SpaceX's Starship rocket flew halfway around the world yesterday, accomplishing a key demonstration of its ability to carry heavy payloads into low-Earth orbit. The successful launch builds on two previous flights last year. Thursday's flight tested Starship's payload bay door and performed a precursor test of an in-orbit refueling system. Photos from the launch are available in the article.

SpaceX's cameras recorded unprecedented views of atmospheric heating acting on Starship for a couple of minutes during Starship's descent on its third test. These views were possible thanks to Starlink terminals on the ship sending signals to satellites in low-Earth orbit, which were then sent back to Earth. The low-Earth orbit satellites were in space thanks to SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 rocket, which conducted its first land-based landing days before Christmas in 2015. This article looks at the achievements that made Starship possible and takes a peek at the future of the project. The video of Starship reentering the atmosphere is available in the article.

The fourth SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy launch may be in the next month or so. Its goal will be to get Starship's upper stage to get through the high heating regime of reentry and make a controlled splat into the ocean. SpaceX aims to bring the Super Heavy booster back intact, having it land on a virtual tower in the Gulf of Mexico. It could attempt to land a Starship booster on the real tower as soon as the vehicle's fifth flight. The company is working to accelerate production of Starship vehicles to support higher flight rates and increase payload capacity.

Elon Musk gave a 45-minute speech at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas last weekend about making life multiplanetary, the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and SpaceX's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization. SpaceX has now completed 327 successful launches, with 80% of those involving used boosters. This performance has given Musk confidence that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. While SpaceX's goals seem audacious, the company has proven that rocket reusability is a very viable thing, so its other goals appear a lot more achievable.

Elon Musk gave a 45-minute speech at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas last weekend about making life multiplanetary, the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and SpaceX's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization. SpaceX has now completed 327 successful launches, with 80% of those involving used boosters. This performance has given Musk confidence that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. While SpaceX's goals seem audacious, the company has proven that rocket reusability is a very viable thing, so its other goals appear a lot more achievable.

Elon Musk gave a 45-minute speech at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas last weekend about making life multiplanetary, the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and SpaceX's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization. SpaceX has now completed 327 successful launches, with 80% of those involving used boosters. This performance has given Musk confidence that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. While SpaceX's goals seem audacious, the company has proven that rocket reusability is a very viable thing, so its other goals appear a lot more achievable.

NASA has invited three space companies, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab, to build rugged vehicles astronauts can drive on the moon's surface. Next year, the agency will select a winner based on specifications such as range, battery technology, and life span. Using the vehicles, astronauts can carry scientific equipment, collect samples from the surface, and travel farther.

Engineers have partially restored a 1970s-era computer on NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft after five months of long-distance troubleshooting. Voyager 1 is on an outbound trajectory more than 15 billion miles from Earth, so it takes almost two days for engineers to uplink a command and get a response. The spacecraft suddenly stopped transmitting intelligible data in November. Engineers eventually found the issue, which was in the system responsible for packaging engineering and scientific data for transmission to Earth. A single chip responsible for storing a portion of memory stopped working, probably due to either a cosmic ray hit or a failure of aging hardware.

A new 'Human Spaceflight' tab on SpaceX's website offers flights to Earth's orbit, the International Space Station (ISS), the Moon, and Mars, with missions beginning as early as this year. There is no pricing information for the offerings and interested customers will have to inquire through email. The Earth orbit mission, which will last three to six days, offers a view of the planet from 300 kilometers high for two to four passengers. Ten-day commercial missions to the ISS will be available as early as 2025. The missions to lunar orbit and Mars do not have listed timelines.

Engine development is unforgiving - thousands of decisions have to go right for them to work. This article looks at how ABL went from nothing to having ten flight-worthy engines tested and installed on a rocket in under four years. It covers the decision-making that went into developing ABL's engines, testing, the company's growth, and more. Pictures of the company's engines and engine testing rounds are available in the article.

Intuitive Machines Inc. is planning for another trip to the Moon during the last three months of 2024. The mission will aim to install a 4G network on the surface of the Moon. Intuitive Machines made history less than a year ago by setting down the first privately built lander intact on the Moon's surface. The company went public last year via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, making its founder a billionaire several times over.

The focus for the next Starship mission will be to control the reentry of the rocket's Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage - both vehicles broke apart during their descent on the last flight. The company aims to make the Super Heavy booster make a controlled pinpoint splash down in the Gulf of Mexico as the Starship upper stage attempts to survive its reentry back into Earth's atmosphere. The test will be a repeat of the previous test without the propellant transfer, without the Pez door open, and without the other items that SpaceX was working to demonstrate. NASA's main interest in the test will be seeing that SpaceX replicates the good engine performance it demonstrated on the last two flights. SpaceX is not planning to attempt a Raptor engine restart during the test.

The European Space Agency's upcoming Mars mission will use a nuclear-powered device that harnesses the radioactive decay of americium to keep its components warm. Devices that harness the heat produced by the decay of radioactive elements are known as radioisotope heater units (RHUs). The ESA has historically relied on the US and Russia to provide RHUs that use plutonium-238, but it has been working on its own RHUs since 2009. The European RHUs will heat components in the mission's landing platform, which will extend the lander's life, allowing it to become a backup power source in case there are issues in deploying the rover.

SpaceX is targeting June 5 for its next Starship test flight. The highly anticipated flight seeks to demonstrate the Super Heavy stage's ability to make a soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico. It also aims for the Starship upper stage to make a controlled reentry through the Earth's atmosphere before falling into the Indian Ocean. The Super Heavy first stage failed to make a soft landing in previous attempts due to a blockage in a filter in the Raptor engines. The Starship upper stage lost the ability to control its altitude during its coast phase in space due to clogged valves used by its reaction control thrusters.

SpaceX's Starship's next test flight could be on June 5. The main objective of the test will be to evaluate the second stage's reusable heat shield as the vehicle tries to safely reenter the atmosphere for the first time. Composed of around 18,000 ceramic hexagonal tiles, the heat shield is vulnerable to even the loss of a single tile in most places. SpaceX still needs to receive a commercial launch license from the US FAA before the launch can move ahead.

SpaceX's Starship launched successfully and made a controlled splashdown for the first time on Thursday. The test fell short of total perfection, but it was still a large success. Two of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster failed and there was damage to the ship's thermal protection tiles and one of its control flaps. SpaceX has already test-fired the ship for the next test flight, and the booster could be hot-fired soon. The next test flight, which could happen within a couple of months, may involve an onshore landing.

SpaceX's Starfactory started construction back in February. The upgrade gives Starbase an extra 100,000 square feet of factory floor to help SpaceX reach its ambitious goal of producing one Starship a day. SpaceX intends to start building Starship Version 2 at the new Starfactory. Starship Version 2 is said to hold more propellant, have improved reliability and a lower dry weight, and feature aerodynamic changes. There are currently over 1,800 full-time employees at Starbase.

Stoke Space has fired its first stage rocket engine for the first time, briefly igniting it for about two seconds. The test was a success as the engine performed nominally. Stoke's two-stage Nova rocket will be fully reusable and have a lift capacity of about 5 metric tons. It could be ready for its first flight in 2026.

NASA has adjusted the date of the Starliner spacecraft's return to Earth to an unspecified time in July. The spacecraft was originally due to undock and return to Earth on June 14, but return opportunities have been waved off as more time is needed to review the data from the vehicle's problematic flight to the International Space Station. There were five separate leaks in the helium system that pressurizes Starliner's propulsion system and five of the vehicle's 28 reaction-control system thrusters failed as Starliner approached the station. NASA has not specified why it is not yet comfortable with releasing Starliner to fly back to Earth.

NASA has awarded SpaceX an $843 million contract to build a vehicle to deorbit the International Space Station after its retirement in 2030. The vehicle will effectively destroy the ISS by pushing the station into reentry from orbit. It is unknown whether the vehicle's design will be based on one of SpaceX's existing spacecraft. NASA intends to replace the ISS with private space stations.

Polaris Dawn, a mission designed to purchase the limits of SpaceX's technology and help pave the way for a longer-term human presence in space, is now set to launch no earlier than July 12. It will be SpaceX's second all-civilian mission and the first in its Polaris program. The mission plans include the first commercial spacewalk, research on human health in space, and tests to equip the spacecraft with Starlink Wi-Fi. It will reach an orbit of over 800 miles above Earth, the furthest out a human has gone from the planet since the Apollo era.

Europe is preparing to test launch a new single-use rocket, the Ariane 6 rocket, from French Guiana today. Development of the rocket was aimed at reducing the EU's reliance on SpaceX. Europe's satellites and military intelligence have come to depend on SpaceX. Officials fear that Europe and its armies may need to rely on the US company even during warfare.

SpaceX employees are working on the design and details of a Martian city. Teams are working on habitats and spacesuits to combat the planet's hostile environment. The initiatives are still in their infancy. Elon Musk told SpaceX employees in April that he expects one million people to be living on Mars in about 20 years. Musk's vision for Mars underlies most of the six companies that he leads or owns - each could potentially contribute to an extraterrestrial colony.

Powering spaceships using compact reactors could cut down Mars transit times by more than half. The technology also has military applications, with DARPA requesting a nuclear rocket demonstrator in June 2020. The Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) project aims to create space-based assets that can move quickly within space to deter strategic attacks by adversaries. This article discusses the DRACO project and the technologies that make it possible.

NASA has downplayed the problems experienced by Boeing's Starliner since it took two astronauts to the International Space Station in June. Officials finally admitted on Wednesday that the issues may be more serious than first thought and that the astronauts might not return on Starliner. The agency is exploring a backup option for the astronauts. The astronauts were meant to stay for around eight days, but that could be extended into next year.

SpaceX plans to perform the first-ever human space flight over the Earth's poles before the end of this year. The Fram2 mission crew will comprise a Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur, a polar explorer, a roboticist, and a filmmaker. They will fly aboard Crew Dragon Endurance, which will be fitted with a cupola for both photography and filming. This will be SpaceX's third free-flying mission aboard Crew Dragon.

Stoke Space is a five-year-old launch startup that aims to develop the first fully reusable rocket. Last year, the US Space Force awarded Stoke and three other startups launch pad real estate at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The company plans to redevelop the historic Launch Complex 14 in time for its first launch in 2025. Stoke's reusable upper stage, which will drive launch prices down by an order of magnitude, unlocks possibilities such as the ability to return cargo from orbit and land anywhere on Earth.

Two Rocket Lab-made spacecraft are almost ready to head to Mars. Their mission will be to study the interaction between solar winds and the Martian atmosphere. The mission is set to launch no earlier than October on the first launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. Getting to Mars has historically been very expensive - Rocket Lab's system is two orders of magnitude cheaper than everything else. This article details how Rocket Lab designed the spacecraft.

There are obvious challenges to getting people to Mars, but the biggest obstacle might be something that's totally invisible and often overlooked: space radiation. Scientists are just beginning to learn about the many ways that exposure to space radiation can impact human health. The effects of space radiation may also combine with other factors such as sleep deprivation and microgravity - there is not enough information yet about how these factors interact. Finding ways to mitigate these effects will determine whether people will ever be able to visit Mars safely.

Two NASA spacecraft built by Rocket Lab are beginning preparations for launch on Blue Origin's first New Glenn rocket. The two science probes will launch between late September and mid-October. They will take advantage of a planetary alignment between Earth and Mars that only happens once every 26 months to travel to Mars to help scientists learn more about the processes that drive Martian climate change. Assuming the launch is successful, the twin spacecraft will be expected to arrive in orbit around Mars in early September 2025. The next launch window is in late 2026.