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SpaceX's rapidly growing satellite Internet business, Starlink, is coming to the U.K. after it received approval from regulators, according to media reports.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that the U.K.'s communications regulator, Ofcom, approved the system for rural Britain in November. The Elon Musk-led company also has received approval from regulators inGreece, Germany, and Australia, according to local news outlets, including Ekathermini.

Germany's federal telecommunications agency, Bundesnetzagentur, gave Starlink approval in late December, according to the agency's website.

Photo credit: Getty Images / Space x

LIFE ON MARS? ELON MUSK SAYS STARSHIP ROCKETS 'DESIGNED TO MAKE LIFE MULTIPLANETARY'

Musk, who recently became the richest man in the world with a fortune surpassing $189 billion, has previously said that Starlink could eventually go public,but only when it has "predictable" and "smooth" revenue growth.

However, much of Musk's net worth is attributed to Tesla and not SpaceX, though SpaceX is valued at approximately $49 billion. The company is also looking to raisenew fundsas itgrowsits rocket business anditsInternet satellite segment.

As of April, Musk said there were 420 Starlink satellites in space, but that number hadgrown to more than 700 satellites byOctober. The company is also boosting the technology here on Earth, having recentlyteamedwith Microsoft to use its Azure cloud computing service to help connect and deploy new services for its Starlink unit.

The service, which is still in beta in the U.S., is targeting a rollout in the northern part of the U.S. and Canada in short order, but no exact time frame has been given yet.

In October 2019, Musk sent a tweet using the Starlink satellite system.

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In October, SpaceX said it wouldprovide free Internet access to 45 families in a Texas school district "early in 2021,"while an additional90 families will get access to the service as the network evolves.

In July 2020, Morgan Stanley said SpaceX could be worth as much as $175 billion if Musk's Starlink Internet service is successful.

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Elon Musk is bringing SpaceX's Internet to the UK - Fox Business

Left: SpaceX founder Elon Musk looks upward during a press briefing on March 2, 2019. Right: SpaceX's Starship serial No. 8 rocket-ship prototype launches from a pad in Boca Chica, Texas, on December 9, 2020. Dave Mosher/Insider; SpaceX

SpaceX is preparing to launch the latest prototype of its Starship spacecraft a system that could one day carry humans to Mars.

The new prototype, called serial No. 9 or SN9, is set to rocket tens of thousands of feet in the air, belly-flop toward the ground, and re-fire its engines to flip upright and land.

SpaceX's first attempt at such a flight with SN8 was successful save for the Starship slamming into and exploding on the landing pad.

SpaceX has permission to launch SN9 as soon as Monday, according to government notices.

Several live video feeds should broadcast the launch attempt, so bookmark this page; we'll embed them closer to launch.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

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 maneuver - 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, power round-the-world hypersonic travel on Earth, and fly astronauts to the moon. Musk has said that his ultimate plan is to build 1,000 Starships that will carry enough people and cargo to Mars to build an independent, self-sustaining city there.

SpaceX first launched a Starship prototype of this kind on December 8. Called Starship serial No. 8, or SN8, it roared tens of thousands of feet above the company's expanding 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.

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However, low pressure in a propellant tank caused the spaceship to fall too fast, slam into its landing pad, and catastrophically 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 maneuvers. 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 prototypes launching 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. SN9 tipped over inside a vertical assembly building on December 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, Musk tweeted on Thursday. Musk added that 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 an airspace closure notice for a rocket launch from Boca Chica for that day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 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 Chica road-closure notices for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST.

SpaceX may broadcast the launch attempt live on YouTube. Several online broadcasters, such as NASASpaceFlight.com and LabPadre, 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. Fueling later causes Starship to vent gases out of its top, signaling 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.

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SpaceX may launch and land its newest Starship rocket prototype on Monday. With any luck, it won't explode. - Yahoo News

To commemorate their greatest accomplishment to date with the Starship, SpaceX has released a recap video of the SN8 high-altitude flight. This was the 12.5 km hop test that took place on December 9th, 2020, which saw the SN8 prototype ascend to an altitude of 12.5 km (7.8 mi), conduct a belly-flop maneuver, and return to the launch pad. While it didnt quite stick the landing, the test was a major milestone in the development of the Starship.

The flight test came after multiple static fire tests were conducted with previous prototypes (the SN1 through SN5), and a series of 150 meter (~500 ft) hop tests with the SN5 and SN6. On October 20th, 2020, another successful static fire test was conducted with the eighth prototype (SN8) using three Raptor engines. With the engines and design validated, the company prepared to conduct its first high-altitude test in December.

The two minute-twenty second video captures the highlights of the test by merging footage from the many different cameras that were recording that day. This included a series of external cams (including a drone cam that follows the SN8 all the way up) cams inside the engine compartment, one on the landing pad, and fuselage-mounted cams.

It begins by showing the engine ignition and the ascent, with all three Ratpor engines producing a trail of orange-blue flames which is the result of its liquid methane and liquid oxygen (LOX) fuel being burned. This is followed by the engine cutoff, where the three Raptor engines disengage (one at a time) as the SN8 nears its apogee of 12.5 km.

In slow motion, we then see the SN8 turn on its side and watch its fins adjusting for the belly-flop maneuver. This portion of the test was meant to validate the prototypes aerodynamic surfaces, which the Starship will rely on to manuever and shed speed while making an atmospheric reentry. The descent is captured from multiple angles using the drone cam and the fuselage cam.

Then comes the flip manuever, where two of the Raptors reignite and gimbal in order to bring the tail around for landing. This is shown from both the side (drone cam) and the ground. The engines them flame up for the landing burn, but fail to slow the SN8 down enough for it to make a soft landing. The touch down and Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) aka. explosion ensue.

This was due to a fuel line pressure issue, which the ground crews quickly identified after the test was complete. Shortly thereafter, Musk took to Twitter to share what they had learned:

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!

Despite the fiery ending, all of the key systems and surfaces involved were validated. These included the ascent, the switchover from the tail to the header fuel tanks (once SN8 reached its apogee), and the precision flap manuever that allowed for a controlled descent. Meanwhile, the crews obtained all the data they needed about the issue that prevented a soft touchdown and will be using it to inform the next round of tests.

The video then ends with the caption that reiterates the successes of this first-ever high altitude flight test:

SN8 DEMONSTRATED A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND CONTROLLED AERODYNAMIC DESCENT AND A LANDING FLIP MANEUVER. TOGETHER THESE WILL ENABLE LANDING WHERE NO RUNWAYS EXIST INCLUDING THE MOON, MARS AND BEYOND.

NEXT UP: SN9.

Speaking of which, all indications are that Musk plans to conduct a hop test with the SN9 and others in the coming weeks. These include Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the airspace around Brownsville, Texas, and road closure notices issued for Cameron Country around the Boca Chica test sight.

These have since been extended, with new NOTAMs issued for next Wednesday and Thursday (Jan. 13th and 14th) from 08:00 AM to 06:00 PM local time (CST) or 06:00 AM to 04:00 PM PST; 09:00 AM to 07:00 PM EDT. Similary, new road closures have been announced for State Highway 4 and Boca Chica Beech in Cameron Country for Monday to Wednesday (Jan. 11th to Jan. 13th).

The SN9 has since been rolled out onto the landing pad and conducted its first static fire test earlier this week (Wed. Jan. 6th). Unfortunately, the test was aborted after a very brief firing and another is likely to happen this coming week before any hop tests are attempted. Meanwhile, the SN10 has been stacked and integrated inside the High Bay and will be ready to roll out as soon as the SN9 has been put through its paces.

The SN11 and SN12 are also being assembled inside the facilitys Mid Bay, with the SN11 almost finished and just in need of its nosecone. Musk has also hinted that he and his crews at the Boca Chica facility will be testing the SN9 and SN10 (and subsequent prototypes) simultaneously. This was in response to a tweet by RGV Aerial Photography (@RGVaerialphotos), which conducts weekly flyovers to take pictures of the Boca Chica facility.

The image in the tweet shows the SN9 on the landing pad, with an earlier picture of the SN8 added (using Photoshop) on the adjacent pad. The image is captioned with a question for Musk: With SN10 nearly complete and repairs being done at the landing pad, do you think this is something we will get to see in the next few weeks? To this, Musk tweeted a reply of, Yes.

2021 is going to be an exciting time for SpaceX, commercial space, and space exploration in general! While the year has seen its share of bad news already, it looks like there are some serious bright lights on the horizon!

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SpaceX Releases a Recap Video of their SN8 Making its Hop Test! - Universe Today

Rob Litterst a Hustle contributor who writes the pricing strategy newsletter Good, Better, Best conducted this interview.

***

Diabetes is a huge problem in America, with 100m+ adults either diabetic or pre-diabetic according to the CDC.

To tackle this issue, Josh Clemente co-founded Levels.

The health startup which recently raised $12m, led by Andreessen Horowitz provides users with a constant glucose monitor (CGM) patch that attaches painlessly to the arm and can do real-time metabolism tracking via an app.

Clemente a hardware engineer who spent 6 years at SpaceX spoke with The Hustle about the startups mission:

***

It actually started from doing my own research on myself I had always had a calorie-in, calorie-out philosophy with my diet where I felt as long as I was working out regularly, it wouldnt really matter what I put in my body.

Then I started to have these episodes where my energy levels would slump to the point that I thought there was something seriously wrong. When doctors couldnt tell me what was going on, I started doing research myself.

That led me down a rabbit hole where I eventually found the profound role that diet plays in holistic health.

I would go out to CVS and buy finger-prick blood sugar tests and record the results in an Excel sheet. After a few weeks of doing 60 tests a day, I realized my energy was highly correlated with glucose levels that were directly tied to my diet.

These single point measurements couldnt really help me make better choices though, so when I discovered a continuous glucose monitor which measures blood sugar 24/7, everything changed. I was able to connect specific actions I was taking with negative reactions in my body in real time.

Honestly, working solo, I wasnt sure how to get started. I knew there was an accessibility problem for this type of data, but it didnt come together immediately.

I was thinking about designing a Continuous Glucose Monitor and bringing that to market, but it took about a year of digging deep into the research and understanding that this problem is just way larger than I ever imagined.

There are 100m+ American adults with pre-diabetes and 84% of them dont know it. The CDC thinks 70% of those people will transition to Type 2 diabetes in the next 5-10 years if they dont make some changes. How are they going to make changes if theyre not measuring anything?

Exactly. It became clear that the people who need this most dont know they need it most, so the solution has to be one thats mainstream, desirable, and effective. In order to get there, I found the hardware wasnt the issue.

What we needed was a better software solution, a better user experience, and behavior-change engine. Being a hardware engineer, I was ill-equipped to do that, so I pitched the business plan to Sam (Corcos), my co-founder, whos a software engineer, multi-time founder, and generally brilliant guy.

It took him about 24 hours to get on board. From there, we incorporated Levels and set out to build a rockstar team.

We really wanted exceptional co-founders in each of the business verticals. So we convinced David Flinter and Andrew Connor from Google to join and run product and engineering.

And then we brought in Casey Means, whos a Stanford-trained surgeon and functional medicine doctor, as our chief medical officer. That covered most of the spectrum of challenges we face.

I would say the first thing that SpaceX really drills is thinking from first principles, and what that means [is] just drilling down to the basic, underlying foundations of a problem. People dont want to be unhealthy nobody wants Type 2 diabetes.

The reason they end up there is because theyre flying blind, and the compounding effects of their choices are heading in a negative direction. And they dont know that until they cross this invisible boundary where suddenly, theyre sick.

At that point, it could be decades too late. So the first principle solution is give people better information in real-time about the effect of each decision theyre making.

The next thing is Closed Loops. A Closed Loop system is where each decision is influenced by the decisions prior, which leads to constant improvement. Were trying to build a behavior-change model that is closed-loop. You sit down for lunch, measure the response, then use that information to determine which action to take next or which to take in the future.

The last one is more of an Elon Musk-ism, which is how were creating a new category. Tesla positioned itself as a luxury good to destigmatize electric vehicles, and were trying to do the same thing for blood-marker monitoring.

By building an aspirational company with premium positioning, we can reframe the entire conversation. We can step out of the post-diagnosis approach to measuring bio-markers and instead say up-front, you are empowered by this technology.

One of the secondary effects Im most excited about is that food companies will have a much harder time getting away with misleading marketing when the consumer is empowered with their own data. When that happens, consumers will demand healthier alternatives, supply will improve, and pricing will come down for those healthier products.

Levels rewrote my nutrition approach from the ground up. After one week, Levels completely kicked a lifelong addiction to sweets. College friends remind me that I used to literally eat candy for dinner.

Id just eat peanut butter M&Ms or Sour Patch Kids until I was full. After seeing that trigger a near-Diabetic episode, I swore off it, and its been 3 years since Ive had any candy besides dark chocolate.

I wear three devices 24/7: Levels, my Garmin 245 watch, and my WHOOP strap. I also just got an Eight Sleep pod pro, which I am so excited about.

This ones easy. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink.

This is my dads tagline, which I believe he got from Mark Twain, but he always said, The most important elements for success are ignorance and confidence.

It comes off wrong because of the ignorance piece, but when it comes to solving hard problems, I believe ignorance is actually an advantage because youre untainted by previous biases.

Combining that with confidence, and believing theres a possibility despite negative signals, thats been huge for Levels. My dads been saying that since I was a kid and its so cool that its clicked.

This ones easy, its Elon. I worked closely with him a few times over my 6 years at SpaceX, and the way that he can manifest the future he wants years in advance is truly incredible. Hell continually make choices that seem detached from reality at the time and then reap the benefits years later.

He doesnt do any angel investing or hedging, he puts all of his net worth into the companies he spends all day on, and when the stakes are highest, thats when he personally doubles down and goes all in.

Ive been reading this book The Decadent Society, and one thing thats really concerning is every corner of the world has a declining birth rate.

Were below our replacement rate, which has me thinking: Is there a way to incentivize building a large family? Its not really a cogent startup idea, but I think theres something there.

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This SpaceX alum co-founded Levels, a health startup that measures your metabolism in real time - The Hustle

SpaceX plans to get even more ambitious with its pinpoint rocket landings.

Elon Musk's company routinely recovers and reuses the first stages of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, bringing the boosters down for soft vertical landings about 9 minutes after liftoff on ground near the launch pad or on autonomous "drone ships" in the ocean.

These touchdowns are impressively precise. But SpaceX aims to achieve something truly mind-blowing with Starship, the next-generation system the company is developing to take people and payloads to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations.

Related: SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy rocket in pictures

"Were going to try to catch the Super Heavy booster with the launch tower arm, using the grid fins to take the load," Musk said via Twitter on Dec. 30.

That's right: SpaceX wants to bring Super Heavy, the giant first stage of the two-stage Starship system, down directly on the launch stand.

Musk has voiced this ambition before, but last week's tweet adds new wrinkles for example, that Super Heavy will ideally be caught by the tower arm, so its touchdowns won't really be landings at all. Unlike Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy first stages, then, Super Heavy won't need landing legs. (The catch-enabling grid fins, by the way, are waffle-like control surfaces that help returning rockets steer during precise touchdowns.)

The newly announced strategy offers several important benefits, Musk said.

"Saves mass and cost of legs and enables immediate repositioning of booster onto launch mount ready to refly in under an hour," he said in another Dec. 30 tweet.

Starship's upper stage is a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft called (somewhat confusingly) Starship. Both Starship and Super Heavy will be fully and rapidly reusable, Musk has stressed, potentially making Mars colonization and other ambitious exploration feats economically feasible.

SpaceX has already built and flown several Starship prototypes from its South Texas facility, near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica. Last month, for example, the SN8 ("Serial No. 8") vehicle soared to an estimated altitude of 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers) and returned to Earth at the designated spot. Though SN8 came in too fast and exploded in a massive fireball, Musk declared the epic test flight a big success.

Another such leap should be coming soon: SpaceX recently moved SN9 to the launch stand. Like SN8, SN9 sports three powerful Raptor engines, so the maximum altitude of its flight may also be in the 7.8-mile range. (The three prototypes that flew before SN8 were single-engine vehicles that got just 500 feet, or 150 m, off the ground.)

The final Starship vehicle will have six Raptors, making it powerful enough to launch itself off the surface of the moon and Mars (but not Earth). Super Heavy will have about 30 Raptors, Musk has said. Though the Starship program has to date devoted most of its time to building and testing spaceship prototypes, it appears that construction of the first Super Heavy prototype is now underway.

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 targets bold new 'catch' strategy for landing Super Heavy rockets - Space.com

A Falcon 9 rocket soars into the sky with 60 Starlink internet satellites after liftoff Oct. 18 from pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: SpaceX

Leading all other nations, U.S. launch providers flew 44 missions in 2020 that aimed to place payloads in Earth orbit or deep space, with 40 successes. China followed with 35 successful orbital missions in 39 launch attempts.

Russias space program was in third place with 17 successful launches of Russian-built rockets in as many tries, including two Soyuz missions from the European-run spaceport in French Guiana. European-built launchers reached orbit four times in five attempts, and Japanese vehicles launched four times, all successfully.

Indias space program, grounded much of the year by the coronavirus pandemic, launched two successful orbital missions in as many attempts. Iran conducted two orbital launch attempts, with one success, and Israel launched a single mission to deliver a military spy satellite into orbit.

The most-flown type of space launchers in 2020 were SpaceXs Falcon 9 and the Russian Soyuz. Chinese Long March rockets flew 34 times more than Falcon 9s or Soyuz rockets but come in a range of configurations, making them difficult to classify into a single family.

The final tally for orbital launches worldwide in 2020 ended up at 104 successful flights in 114 attempts. The ten launch failures were more than global launch providers suffered in a single year since 1971.

Despite the global pandemic, the 114 launch attempts last year tied 2018 for the most orbital launches globally since 1990, when Cold War-era military budgets helped propel more missions into orbit.

In 2019, there were 102 orbital launch attempts around the world, with 97 missions that successfully reached Earth orbit.

SpaceX led all launch companies in 2020 with 25 orbital missions that sent up hundreds of satellites for the companys Starlink internet network, the first two flights with astronauts on SpaceXs Crew Dragon spaceship, two space station resupply missions, and three launches that delivered national security payloads into orbit for the U.S. government.

All 25 orbital missions used Falcon 9 rockets, with 20 of the launches powered by reused Falcon 9 boosters, a capability solely demonstrated by SpaceX. One first stage in SpaceXs fleet flew five times in 2020, the same number of missions performed by United Launch Alliances expendable Atlas 5 rockets or all European rockets last year.

ULA a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, accomplished six missions last year. Five flights with ULAs Atlas 5 rocket carried national security payloads into orbit, launched the European-built Solar Orbiter science mission, and sent NASAs Perseverance rover toward Mars.

A single Delta 4-Heavy launch in December deployed a top secret spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Rocket Lab, builder of the light-class Electron rocket family, conducted seven missions last year, with one failure. The company is headquartered in Long Beach, California, and builds engines and other components in the United States, but assembles and launches its rockets in New Zealand.

Electron rockets are set to begin flying from a new launch pad in Virginia this year. Because of Rocket Labs U.S. headquarters, its launch statistics are counted under the column of U.S. companies.

Northrop Grumman conducted three launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia last year, including two cargo launches to the International Space Station using Antares rockets, and a single flight of a solid-fueled Minotaur 4 rocket with satellites for the NRO.

Two newcomers to the U.S. small satellite launch business conducted their first orbital launch attempts in 2020.

Virgin Orbit, founded by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, performed the first test flight of its airborne-launched LauncherOne rocket off the coast of Southern California in May. Astra, another startup smallsat launch company, launched two of its orbital-class rockets on test flights from Alaska.

The Virgin Orbit and Astra test flights all faltered before reaching orbit, but the companies say they gathered crucial data to set up for additional tries in 2021.

Chinas 39 orbital launch attempts last year ties a record level of Chinese launch activity set in 2018,but China achieved more successful space launches that year.

The four Chinese launch failures this year included a mishap during the debut launch of the Long March 7A rocket in March, a Long March 3B failure in April with the Indonesian Palapa N1 communications satellite, and problems during launches of Chinas light-class Kuaizhou 11 and Kuaizhou 1A rockets in July and September.

Major successes for Chinas space program in 2020 included launches of the Tianwen 1 rover toward Mars in July, and the launch, landing, and return of the Change 5 lunar sample collection mission in December.

Russian rockets delivered payloads into orbit 17 times in 2020, with the venerable Soyuz launcher conducting 15 of those flights. Russias heavier Proton and Angara launch vehicles each completed one mission last year.

In addition to launches with Russian military payloads, the Soyuz missions launched two crews to the International Space Station, two Progress logistics flights to the station, and three batches of more than 30 satellites for OneWebs commercial broadband network.

Soyuz rockets also launched on two missions with Emirati and French military reconnaissance satellites from the European-operated Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. Those flights were managed by Arianespace, the French launch services provider, but Russian engineers and technicians built and assembled the Soyuz boosters, and assisted in launch operations.

European rockets, also operated by Arianespace, launched from French Guiana five times in 2020. Three heavy-lift Ariane 5 rockets successfully took off from French Guiana with commercial communications satellites for Eutelsat, Intelsat, Sky Perfect JSAT, B-SAT, and the Indian Space Research Organization, a South Korean weather satellite, and a satellite servicing vehicle for Northrop Grummans subsidiary Space Logistics.

The smaller Italian-led Vega rocket program suffered one failure in two launch attempts last year.

Japans four orbital launch attempts last year all successful included three flights by the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries workhorse H-2A rocket. The H-2A missions carried two Japanese defense-related satellites to orbit, and deployed the Hope Mars orbiter for the United Arab Emirates.

The ninth and final launch of the more powerful dual-engine H-2B rocket in May lofted Japans last first-generation HTV cargo freighter with several tons of supplies for the International Space Station.

India performed two missions with its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in November and December, following a months-long grounding caused by restrictions stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Both delivered their payloads to orbit.

Iran tried to launch two satellites in February and April, but only the second attempt was successful. And Israels Shavit launcher successfully placed the countrys Ofek 16 military surveillance satellite into orbit, the first Israeli satellite launch since 2016.

Floridas Space Coast hosted more orbital launches than any other location last year, with 30 successful missions originating from launch facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center.

Before 2020, the previous record for launches from the Space Coast that reached orbit was 29, a mark set in 1966. There were 31 orbital launch attempts from Cape Canaveral that year, plus two suborbital test flights of the Apollo-era Saturn 1B launcher, for a total of 33 space launches from Florida in 1966, according to a launch log maintained by Jonathan McDowell,an astronomer at theHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks global satellite and launch activity.

A run at breaking that record will have to wait for another year.

Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the most-used launch pad worldwide in 2020, with 14 Falcon 9 missions taking off from there.

Chinas launch sites at Jiuquan and Xichang each hosted 13 satellite launches in 2020. The Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Russias Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Rocket Labs privately-operated launch site in New Zealand, and the Guiana Space Center in South America each had seven launches last year.

Here is the breakdown of orbital launch attempts from spaceports around the world, with numbers in parentheses representing failed missions:

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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US companies, led by SpaceX, launched more than any other country in 2020 - Spaceflight Now

Elon Musk is just $14 billion away from becoming the richest man on Earth, and potentially the richest man in human history.

The SpaceX and Tesla founder today is worth more than $227 billion, just shy of the world's richest man and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at $241 billion.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the net worth of the world's richest people on a daily basis, largely values a billionaire based off the value of the assets they own.

Because their primary assets are largely publicly-listed companies, that means the peaks and troughs of Musk's net worth is inextricably tied with the stock price of Tesla.

During the worst of the COVID pandemic, there has been few better stock options than Tesla.

In mid-May 2020, when much of the US was straining under a deluge of new cases, Tesla was worth about $USD 72.

Fast forward to January 2021, and that same stock is worth an astonishing $USD 729 a percentage gain of 912.5 per cent.

That means for every $USD 1 of Tesla you bought in May, you would have made around $USD 600 profit (not including capital gains tax).

The boom comes after Tesla hit its goal of building a half-million cars in 2020.

Elon Musk now tied with Bill Gates as second-richest person in the world: Top 10 revealed

Tesla's stock rise over the last 18 months has made it the most valuable automaker in the world.

Its current market cap is worth roughly the combined value of the next eight most valuable global automakers - Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, GM, BMW, Honda, Hyundai and Ford.

Volkswagen, the world's largest automaker, sold just under 11 million cars worldwide in 2019.

General Motors, the largest US automaker, had global sales of 7.7 million cars in 2019.

Additional reporting by CNN.

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Elon Musk is just $14 billion away from becoming the richest man in the world - 9News

2021 could be the year when the United States finally gets serious about closing the digital divide. And satellite might end up playing a big role.

In early December, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published the results of itsRural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. RDOF represents more than $20 billion for service providers and their vendor partners to build broadband connections in rural and unserved areas across the U.S. The Phase 1 RDOF auction allocated $9.2 billion, and the Phase 2 auction will make $11.2 billion in funds available.

Surprisingly, SpaceX garnered $885 million in the Phase 1 auction. SpaceX has committed to use the money to bring its Starlink broadband satellite service to 642,925 rural homes and businesses across 35 states.

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RELATED: Charter scores big in Phase I of the FCC's RDOF auction for rural broadband builds

Starlink has not been commercially deployed yet. SpaceX is still in the process of testing it. But if successful, Starlink will not require any major construction to reach rural areas. Its fleet of about 700 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites will connect to peoples homes via a dish.

For the beta tests currently being conducted, the Starlink service costs $99 per month, and customers have to pay $499 for the necessary equipment and installation, according to CNBC.

RELATED: Mareks Take: Will LEO satellite systems be able to bridge the digital divide?

Amazons Project Kuiper is another new satellite entrant. Amazon plans to invest $10 billion to deploy 3,236 LEO satellites and deliver satellite-based broadband across the U.S. Amazon also expects Project Kuiper to provide backhaul for wireless carriers, extending LTE and 5G service to new regions in the U.S. and around the world.

The company said in December that it completed initial development on the antenna for its low-cost customer terminal, a critical part of the Kuiper System.

Satellite broadband beyond the U.S.

Besides reaching unserved areas of the United States with broadband, satellite players are also looking at global needs.

AST SpaceMobile, headquartered in Midland, Texas, is building a global broadband cellular network in space to operate directly with standard, unmodified mobile devices. AST SpaceMobile is working with Vodafone Group to launch the first phase of its mobile communications service in 2023. Its initial goal is to cover the 49 largest countries in the equatorial regions of Africa.

AST SpaceMobile's initial launches will use 20 satellites targeting Vodafone markets including the Dominican Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania.

In mid-December, CNBC reported that special-purpose acquisition company New Providence will take AST SpaceMobile public through a deal that gives the space company an equity value of $1.8 billion. AST SpaceMobiles current investors include Vodafone, Rakuten and American Tower.

Another satellite player is U.K.-based OneWeb, a company that has been around longer than other satellite broadband providers. But it has struggled financially. In November, OneWeb emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy and confirmed that its new owners are the U.K. government and Bharti Global. OneWeb plans to offer broadband connectivity services via a constellation of 650 LEO satellites. Currently, the company has 110 satellites in orbit.

And finally, other satellite players providing residential broadband include Viasat and HughesNet. In October Viasat said it had completed the roll-out of its satellite residential internet service to 100% of the states in Brazil.

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With SpaceX winning RDOF funds, 2021 could be the year satellite broadband lifts off - FierceWireless

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Commands space operations officers support warfighters with Army space capabilities, but one officer had the opportunity to expand his space knowledge during an internship with a commercial space company.

Cpt. Cole Cupit, space superiority capability developer, Army Capability Manager for Space and High Altitude, Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, completed a Training with Industry fellowship program with Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, California, June 2019-June 2020.

It was a great experience to be able to see the civilian space world and corporate America, and to see where it aligns with the military space world, Cupit said.

He served as a mission integration engineer on the Commercial Crew Program Mission Management Team. The teams efforts were crucial in the launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 spacecraft, which taxied two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in May.

That was a pretty historic moment, Cupit said. It restored Americas human spaceflight capability. It was an exciting time to be working at SpaceX to say the least.

Cupit said his internship gave him insight into the current commercial space industry, including its technology processes, business practices, corporate structure and culture, and management techniques.

During his internship, Cupit was responsible for qualification test plans and reports, and final verification reviews for more than 1,000 components on the Dragon Demo-2 spacecraft. He worked with NASA technical leads to resolve issues with the qualification of the Demo-2 Dragon vehicle, was certified as a mission control operator, and participated in crew/operator training events in preparation for the launch.

As part of the Commercial Crew Program Mission Management Team, I got to work with both SpaceX and NASA engineers to qualify the spacecraft components for flight, Cupit said. We reviewed all test plans and reports and worked together to certify that every piece of the Dragon capsule would operate as expected and keep the astronauts safe on their way to the ISS.

Cupit also contributed to the certification of the in-flight abort test that SpaceX and NASA conducted to validate the emergency abort capabilities of the Dragon capsule to separate from the Falcon-9 rocket.

He said the overall experience gave him a firsthand look into the Department of Defense acquisitions process from the perspective of the contractor. He learned the importance of taking the time to write requirements and contracts, in order to build the best collaboration between the government and contractors, which will allow them to deliver the best solutions to warfighters.

Cupit, originally from Nagodoches, Texas, graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, with a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering. He has been a space operations officer for four years of his 10-year Army career.

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Space break: An SMDC officer's internship with SpaceX - Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman

SpaceX had a pretty good year.

Elon Musk's company launched 26 missions in 2020, breaking its previous calendar-year record of 21, which was set in 2018. This year's launches included SpaceX's 100th successful space mission overall, as well as the 100th of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

But the raw numbers tell only a tiny portion of the story. For example, two of SpaceX's launches this year sent astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules the first orbital crewed missions to lift off from the United States since NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Related: The 10 biggest spaceflight stories of 2020

The first of those groundbreaking Crew Dragon flights, a test mission called Demo-2, launched on May 30 and carried NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the orbiting lab for a two-month stay.

"Today,a new era in human spaceflight begins as we once again launched American astronauts on American rockets from American soil on their way to the International Space Station,our national lab orbiting Earth," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement just after Demo-2's launch.

"The launch of this commercial space system designed for humans is a phenomenal demonstration of American excellence and is an important step on our path to expand human exploration to the moon and Mars," Bridenstine added.

Demo-2's success paved the way for Crew-1, the first operational astronaut mission SpaceX has flown under a $2.6 billion contract the company signed with NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014. Crew-1, which lifted off on Nov. 15, took NASA's Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins and Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the station for a six-month stint.

SpaceX also flew two other missions to the ISS this year uncrewed resupply flights using the robotic cargo version of Dragon, which launched in March and December, respectively.

But more than half of the 2020 missions 14 of them, to be precise launched in support of SpaceX's Starlink satellite-internet project. Each of those 14 lofted about 60 Starlink spacecraft to low Earth orbit, growing the constellation to epic (and, in many astronomers' eyes, worrying) proportions.

SpaceX has now launched more than 950 Starlink satellites to date, and about 900 of them remain in orbit, constituting by far the largest constellation ever assembled. For perspective: Just 3,300 operational satellites currently zoom around Earth, and humanity has launched 10,500 spacecraft to orbit since the dawn of the space age in 1957, according to the European Space Agency.

Starlink will get much bigger still, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX has secured permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites, and the company has filed paperwork for up to 30,000 more.

But 900 satellites is enough to provide at least some internet coverage, and SpaceX began a public beta test of Starlink service in October of this year. And in December, the FCC granted SpaceX nearly $900 million in subsidies to bring broadband to rural areas across the U.S.

Related: SpaceX's Starlink satellite megaconstellation launches in photos

All 26 of the 2020 launches employed the two-stage Falcon 9, which features a reusable first stage. On 23 of those missions, SpaceX managed to land the first stage safely back on Earth so it can fly again in the future.

There were just two missed touchdown attempts in February and March, when a returning Falcon 9 booster failed to stick its landing at sea on one of SpaceX's two robotic "drone ships." (Nineteen of this year's successful touchdowns occurred on such ships, and only four occurred on terra firma.)

One 2020 mission, a January test of Crew Dragon's in-flight abort system, did not feature a landing attempt. Crew Dragon fired its escape thrusters early in the uncrewed flight and jetted clear of its rocket ride, as it would in the event of a real launch emergency. The Falcon 9's first stage was destroyed shortly thereafter by aerodynamic forces, as SpaceX had expected.

And this landing success rate wasn't SpaceX's only notable reusability milestone of 2020. Two of this year's flights a Starlink launch on Nov. 24 and the Dec. 13 liftoff of a Sirius XM broadcasting satellite used Falcon 9 first stages that already had six missions under their belts.

Coming into 2020, SpaceX had never flown a single Falcon 9 booster seven separate times. And the company just did it twice in less than weeks.

Musk has repeatedly said that he founded SpaceX back in 2002 primarily with one aim in mind helping humanity colonize Mars.

The company took significant steps in 2020 toward accomplishing this ambitious goal. The biggest and most dramatic step occurred on Dec. 9, when SpaceX launched a shiny silver vehicle called SN8 on a 7.8-mile-high (12.5 kilometers) test flight from the company's South Texas facility, near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica.

SN8 ("Serial No. 8") is the latest prototype of Starship, the spacecraft that SpaceX is developing to take people to and from Mars, the moon and other distant destinations. Like the envisioned final Starship, SN8 is made of stainless steel, stands about 165 feet (50 meters) tall and is powered by SpaceX's next-generation Raptor engine.

The operational Starship will have six Raptors, Musk has said. SN8 had only three, but they were powerful enough to take the vehicle far higher than any Starship prototype had ever gone before. The previous altitude record was 500 feet (150 m), achieved in the summer of 2019 and this past August and September by three single-engine craft Starhopper, SN5 and SN6, respectively.

And SN8 did more than just fly high; it performed a "belly flop" and other complex aerial maneuvers similar to the ones the operational Starship will execute when coming back to Earth from space missions. The prototype also landed where SpaceX wanted it to, though SN8 came in too fast and exploded. (SN8's flight technically takes SpaceX's 2020 launch tally to 27, but I kept it off the "official" list because it was a test involving a prototype vehicle.)

SN8's fiery demise did not dampen the enthusiasm of Musk, who viewed the first high-altitude Starship flight as a resounding success.

"Mars, here we come!" he tweeted shortly after the test.

Starship will launch from Earth atop a giant rocket called Super Heavy, which will sport about 30 Raptors. Like Falcon 9 first stages, Super Heavy will land shortly after liftoff and be used again, Musk has said. (Starship will be powerful enough to launch itself off the moon and Mars, both of which have much weaker gravity than Earth does.)

No Super Heavy prototype has gotten off the ground to date. But the next Starship vehicle, SN9, should soon take a leap: it moved to the pad last week.

SpaceX wants Starship to be up and running soon. Musk recently said he's confident that the vehicle will be flying people to Mars by 2026, and such missions could launch as early as 2024 "if we're lucky."

That timeframe would mesh well with NASA's current crewed moon plans, which the agency is pursuing through its Artemis program. Artemis aims to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024 and to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the moon by 2028.

Starship could end up helping to make all of this happen. In April, NASA selected Starship as a candidate to take its astronauts to the lunar surface, along with human landers being developed by Dynetics and a coalition led by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. And in October, NASA awarded SpaceX a $53 million contract to demonstrate in-space refueling using Starship, another bright spot in the company's memorable 2020.

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's very big year: A 2020 filled with astronaut launches, Starship tests and more - Space.com