Category Archives: Spacex

Virgin Orbit, a flight company set up by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, has completed a second launch demonstration that carried 10 payloads for NASA's Launch Services Program.

Rather than traditional rocket-launching tech used by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX, Virgin Orbit launches its rockets from the wing of an aircraft while in flight.

SEE: Building the bionic brain (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

According to Virgin Orbit, one of its LauncherOne rockets reached space during its second launch demonstration.

Virgin Orbit contends that its air launch system is better than ground-based launch pads because the rockets have a superior payload capacity and it's less vulnerable to the weather conditions that have hampered many SpaceX launches.

Virgin Orbit's carrier aircraft was a customized Boeing 747-400, which took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 10:50 A.M. It flew out to a launch site over the Pacific Ocean, about 50 miles south of the California's Channel Islands, according to Virgin Orbit.

The two-stage rocket ignited and propelled into orbit, deploying 10 CubeSats. The launch demonstrated that affordable access to space is possible, Virgin Orbit said.

The Virgin Orbit payloads were part of the NASA's LSP CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI).

With this successful demonstration in the books, Virgin Orbit will officially transition into commercial service for its next mission. Virgin Orbit said it has launches booked by customers ranging from the US Space Force and the UK's Royal Air Force, and onto commercial customers like Swarm Technologies, Italy's SITAEL, and Denmark's GomSpace.

SEE: 10 tech predictions that could mean huge changes ahead

In contrast, SpaceX delayed its first launch for 2021 yesterdaydue to bad weather conditions. It was meant to carry 60 Starlink broadband-beaming satellites. Still, much of the momentum is with Musk's approach with reused rocket boosters, which havecarried almost 1,000 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbitat an altitude of about 340 miles (550 km).

Blue Originbeat SpaceX to the mark on reusable rockets, but Amazon has yet to launch any of the 3,236 broadband satellites the Federal Communications Commission has approved for it to operate. Last month Amazon unveiled aprototype of the end-user terminalsit plans to use, which its engineers said were smaller and more cost efficient than Starlink's.

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SpaceX rival? Virgin Orbit just used a modified 747 to launch a rocket into space - ZDNet

BAILLIE Gifford US Growth Trust hailed the achievements of biotechnology company Moderna and entrepreneur Elon Musks SpaceX venture as it revealed it had outperformed dramatically in its first half.

And it now sees a chance that we are now at the beginning of the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 810 million investment trust posted a return on net asset value of 53.8 per cent for the six months to November 30. The S&P 500 index recorded a return of 11.1% in sterling terms.

Baillie Gifford US Growth noted Moderna, which it has held since 2018, is one of the biotechnology companies which has been at the forefront of coronavirus vaccine development.

Moderna is among several players to have achieved vaccine success.

The trust said: After a long and bleak year, we have entered 2021 with light at the end of the tunnel. Countries around the world are starting to vaccinate their populations. The number of people whose immune systems are primed to fight coronavirus is growing each day. We must not get complacent, and there is still a long road ahead, but there is a chance that we are now at the beginning of the end of the pandemic. We have science to thank for this. Vaccine development has traditionally taken years.

It added: As well as capital and will, modern science has been an important catalyst for this breakthrough...The coronavirus vaccine is Modernas first commercial product. Its approval has important read-across for Modernas drug development platform more broadly.

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Looking at the overall picture, the trust said the pace of innovation is speeding up and spreading out, and that this ought to be a fruitful environment for growth investors.

Declaring SpaceX had been innovating at a breathtaking pace, it added: 2020 was the year that America sent astronauts to the space station again. SpaceXs crewed mission was a first for a private company. Starlink, SpaceXs satellite-based high-speed broadband service, is up and running in beta, with over 900 satellites orbiting the earth delivering internet to users. And in Texas, SpaceX has been rapidly developing its Starship rocket, the vehicle it hopes will take people back to the Moon and then on to Mars.

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Between its launch on March 23, 2018 and November 30, 2020, the trusts return on net asset value was 185.7%. This compares with a return of 56.2% for the S&P 500 index.

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'There is a chance that we are now at the beginning of the end of the pandemic' - HeraldScotland

SpaceX's latest Starship prototype needs some maintenance work before it can take to the skies.

On Wednesday (Jan. 13), the Starship SN9 prototype performed three "static fire" tests in rapid succession at SpaceX's South Texas site, firing up its three Raptor engines while the vehicle remained anchored to the ground.

These brief burns were part of the preflight routine for SN9, which is being groomed for a high-altitude test. That big hop could have happened as soon as this weekend, had Wednesday's static fires gone perfectly smoothly. But there were apparently a few hiccups.

Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-colonizing vehicles in images

"Two of the engines need slight repairs, so will be switched out," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter early this morning (Jan. 15).

Musk did not give a target launch date for SN9. But he did say, in another tweet, that it's "probably wise" to perform another static fire with the vehicle after the engine swap is complete. So a weekend launch for SN9 seems pretty unlikely.

SpaceX is developing Starship to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations. The architecture consists of a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft called Starship and a giant rocket known as Super Heavy. Both of these vehicles will be fully and rapidly reusable, Musk has said.

SN9's coming flight is expected to be similar to that of its predecessor, the three-engine SN8, which soared about 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers) into the Texas skies on Dec. 9. That flight, the first high-altitude test for any Starship prototype, went extremely well, Musk has said, even though SN8 didn't stick its landing.

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 Facebook.

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SpaceX swapping out two engines on Starship SN9 prototype ahead of test flight - Space.com

SpaceX is preparing to rocket the latest prototype of its Starship spaceship thousands of feet into the air, then land it gently back on the ground.

If the company can pull off this tricky manoeuvre cutting the rocket's engines back on as it plummets toward Earth, just in time to turn it upright, slow its fall, and steadily set down on a landing pad it will be the first time a Starship vehicle has ventured so high and returned in one piece.

Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, wants the final Starship-Super Heavy launch system to be fully and rapidly reusable.

If Musk's plan succeeds, Starship may slash the cost of reaching space 1,000-fold, powerround-the-world hypersonic travelon Earth, andfly astronauts to the moon.

Musk hassaidthat his ultimate plan is to build 1,000 Starships that will carry enough people and cargo to Mars to build anindependent, self-sustaining city there.

SpaceX firstlaunched a Starship prototypeof this kind on December 8. Called Starship serial No. 8, or SN8, it roared tens of thousands of feet above the company'sexpanding facilities at Boca Chica, Texas.

SN8 then tipped its nosecone forward, cut off its engines, and began to plummet. As the vehicle neared the ground in a belly-flop-like freefall, it re-fired its engines to flip upright and slow its descent.

However, low pressure in a propellant tank caused the spaceship to fall too fast, slam into its landing pad, andcatastrophically explode.

SpaceX still considered the seven-minute test flight a success, though, because it was inherently an experiment and one that flew higher than ever before and performed unprecedented manoeuvres.

For example, SN8's flight achieved sequential rocket-engine shutdowns, aerial flips, and a belly flop made stable via wing flaps. (Previous test flights had been "hops," with prototypeslaunching a few hundred feet into the air, then landing downrange.)

Now SpaceX is set for another major test flight, and this time it could stick the landing.

Like its predecessor, the new prototype, called SN9, is 16 stories tall and powered by three Raptor engines. SN9tipped overinside a vertical assembly building onDecember 11, but SpaceX appeared to make quick repairs and roll it out to a beachside launch pad.

In preparation for launch, SpaceX clamped down the SN9 and test-fired its engines three times on Wednesday a record static-fire rate for the Starship program.

The company seemed prepared to launch this week, but two of the engines needed repairs, Musktweetedon Thursday. Muskaddedthat he's hoping SpaceX can speed up the engine-swapping process so that it takes "a few hours at most."

SpaceX appears to be targeting a Monday launch. The Federal Aviation Administration issued anairspace closure noticefor a rocket launch from Boca Chica for that day from 8 am to 6 pm CST. The FAA issued similar notices for Tuesday and Wednesday back-up dates in case weather or glitches cause SpaceX to delay the test flight.

Both airspace closure and local road closures are required for launch. The Cameron County judge has issued Boca Chicaroad-closure noticesfor Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8 am to 5 pm CST.

SpaceX may broadcast the launch attempt live on YouTube. Several online broadcasters, such asNASASpaceFlight.comandLabPadre, also plan to stream live video footage of the flight. We will embed these live feeds below once they're available.

A series of events typically precedes a Starship prototype launch.

A couple of hours beforehand, SpaceX will clear the launch site of personnel. Roughly an hour ahead of flight, storage tanks at the launch site will begin venting gases as SpaceX prepares to fuel Starship with cryogenic fuels. Fuelling later causes Starship to vent gases out of its top, signalling that launch could occur within minutes.

Poor weather, a technical glitch, or a boat entering the launch's danger zone a new challenge for Starship could lead to delays.

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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SpaceX Hopes to Launch And Land Starship No. 9 This Week - ScienceAlert

Elon Musks venture to bring superfast internet to areas outside of existing broadband coverage is set to expand into another major market, after securing critical regulatory clearance of its antennas.

Starlinks user terminals were granted a license from the U.K.s communications authority, Ofcom, in November, the regulator confirmed to MarketWatch. The user terminals are akin to antennas or satellite dishes that each customer needs to tap into the internet network.

Starlink is a part of the billionaire Tesla TSLA, -2.23% chief executives space-exploration company SpaceX, which is private, but Musk has indicated that the company may go public.

The internet venture plans to use a constellation of 12,000 low-Earth satellites to bring customers superfast internet.

Read this opinion: SpaceX will need to solve these two problems for Starlink to be successful

SpaceX has already launched close to a thousand satellites for the company, which has begun beta-testing its service in the U.S., where the service costs $99 a month in addition to $499 for the home hardware.

The U.K. license marks a major expansion by Starlink into Europe, where Germany and Greece have also cleared the user terminals, according to local media. Australia has also green-lit the antennas.

Starlinks push into the U.K. means that it could end up competing against a satellite internet company controlled by a consortium including the U.K. government.

Also: Teslas stock falls, in danger of first decline since before Christmas Day

Ofcoms clearance for the Starlink terinals came four months after the U.K. took a 400 million ($539 million), 45% stake in satellite firm OneWeb along with Indias Bharti Global. OneWeb, which went bankrupt in March 2020, was building a space network for broadband internet.

In late December 2020, Musk said via Twitter TWTR, -1.33% that it will most likely make sense for Starlink to go public once the revenue growth is reasonably predictable.

Starlinks U.K. terminals license was previously reported by The Telegraph over the weekend.

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Elon Musk's satellite internet venture, powered by SpaceX, is expanding into this major market - MarketWatch

Here's our curated list of important tech news from this week in byte size.

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Lenovo has introduced ThinkReality A3 smart glasses for the enterprise. From customised virtual monitors and 3D visualisation to Augmented Reality-assisted workflows and immersive training, the smart glasses can be used to transform work across many levels of the enterprise, Lenovo noted in a statement. The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform, and through stereoscopic 1080p displays users can see up to 5 virtual displays. Plus, an 8MP RGB camera provides 1080p video for remote expert use cases while the dual fish-eye cameras provide room-scale tracking. The glasses will be available in select markets worldwide starting mid-2021. In another update, Facebook Reality Labs Research said it is working on developing technology to help people hear better in noisy environments using augmented reality glasses.

SpaceX has received permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch 10 Starlink satellites into polar orbit at an altitude of 560 km. The deployment and operation of these satellites will facilitate development and testing of SpaceXs broadband service in high latitude geographic areas, where SpaceX has expressed an intention to provide service to areas underserved or unserved by terrestrial systems, including to Federal broadband user, an FCC document stated. Recently, the aerospace company also started testing Starlink internet service in the U.K. In another development, Elon Musks Tesla has officially entered India.

Microsoft has introduced PowerPoint presenter view on Teams in public preview mode, OnMSFT reported. The presenter view feature allows people to refer to their notes for individual slides and also move between slides using the thumbnail strip, when giving a presentation on Teams. People can access this feature by clicking on the share icon, and then select the PowerPoint file for their presentation. The new feature gives more flexibility to presenters as they can see the presentation slide, their notes and the slide thumbnail strip in a single screen. Users can currently access this feature by joining the public preview program for Teams. In another update, Microsoft has introduced a new set of features to improve the meeting experience for users on the Teams platform.

Rolls-Royce and the UK Space Agency have started a research to explore the potential of nuclear power in space exploration. Nuclear powered engine could be twice as efficient as the chemical engines that power the rockets today, and could make it to Mars in just 3 to 4 months roughly half the time of the fastest possible trip in a spacecraft using the current chemical propulsion, a U.K. government release noted. It would also radically reduce the dose of radiation taken on by astronauts that would be making future trips to Mars or other planets, it added. In another development, researchers at Durham University developed supercomputer simulations that shows how ancient collision may have led to the formation of the Moon.

Logitech has announced a new portfolio of video conferencing devices which will support services like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. The Logitech Rally Bar is designed for mid-sized rooms and the Rally Bar Mini for small rooms, and could transform meetings with cinema-quality video and crisp, clear audio in an all-in-one design, the company noted in a release. In addition, a new computing appliance called RoomMate, will allow people to run video conferencing services on Logitech conference cams like Rally Plus without a PC or Mac. The new devices will be available around the end of this quarter. Recently, Dell introduced a line up of desktops and laptops to suit professionals working from home.

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Weekly Bytes | Lenovos smart glasses, SpaceX expanding Starlinks reach, and more - The Hindu

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Jan. 7 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with the the Turksat 5A communications satellite, the first launch from Floridas Space Coast in 2021. Credit: SpaceX

Military officials in charge of the Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral project more than 50 launches from Floridas Space Coast this year, with SpaceX responsible for most of the launch activity, the vice commander of the 45th Space Wing said this week.

The Florida spaceport hosted 31 launches in 2020, including 30 space missions and a high-altitude atmospheric test flight of SpaceXs Crew Dragon abort system.

We closed the year with the highest number of launches conducted in the past 10 years, and look to break that record again in 2021, said Col. Brande Walton, vice commander of the 45th Space Wing, which oversees launch operations at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the neighboring Kennedy Space Center.

In fact, the 30 successful launches from Florida last year that sent payloads into orbit, and destinations beyond, set a record.Before 2020, the previous record for launches from the Space Coast that reached orbit was 29, a mark set in 1966.

But there were numerous suborbital launches, missile tests, and sounding rocket flights from Cape Canaveral not counted in the orbital mission tally in the early years of the Space Age. In 1963, there were 133 known suborbital and orbital launches from the Space Coast, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at theHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks global satellite and launch activity.

Looking forward, we plan to hit the ground running in 2021, Walton said during virtual presentation to the National Space Club Florida Committee. We currently have 53 launches on our manifest for this year, with one in the books already.

The first launch of 2021 from Cape Canaveral was the successful liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Jan. 7 with the Turksat 5A communications satellite for Turkey.

Its shaping to be another remarkable year for launches on the Space Coast, with three human spaceflight missions, two of them on SpaceXs Crew Dragon, and one on Boeings new Starliner spacecraft, Walton said.

The historic first flight of SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts was a highlight of last years busy pace of launch activity. NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken launched May 30 on the Crew Dragon demonstration flight aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

Hurley and Behnken completed their two-month test flight to the International Space Station in early August, setting the stage for the first operational Crew Dragon mission, which took off Nov. 15 with four astronauts on-board.

Other landmark missions launched from Florida in 2020 included Solar Orbiter, a European-built spacecraft that will take the first pictures of the Suns poles, NASAs Perseverance Mars rover, and the first launch into a polar orbit from Cape Canaveral since the 1960s, Walton said.

Launch operators and range officials accomplished most of the missions last year after the coronavirus pandemic forced many employees to remote work, and launch crews practiced physical distancing and wore masks to combat the spread of the disease.

Officials from the 45th Space Wing projected 48 launches in 2020 at the beginning of last year, an uptick in missions primarily driven by SpaceXs Starlink internet network.

Launch delays, a fact of life in the space business, meant SpaceX and ULA fell short of their projected launch numbers last year. That could happen again in 2021.

Military officials have streamlined processes to more rapidly turn around the Eastern Range between launches.

In recent decades, the range could only accommodate launches separated by 48 hours. With the introduction of automated flight safety systems, which would destroy an errant rocket if it flew off course, and upgraded GPS-based tracking capabilities, theres a reduced demand on ground infrastructure and range safety officers for each launch.

That has allowed the 45th Space Wing to reduce staffing levels to support missions equipped with an automated flight safety system. SpaceXs Falcon rockets are currently flying with the automated safety system, and United Launch Alliance plans to use a similar system on its next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket.

With the new technology, Space Force officials have said the Eastern Range can now support missions from different launch pads less than 24 hours apart.

Elon Musk, SpaceXs founder and CEO, has said the company plans up to 48 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions in 2021. Up to a half-dozen of those launches are expected to take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at SpaceXs West Coast launch pad.

Eight of ULAs up to 10 planned missions this year will launch from Cape Canaveral. A Delta 4-Heavy and an Atlas 5 mission are scheduled to launch from Vandenberg this year, with seven more Atlas 5s on the Florida launch schedule.

ULA says the new Vulcan rocket, designed to eventually replace the Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rocket families, could be ready to take off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight in late 2021.

The projection of 53 launches includes the debut flights of the Vulcan rocket and NASAs Space Launch System heavy-lifter, a huge launcher designed to send crews back to the Moon, Walton said. The first SLS demonstration flight, also scheduled for late 2021, will not carry any astronauts.

The team is also prepped and very excited to take part in a few inaugural launches from ULA and NASA, Walton said. As you can see with 53 launches on the launch manifest, we plan to make this year another record-breaking year with no plans to slow down anywhere in the near future.

Assuming the 53-launch forecast counts ULAs eight planned missions from Cape Canaveral and the first SLS test launch, the 45th Space Wing presumably expects SpaceX to perform the remaining 44 flights from Floridas Space Coast.

Given Musks goal of 48 launches in 2021, with a handful of of those missions originating from Vandenberg, SpaceX could be planning around that number of launches from Florida.

There are around 18 publicly-known SpaceX launches scheduled from the Space Coast this year for external customers, including two or three launches using SpaceXs triple-body Falcon Heavy rocket, according to a count by Spaceflight Now.

At least two Falcon Heavy launches are firmly scheduled this year, each carrying payloads for the Space Force. Other SpaceX flights will loft crews and cargo to the space station, commercial communications satellites, and a GPS navigation spacecraft.

Aside from the Vulcans first flight, ULAs Florida launch schedule includes two Atlas 5 launches with unpiloted and crewed test flights of Boeings Starliner capsule, an Atlas 5 flight with NASAs Lucy asteroid exploration probe, and several Atlas 5s for the Space Force.

SpaceX officials have said missions for external customers take priority over the companys internal Starlink missions. When theres room in the Falcon 9 manifest, SpaceX says it builds enough Starlink satellites to launch batches of 60 as often as once every two weeks, or up to 26 missions in a year.

Fourteen launches from the Space Coast last year carried Starlink satellites into orbit, nearly half of all the launches from Florida in 2020.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Officials forecast than 50 launches from Florida's Space Coast this year - Spaceflight Now

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, was created with the mission of taking humans to Mars. Nearly two decades on, it's already taken NASA astronauts to orbit and accomplished plenty of other milestones along the way.

Elon Musk caught on film by National Geographic during the Falcon Heavy launch.

If you're having a hard time keeping up with SpaceX's plans toreplace international airline flights with orbital rocket trips, create a global broadband network and develop a Mars rocket, don't worry. We created this SpaceX primer so you can get up to speed fast.

In 2002, Musk and friends traveled to Russiato buy a refurbished intercontinental ballistic missile. The Silicon Valley prodigy who made millions off internet startups wasn't looking to start a business at the time. He wanted to spend a big chunk, or maybe all of his fortune, on a stunt he hoped would reinvigorate interest in funding NASA and space exploration.

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The idea was to buy a Russian rocket on the cheap and use it to send plants or mice to Mars -- and hopefully bring them back, too. Ideally, the spectacle would get the world excited about space again. But Musk's Moscow meeting didn't go well and he decided he could build rockets himself, calculating that he could undercut existing launch contractors in the process. SpaceX was founded just a few months later.

Musk initially hoped to make it to Mars by 2010, but just getting one rocket into orbit took six years. A SpaceX Falcon 1 orbited Earth for the first time on Sept. 28, 2008. This paved the way for a nine-engine version of the rocket, the Falcon 9, the company's workhorse since its first launch in 2010.

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Falcon 9 is a two-stage orbital rocket that's been used to launch satellites for companies and governments, resupply the International Space Station and even send the US Air Force's super-secret space plane on its mysterious long missions. Over the past nine years the company has flown more than 80 Falcon 9 missions.

What really sets Falcon 9 apart from the competition is its unprecedented ability to send a payload into orbit and then have its first stage return to Earth, landing either on solid ground or on a floating droneship landing pad at sea, another SpaceX innovation. After a few explosive failed attempts, a Falcon 9 finally landed safely on Dec. 22, 2015, and a few months later another touched down on a droneship for the first time. Several recovered Falcon 9 rockets have since flown and landed again.

On May 11, 2018, SpaceX launched its first Block 5 Falcon 9 rocket, the "final version" designed to be reused up to 100 times with periodic refurbishments. In 2020, we saw multiple Falcon 9 boosters launch and land up for the seventh time in their individual careers. Reusing the nose cone multiple times is also becoming routine practice.

SpaceX's Dragon craft has been used to carry cargo to the International Space Station and on May 31, 2020, its Crew Dragon made history as the first commercial spaceship to send astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS. Dragon was also the first commercial spacecraft to be recovered after a trip from orbit.

NASA selected Crew Dragon, along with Boeing's Starliner, to be the first spacecraft to carry astronauts to the ISS since the end of the shuttle program. The initiative suffered a setback in April 2019 when an unoccupied Crew Dragon exploded during a ground test because of a leak in the pressurization system.

But the first flight of Crew Dragon with humans aboard was a success. Hurley and Behnken then rode the Dragon back to Earth a few months later, and another group of four astronauts, including one from Japan's JAXA, took the second trip to orbit on a Crew Dragon in November 2020.

SpaceX grabbed heaps of attention in February of 2018 when it launched Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket launched from the US since the Saturn V that sent astronauts to the moon. Basically, three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together, the huge launch system sent a test payload consisting of Musk's personal red Tesla Roadster in the direction of Mars. Two of the three Falcon 9s that made up Falcon Heavy also landed nearly simultaneously at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

More than 15 years after his initial trip to Moscow, Musk finally pulled off the international spectacle he had conceived in 2001, and he's also built a viable business in the process.

The second launch of Falcon Heavy came April 11, 2019, and was followed by the first successful landing of all three first-stage rocket cores. A third Falcon Heavy launch was conducted June 25, 2019, and SpaceX took reusability a step further bycatching the payload fairing (the nose cone that shields the payload during launch) using a ship equipped with a gigantic net.

As for Starman, he finally made a close pass by Mars in October, 2020

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You can watch every Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch via the company's website and YouTube channel. Quite a few of them are also carried on CNET Highlights. Each broadcast typically goes live about 15 minutes before the scheduled launch time.

To keep up with the constantly changing schedule of launches, the best source is the SpaceX Twitter feed. It's also a good idea to follow Musk's account, if you don't already. You can also check our own feed of SpaceX stories to quickly get up to speed with what the company is up to.

SpaceX plans to use Falcon Heavy to launch some large payloads in the coming months, but it's already at work on an even bigger rocket called Starship (previously referred to BFR, Big Falcon Rocket or Big F***ing Rocket). Musk hopes this even more massive rocket will be able to transport cargo and eventually human passengers around the world and the solar system. He envisions using Starship to ferry people on superfast international flights via space and eventually to bases yet to be built on the moon, Mars and beyond.

A single-engine Starship prototype called Starhopper left the ground for the first time on July 25, 2019, hovering about 20 meters (66 feet) off the ground before landing a short distance away at SpaceX's test facility in south Texas. This was followed by a few more hops in late 2019 and mid-2020.

The first high-altitude flight of a prototype that actually looks more like a rocket came on Dec. 10, 2020. The prototype SN8 successfully flew to a height similar to the cruising altitude of commercial jets and then performed a new flip maneuver to come in for a landing. It came in a bit fast, however, and the flight ended in a spectacular explosion. We expect to see a few more of these high-flying tests in 2021 with the goal of getting that landing down and also reaching orbit soon.

SpaceX SN8 flew high and landed hard.

Musk offered his plans for a large city on Mars at two International Aeronautical Congress meetings, but he has yet to give many details on what life on the Red Planet would be like. He's said SpaceX is primarily interested in providing the transportation, while allowing others to worry about the infrastructure. However, company President Gwynne Shotwell said it might make sense for SpaceX sister venture, the Boring Company, to bore tunnels on Mars that could be used for human habitation.

Paul Wooster, the company's lead engineer for its Mars plan, said at the 2018 Mars Society conference that the first people sent to the Red Planet would live on the landed Starship spacecraft indefinitely while building habitation, landing pads and other initial infrastructure.

SpaceX isn't just working on getting things into space. It has also started operating in space to bring the universe to us. In May 2019, the company launched a first batch of 60 small satellites designed to lead the way for a massive constellation of broadband satellites. The plan, dubbed Starlink, is to use up to 42,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit to blanket the globe with high-speed internet access. The company says the service could create a new stream of revenue to help fund its pricey Mars ambitions.

A second batch of 50 satellites launched six months later, with more to follow in relatively rapid succession. The scale of the project has some astronomers worried that a sky filled with thousands of satellites could interfere with their observations. The trains of newly launched satellites are easily viewable from the ground as they gain altitude. SpaceX says it plans to work with astronomers and take steps to mitigate Starlink's impacts on astronomy, including launching satellites with a sunshade dubbed "visorsat" to reduce their reflectivity.

As the company worked towards its first 1,000 Starlink satellites launched, it launched a beta of its broadband service in the final quarter of 2020 limited to northern latitudes. The rollout is expected to expand in 2021.

Since its inception, SpaceX has aimed to get to Mars, but the company is involved in non-space-related projects on Earth like the high-speed Hyperloop transit concept. Musk's Boring Company tunnel-digging and traffic-mitigating ventures are also largely operating out of SpaceX headquarters in Southern California.

Unlike the other big Musk company, Tesla Motors, SpaceX isn't publicly traded. Musk has said he doesn't plan to take SpaceX public until the company realizes its Mars ambitions. That means SpaceX might make sense as the home of any other future Muskian side projects like Hyperloop and the Boring Company in the meantime.

Originally published June 2, 2018, and updated as new SpaceX developments come in.

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SpaceX simplified: Everything you need to know about Elon Musk's rocket empire - CNET

Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

LONDON SpaceX's satellite broadband service Starlink is now being tested in the U.K. after it was given a license by U.K. telecoms regulator Ofcom.

Starlink was issued with an "Earth station network licence" in November, an Ofcom spokesperson told CNBC on Tuesday. SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

The 200 ($272) a year license allows Starlink to sell satellite dishes and other communications equipment in the U.K. so that people can pick up signals emitted by Starlink's network of satellites.

Founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, SpaceX is an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company. It announced that it was creating the Starlink subdivision in 2015.

Musk, who is now the world's richest person, has said he wants to improve internet access in parts of the world that aren't currently served by broadband providers. He plans to do this by putting thousands of small telecoms satellites into low-Earth orbit that can beam high-speed, low-latency internet to the ground.

In an interview last March, Musk said SpaceX could make up to $30 billion a year by providing broadband. He said that Starlink will be "helpful to telcos because Starlink will serve the hardest to serve customers" adding that 5G isn't great for the countryside because "you need range."

Starlink, which will compete with the U.K.'s OneWeb, is aiming to have 1,440 of its 260 kg (570 lb) satellites in orbit by late 2021.

The company, which is primarily focused on connecting rural areas where internet is unreliable or not available, has been inviting people in the U.S. and Canada to try its service since October.

It is now inviting people in the U.K. via email, according to reports and social media users. Starlink is charging U.K. customers 439 for the satellite dish and other communications equipment, as well as an 89 monthly fee and a 54 shipping fee.

Those that test the service can expect data speeds of between 50 megabits per second (Mbps) and 150 Mbps, according to reports. The average broadband speed in the U.K. is 64 Mbps but those in rural areas often struggle to get anywhere near that. It's unclear how many homes and offices are currently using Starlink's service.

SpaceX set up a U.K. entity in London called Starlink Internet Services last August, according to a document filed on U.K. companies registry Companies House.

A photo of what appears to be one of the first Starlink deliveries in the U.K. was shared on Reddit by Philip Hall, who lives in rural Devon, southwest England.

"As an enthusiast with no prospect of fibre (broadband) in the near term, I enrolled on the beta quite early," Hall told CNBC via Reddit on Thursday.

Hall, who once deployed air defense networks for the U.K. military, said: "The tech capability in this, at consumer level, is astonishing."

In terms of performance, Hall said he can consistently get 80 Mbps download speeds at home.

He suspects he got a Starlink dish because the company wants data ahead of a commercial rollout and he's on the right latitude.

Describing the setup, Hall said it's just like many other appliances. He installed an app on his Android phone, checked to ensure the dish had a clear view of the sky (something that was easy in rural Devon) and plugged it in. "The app asks you to register a name and password and you're cooking," he said.

Greece, Germany and Australia have also reportedly approved Starlink's offering.

Link:

Elon Musk's SpaceX starts testing Starlink broadband service in the English countryside - CNBC

SpaceX is getting closer and closer to realizing the design for its Starship and Super Heavy launch system. Once complete, it will be the worlds first fully-reusable launch system and will facilitate trips to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the Moon, and Mars. Construction began on the systems booster element (Super Heavy) this past summer and, according to a recent tweet by Musk, will be caught by its launch tower.

The tweet came (as they often do) in response to a question from one of Musks followers. In this case, it was a space designer who goes by the Twitter handle Erc X (@ErcXspace) who produced a video that illustrates what the Super Heavy might look like as it returns to its landing site. The video is captioned with a question: Accurate Super Heavy Descent profile?

Musk responded by tweeting:

Were going to try to catch the Super Heavy Booster with the launch tower arm, using the grid fins to take the load Saves mass & cost of legs & enables immediate repositioning of booster on to launch mountready to refly in under an hour.

The following day, a 3D designer (Youtube handle Mini3D) created an animation based on this description (shown below). It depicts the launch tower with a harness, which takes hold of the Super Heavy booster after it lowers itself into the arms. The harness then lowers the booster to a landing pad, thus eliminating the need for landing legs and increasing the odds of a safe recovery.

As Musk indicated, this catch system is also part of what he hopes will amount to regular trips to space. In the past, Musk has hinted that his long-term vision is to scale-up production of the Starship to the point where they can build 100 a year for ten years (creating a fleet of 1000). This fleet, he claimed, could transport 100 megatons of cargo or 100,000 people to Mars every 26 months (when Earth and Mars are closest in their orbits).

With that kind of capacity for hauling supplies, equipment, robots, and passengers, Musk would be able to realize his dream of constructing a colony on Mars by the late 2020s. Whether or not that highly ambitious goal will be achieved in this decade (or ever, for that matter) remains to be seen. But in the meantime, Musk could make good on a number of things hes mentioned in the past.

For starters, SpaceX could deploy batches of Starlink satellites much more rapidly and create the fabled megaconstellation that will bring broadband internet to every corner of the world. It could also fulfill Musks plan to provide intercontinental commercial flights here at home, giving travelers the ability to fly halfway around the world in less than an hour.

The ability to launch Starships with such rapid turnaround will also facilitate SpaceXs goal of making regular trips to the Moon. As per their contractual obligations with NASA through the Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (CATALYST) program SpaceX will be sending cargo and crews to the Moon in support of Project Artemis.

As with every radical new idea, fans and critics of Musk alike will be waiting for updates on this latest proposal!

Further Reading: Gizmodo

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SpaceXs Next Idea: to Catch Super Heavy Boosters With the Launch Tower - Universe Today