As the market looks ahead to a new trading week during a period of volatility and a traditional lull ahead of Memorial Day, here's a recap of a few major headlines that hit the wire over the weekend.

1. Musk Harps On Twitter Spam Count: Tesla, Inc. TSLA chief executive officer Elon Musk is fixated on Twitter, Inc. TWTR spam accounts. He said in reply to a tweet that Twitter has a disincentive in reporting spam accounts, as it reduces its user numbers. Musk also suggested that Twitter's refusal to share its methodology to count spammersis making him suspicious.

2. Ethereum Founder No Longer A Billionaire: Ethereum ETH/USD founder Vitalik Buterin relayed via a tweet that he is no longer a billionaire. Buterin, who once had the distinction of beingthe youngest crypto billionaire, has apparently lost much of his fortuneamid the crypto market sell-off.

Ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain,has more than halved from a high of $4,859.50 on Nov.10.

Related Link: Tesla Drops To Number 2: Is Cathie Wood's Ark Invest Losing Confidence In Its Favorite Stock?

3. Cathie Wood's Sings AI's Virtues: Fund manager and Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood suggested over the weekend that artificial general intelligence has the potential to increase the year-over-year GDP growth rate from the current 3%-5% per year to 30%-50% per year in about six to 12 years, This, according to Wood, can be accomplished due to breakthroughs in AGI.

4. Consumer Electronics Demand Disappearing: Noted Apple, Inc. AAPL analystMing-Chi Kuo dropped a bombshell by suggestingthe easing of COVID lockdowns in China may not solve all the issues faced by consumer electronics companies. Demand is disappearing and is not deferred, he said.

5. SpaceX Seeks Fresh Funding: Elon Musk's SpaceX venture is reportedly looking to raise $1.725 billion in new capital that could increase the company's valuation to $127 billion. The company is exploring the sale of equity at $70 per unit, which is a 25% jump from the $56-a-share valuation that was prevailing in February, when it enacted a 10-for-1 split.

What Else: Walt Disney Company's DIS "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" continued to rule the roost for a third week in running, grossing $30 million from 4,534 theaters this weekend.

Musk's visit to Brazil and his talks with the nation's President Jair Bolsonaro regarding providing Starlink connection to rural schools and using the service for the surveillance of the Amazon rainforest also made headlines over the week.

For all the key biotech catalytic events scheduled for the week, read Benzinga's weekly preview.

Link:

Ethereum's Buterin Has A Confession, Cathie Wood Makes Bold GDP Prediction, SpaceX Targets Sky-High Valua - Benzinga

May 17 (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX is poised to become the most valuable U.S. startup as its valuation rose to over $125 billion in an ongoing share sale in the secondary market, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The shares, which are marketed at about $72, jumped in valuation from last October, when SpaceX's shares were sold at $56 apiece after a 10-1 split and valued the rocket company at $100 billion.

No new shares have been issued in the secondary offering, but the company indicated to investors that they may do so later this year, said one of the sources, who asked not to be identified.

Register

The share sale could value SpaceX at over $125 billion, surpassing fintech giant Stripe, which was valued at $115 billion in a secondary sale.

It could not be learned how many shares have been made available for sale by the company. It is common for highly valued private companies to offer shares in the secondary market to introduce liquidity for early investors and employees.

Reuters could not determine if Chief Executive Elon Musk, who owns 44% of the SpaceX and signed a $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), are among the sellers. Musk is also the chief executive of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O).

SpaceX did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. The New York Post first reported on the private placement on Monday.

In the capital-intensive business, SpaceX has raised $337.4 million in December and $1.16 billion in equity financing last April, according to regulatory filings.

The company competes with former Amazon.com (AMZN.O) Chief Executive Jeff Bezos's space venture Blue Origin and billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic (SPCE.N) in the burgeoning constellation of commercial rocket ventures.

SpaceX has already launched numerous cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), including 19 rocket launches this year alone.

Register

Reporting by Krystal Hu; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read the original here:

Elon Musk's SpaceX is poised to become the most valuable U.S. startup - Reuters.com

Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR) (Spire or the Company) will launch five satellites later this month on the upcoming SpaceX Transporter-5 Mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Spire Space Services, the companys Space-as-a-Service (SPaaS) business, will have satellites and hardware onboard the launch for:

Spire Space Services offers fast and scalable access to space through a subscription model that eliminates the high upfront cost of building and maintaining infrastructure in space. Commercial and government organizations can deploy and operate a constellation of satellites, a hosted payload, or a software application in space with Spires infrastructure.

Spire will also launch two replenishment satellites to support its data solutions business, which encompasses the tracking of maritime, aviation, and weather activity from space. These satellites are equipped with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) sensors to collect radio occultation and other weather product data.

Spire satellites are manifested on the mission through a multi-launch agreement between Spire and Exolaunch, which includes access to the Transporter missions through Exolaunchs long-term launch arrangements with SpaceX. Exolaunch, a global provider of launch, in-space logistics and deployment services, will also provide Spire with deployment and integration services. Spire will launch additional satellites on SpaceX Transporter missions later this year.

The upcoming launch is an exciting moment with the most Space Services customers on board a single launch to date, said Joel Spark, co-founder and general manager of Space Services, Spire. Were excited to see more organizations deploying and scaling their constellations using our established space, ground, and web infrastructure, leveraging the experience weve built across 150+ spacecraft, 30+ launch campaigns, and 350 years of space heritage to get their business launched quickly and with low risk.

Working with Spire Space Services is allowing us to rapidly scale the Myriota Network to meet the high demand for IoT services, said Dr. David Haley, CTO and co-founder, Myriota. Since commencing work In 2021, the highly collaborative Spire and Myriota partnership has been opening up greater message size and reduced latency for our customers across agriculture, oil and gas, construction, environmental monitoring and defense industries. With three additional satellites the program is well and truly in full swing. Well be continuing the rapid acceleration of our service and its features to enable better outcomes for our customers through simple, affordable access to data, anywhere.

We at DASA, working with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Space Program, are excited to work with Spire to deploy a low-cost, rapid concept-to-technology demonstrator for global monitoring and geolocating signals, said Fiona Hutchinson, Project Manager, DASA. These capabilities not only enable military and security operations, but also underpin countless activities essential to our safety and way of life.

Spire (NYSE: SPIR) is a global provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, offering access to unique datasets and powerful insights about Earth from the ultimate vantage point so that organizations can make decisions with confidence, accuracy, and speed. Spire uses one of the worlds largest, multi-purpose, satellite constellations to source hard to acquire, valuable data and enriches it with predictive solutions. Spire then provides this data as a subscription to organizations around the world so they can improve business operations, decrease their environmental footprint, deploy resources for growth and competitive advantage, and mitigate risk. Spire gives commercial and government organizations the competitive advantage they seek to innovate and solve some of the worlds toughest problems with insights from space. Spire has offices in San Francisco, Boulder, Washington DC, Ontario, Glasgow, Oxfordshire, Luxembourg, and Singapore.

Follow this link:

Spire Global's SPaaS Smallsats To Partake Of The SpaceX Transporter-5 Rideshare Mission SatNews - SatNews

The team of four astronauts for the Polaris Dawn mission will start training for their upcoming spaceflight later this week at SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The Polaris Dawn is the first of three crewed space missions under the Polaris Program, which kickstarts later this year. To be commanded by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, the Polaris team will launch aboard the SpaceXFalcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Polaris Program, as per its officialprofile, is a "first-of-its-kind" effort, which aims to advance human spaceflight capabilities while raising funds and awareness for important causes on Earth. The program has been named after the constellation of three stars, Polaris, also called the North Star which "has beena guiding light throughout human history to help navigate the world around us and the sky above", the profile says.

But most importantly, the objective of Polaris is to demonstrate operational capabilities that will enable humans with the exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond. A total of three spaceflights will be conducted under the program two of which will be SpaceX Dragon flights and the third and final being the first-ever manned Starship mission. During each of these missions, the selected astronauts will carry out in-space technology demonstrations and research.

The Polaris Dawn, which is expected to take off in the fourth quarter of 2022, isthe first of three planned spaceflights. Under this mission, the crew of four astronauts will fly higher than any Dragon mission to date and reach the highest Earth orbit. During Polaris Dawn, the astronauts will spend five days in orbit and test several new technologies including the first Starlink laser-based communications in space. Interestingly, the crew will also conduct the first-ever private spacewalk donning the newly made SpaceX suits.

Similar to the first all-civilian SpaceX mission- Inspiration4-Polaris Dawn too would raise funds for theStJude Childrens Research Hospital. The Inspiration4 mission, which was conducted in September 2021,was also commanded by Isaacman and had raisedover $240 million for St. Jude's. For his next mission, Isaacman will be accompanied by three new astronauts-Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, andSarah Gillis. Tap here to read all about the crew members.

Read the rest here:

SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew to begin training for highest-ever orbital spaceflight this week - Republic World

SpaceX plans to launch 53 more Starlink internet satellites and land the returning rocket on a ship at sea early Wednesday morning (May 18), and you can watch all the action live.

A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with 53 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday at 6:20 a.m. EDT (1020 GMT). The rocket's first stage will land on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean about nine minutes after liftoff, if all goes according to plan.

You can watch it all unfold here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage is expected to begin about 10 minutes before liftoff. The livestream will end shortly after booster landing, if previous Starlink webcasts are any guide. So the live coverage likely won't include deployment of the Starlink satellites, which is expected to occur about an hour after launch.

Related: SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation launches in photos

Starlink is SpaceX's broadband constellation, which currently consists of more than 2,300 satellites. That number has been growing rapidly lately; SpaceX has launched 20 missions already in 2022, and 13 of them have been dedicated Starlink flights.

But the Starlink population could get truly huge in the not-too-distant future; the next-generation version of the constellation may eventually consist of up to 30,000 satellites.

Wednesday's mission will be the fifth for this particular Falcon 9 first stage. Such reuse is a priority for SpaceX and its founder and CEO, Elon Musk, who views rapid and repeated reflight as the key breakthrough needed to make ambitious exploration feats such as Mars settlement economically feasible.

SpaceX has landed Falcon 9 first stages 113 times during orbital missions to date and has reflown boosters on 92 occasions, according to the company's website.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.

View original post here:

Watch SpaceX launch 53 new Starlink satellites early Wednesday - Space.com

A spacecraft container is unloaded from a transport ship Saturday at Port Canaveral, Florida. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now

A transport ship delivered the SES 22 and Nilesat 301 geostationary communications satellites to Cape Canaveral over the weekend to prepare for two launches on SpaceX rockets in June, completing a trans-Atlantic journey from France originally planned on Russian-owned cargo planes.

The satellites will be prepared for launches on two Falcon 9 rockets next month. Nilesat 301 is scheduled for liftoff June 10 from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and SES 22 is set for launch in late June.

Thales Alenia Space, which assembled the satellites in Cannes, France, originally planned to deliver the Nilesat 301 and SES 22 spacecraft to Cape Canaveral on Russian-owned Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft. The An-124 airplanes operated by Russian-based Volga-Dnepr Airlines have been used for decades across the space industry to haul heavy satellites from their factories to their launch sites.

But Russian-owned aircraft have been banned from U.S. and European Union airspace in the wake of Russias military attack on Ukraine. That forced satellite companies to find a backup plan for transporting their spacecraft.

Nilesat 301 was ready to leave its factory in France at the end of March for a scheduled launch on a Falcon 9 rocket at the end of April. The launch was delayed to allow time for Thales to secure another means of transportation for the satellite.

Officials settled on transporting Nilesat 301 by ship. SES 22, also built by Thales, traveled from France to Florida on the same vessel.The ship carrying Nilesat 301 and SES 22 left a port near Marseille, France, in late April and arrived at Port Canaveral on Saturday.

Teams unloaded the containers holding the satellites to be trucked inside Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for launch preparations. Engineers will test each satellite to confirm they remain healthy after arriving from France, then load maneuvering propellants into the spacecraft. Finally, the satellites will be encapsulated inside the payload shrouds of their Falcon 9 rockets.

The launch schedule for SES 22 was not impacted by the change in transport plans, according to a spokesperson for SES, the Luxembourg company that owns the satellite.

Nilesat 301will provide digital broadband and internet connectivity services for the Egyptian operator Nilesat. SES 22 will provide C-band television and data services in the United States. The satellites will weigh about 3.5 to 4 metric tons once fully fueled for liftoff.

The Nilesat 301 and SES 22 communications satellites will operate in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.

SpaceX will launch each satellite into an elongated, oval-shaped transfer orbit, then the spacecraft will use on-board propulsion to reach their final operating positions.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

Here is the original post:

Geostationary comsats delivered to Florida for SpaceX launches in June Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

Following his meeting with Indonesian president Joko Widodo over the weekend at the SpaceX site in Boca Chica, Texas, Elon Musk says he is considering a visit to Indonesia later this year to explore investment opportunities in the republic, Bloomberg reports.

During the visit, the Indonesian leader who was in the country to attend the US-Asean Special Summit extended an invite to Musk, who replied, Hopefully in November, thank you for the invitation. The invitation to Musk comes after Tesla representatives paid a visit to a nickel production hub in Morowali, Central Sulawesi last week.

The meeting between Musk and Jokowi had been arranged last month by the countrys coordinating maritime affairs and investment minister Luhut Pandjaitan, in the hopes of getting Tesla to invest in Indonesia, reports The Jakarta Post.

The government has held talks on potential partnerships with Musks teams over course of the last few years, including on the production of Tesla EVs and even the possibility of a SpaceX rocket launch site in the country, the latter part of the countrys ambition to join the space race, but no agreements have been reached so far.

Indonesias discussions with Tesla on the probability of setting up a factory in the republic to make batteries for its EVs fell through in March, apparently because Tesla was only interested in building batteries for energy storage systems (i.e. its Powerwall) instead of that for its cars. However, it was reported last month that Indonesia had restarted talks with Musk to join the countrys burgeoning nickel and EV industry.

The country has long been pushing for investments in EV and battery manufacturing, touting its reserves of nickel and cobalt used in the production of lithium-ion batteries as well as bauxite, which can be turned into aluminium. Indonesia, which has the worlds biggest nickel reserves, wants to build a full supply chain for extracting battery chemicals from the metal rather than simply exporting it.

Jokowis invitation to Musk reiterates the countrys intent to continue its efforts to develop its EV industry, and not just with the production of raw materials. In August last year, he said that the country had a great opportunity in developing industries from upstream to downstream, and that it should focus on the lithium battery industry as well as the production of EVs.

Malaysia has also extended an invitation to Tesla to invest in the country. Last week, prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said he had suggested to Tesla to invest in Malaysia and build its EVs here.

See original here:

Jokowi meets Elon Musk at SpaceX site in Texas, invites Tesla boss to visit Indonesia later this year - paultan.org - Paul Tan's Automotive News

Elon Musk may have founded most of his companies in California, but hes become increasingly critical of the state as a place to do business.

The Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc ReportCEO made that much clear in recent comments during a virtual appearance at the recent All-In Conference held in Miami.

California used to be the land of opportunity, Musk told the audience. However its turned into the land of taxes, overregulation and litigation and this is not a good situation.

Musk became increasingly critical of the state as Tesla ramped up its production facilities. He famously built the first so-called gigafactory in neighboring Nevada, after winning generous tax concessions from that state. He went on to build facilities in Shanghai and near Berlin. But when the time came for a new U.S. factory, Musk opted for Texas.

He boasted that the recently opened Gigafactory near Austin a building three times the size of the Pentagon was completed in just 18 months.

Scroll to Continue

If you had a gun to [California Governor Gavin Newsoms] head and said we need to start building this factory right now, he couldnt do it, Musk said. There are so many regulatory agencies and so many litigators in California that want to stop you from doing anything that even if youre the governor of the state, you cannot get it done, he added.

Musk laid the blame for Californias challenges on its political environment.

Its a one-party state, Musk complained, noting that Democrats hold a super-majority in the state legislature and all of the statewide elected offices. The states elected officials will never be responsive except to the people that funded them, he added.

Ultimately the people of California have to get fed up and demand change, Musk added. Theres got to be an above 0% chance of the Republicans winning in California.

Of the many companies Musk founded or boosted over the years, most were founded in California, including PayPal (PYPL) - Get PayPal Holdings, Inc. Report, SpaceX, the Boring Company, Neuralink and Tesla.

Excerpt from:

Elon Musk Says Three Things Are Ruining California - TheStreet

Officially, NASA intends to land astronauts on Mars by about 2040, give or take a year or two. Recently, SpaceXs president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell,told CNBCthat the aerospace company will beat NASA to Mars by at least a decade.

Ordinarily, these kinds of predictions would cause eye rolling. However, SpaceX, under the direction of its CEO, Elon Musk, has accomplished things that were once considered science fiction, including the routine landing and reuse of its workhorse rocket the Falcon 9. When anyone associated with SpaceX talks, the world listens.

Musks long-term goal is to establish a human settlement on Mars. That goal seems to inform just about everything else he has undertaken during his career as an entrepreneur. The Starship, the massive reusable rocket that SpaceX is developing at its facility in Boca Chica, Texas, is intended to be the instrument of that goal, as it may take the first settlers and supplies across the interplanetary gulfs to the red planet.

What has to happen before Shotwells prediction becomes reality? First, the Federal Aviation Administration has toapprove the Starship for flight, a process that has been repeatedly delayed but is now scheduled for the end of May 2022.

When launches of the Starship/Superheavy rocket proceed from Boca Chica, many things must go right in short order for Shotwells promise of humans on Mars before this decade is out to happen. The first thing will be for the rocket to conduct orbital missions successfully, with both the Super Heavy and the Starship landing back at Boca Chica without exploding.According to Bloomberg, Shotwell hopes those flights will begin the summer of 2022.

Next, SpaceX will have to prove it is capable of in-orbit refueling. Refueling capability will be crucial for the Human Landing System variant of the Starship to take astronauts and cargo to the moon and back as part of NASAs Project Artemis to return to the moon. Currently, SpaceX is scheduled to conduct an uncrewed mission to the lunar surface in 2024 and then land the first humans on the moon since the end of the Apollo program the following year.

If all of the above happens successfully, then SpaceX might be ready to send a Starship to Mars. The first one will likely be uncrewed, packed with cargo, including equipment to start setting up an initial Mars base. One crucial device will be a machine to turn Martian air, primarily carbon dioxide, into rocket fuel methane, to be precise. Musk is already developing ways toconvert CO2 to methane on Earth,which not only would help create rocket fuel but also could remove a greenhouse gas from this planets atmosphere.

A cargo Starship mission to Mars would have lots of room to carry shared payloads. Presumably, an organization that wants to send a rover or anything else to the red planet would be able to buy a ride.

The final launch window for Mars in this decade would take place in late 2028 and early 2029. For Shotwells promise to be fulfilled, the first human expedition to Mars must depart from Earth during that window.

The voyage would be fraught with great danger. Radiation and the rigors of microgravity will threaten the astronauts on the trip to Mars. After having landed on the red planet, explorers are expected to confront a myriad of conditions that could kill them. Indeed, Musk has warned that a certain number of people who go to Marswill likely die in the attempt.

Will the crew of the first Starship to Mars return to Earth after a sojourn of exploration and discovery? Or will they pledge to stay on Mars, preparing the way for the settlers who follow their lead?

Will NASA and other national space agencies such as the European Space Agency pay for seats for their own astronauts? If SpaceX pulls this off, the idea of a government-centric expedition to Mars would seem superfluous.

Any attempt to send astronauts on a 100 million-mile voyage to Mars will be risky. For a private company, even SpaceX, to undertake it will seem to be incredible. A disaster would redound very badly for SpaceX and Musk. But success would be history making, to say the least.

MarkR.Whittingtonis the authorofspace explorationstudiesWhy is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?as well asThe Moon, Mars and Beyond,andWhy is America Going Back to the Moon?He blogs atCurmudgeons Corner.

More:

SpaceX says it will beat NASA to Mars this decade - The Hill