SpaceX aims to launch two satellites of a new constellation on Feb. 18, the start of a network it expects to one day include more than 4,000 orbiting spacecraft beaming the internet to customers below—and generating billions of dollars in new revenue for the rocket maker.
On Feb. 15, an uncrewed Russian spacecraft will deliver nearly three metric tons of supplies, fuel and oxygen to the International Space Station.
The White House would cut off funding for the International Space Station in 2025 and lean into a future of commercially operated habitats in low-earth orbit, according to draft National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) budget documents shared with Quartz ahead of their official release Monday (Feb. 12).
In 2011, with unemployment still at 9% and borrowing costs falling, Republican lawmakers forced a fiscal showdown that ultimately put strict caps on US spending, limiting the government’s ability to invest and create jobs at a critical time. Not satisfied, representative Paul Ryan proposed $5 trillion in budget cuts (pdf) the next year, criticizing then-president Barack Obama’s desire to invest in infrastructure and energy projects as “looming crisis” that would bring a “crushing burden of debt.”
The eyes of the world are on Pyeongchang, where today’s opening ceremonies mark the official beginning of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. In other words, it’s a great time to invade somewhere else.
The test mission of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, the most powerful operational rocket on earth, was supposedly intended to put Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster in an orbit around Mars.
Are you ready for the big one?
Today’s launch of an enormous new SpaceX rocket is a test, and it could go wrong. But that’s so vague—what, exactly, can turn this unmanned 20-story launch vehicle, filled with tons of explosive propellant, into a very expensive firecracker?
Elon Musk has sharp elbows when it comes to a new market.
When Americans leave a tip at the table after dinner at a restaurant, they expect it will end up in the hands of servers and bussers, not the owner’s wallet—but that’s exactly what a new rule proposed by the US Department of Labor will result in, according to an analysis being withheld by the Trump administration.
The year 2003 began with a brutal object lesson in the difficulties of flying humans into space.
“We have ended the war on American energy and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal,” US president Donald Trump said in his State of the Union address tonight. “We are now, very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world.”
Elon Musk’s rocket company aims to put a satellite called GovSat-1 into orbit to control NATO surveillance drones, among other top secret projects. Update: The launch has been delayed one day, until Jan. 31 at 4:25 ET, reportedly to replace a component in the rocket.
The ninth senior Republican lawmaker in the House of Representatives retired this year. He is one of 35 members of Donald Trump’s party who are stepping down from their House seats rather than face the public in November.
When someone changes their mind, does it matter if the rationale is empirical, or expedient?
Is it finally here? SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy—a large rocket roughly equivalent to three of its Falcon 9 launch vehicles strung together and expected to be the most powerful rocket in operation when it lifts off—has been promised for years.
When Mike Melvill piloted the first private vehicle to reach space, he enjoyed a hidden bag of M&Ms in microgravity. Elon Musk put an enormous wheel of cheese in the first SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that took to orbit, inspired by Monty Python. And, when Rocket Lab’s Electron reached orbit for the first time on Jan. 21, space-pointed radar noticed a mysterious object in space alongside the three satellites it launched.
Investors are pumping millions into small satellite start-ups, but they’ve run into delays actually getting the satellites into orbit. The first orbital launch of the small Electron rocket may herald the end of that problem.
Testy lawmakers peppered executives from Boeing and SpaceX with questions at a hearing yesterday about delayed efforts to launch humans into space from the United States.
The US is currently facing a government shutdown because Donald Trump is insisting any spending bill must fund the construction of a US-Mexico border wall, which would cost as much as $18 billion.
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, resident of a luxury apartment in Bethesda, Maryland, announced her candidacy for US senate as a Democrat in a January 11 campaign filing.
The World Bank’s annual ranking of countries by ease of doing business has been compromised by politicized methodology, the bank’s top economist told the Wall Street Journal (paywall). The primary victim? The country of Chile.
Forget seven minutes in heaven. For some scientists, the real indulgence is three minutes of microgravity.
Few people know what SpaceX launched into space on Jan. 7 when a Falcon 9 rocket carried a secret satellite called Zuma to orbit. Now, anonymous sources say that the satellite has failed or fallen to earth—but the real story may have nothing to do with SpaceX at all.
