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SpaceX

Helmed by billionaire CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX has made a name for itself as a leading rocket launch provider. We bring you complete coverage of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket launches and landings, as well as SpaceX’s more ambitious exploration goals. That includes flying people around the Moon in the company’s Dragon capsule and starting a human colony on Mars.

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All of the angles on the launch of SpaceX’s third Starship flight test.

The Starship was reported “lost” before it could splash down after reentry as planned. but for a better look at the takeoff, the folks at NASASpaceflight put together a few different camera angles from this morning’s events.


SpaceX successfully launched its Starship, but the vehicle was ‘lost’ after reentry

Two prior attempts exploded soon after launch, but this Starship prototype’s trip to space and back lasted 49 minutes.

No splashdown today.

Before the SpaceX broadcast ended, SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said, “the team has made the call that the ship has been lost, so no splashdown today.”


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Watch Starship’s reentry.

There’s no word on the status of Starship as the live video feed from the vehicle has ended for the moment, but you can see part of the reentry process in this clip posted by SpaceX.


Starship reentry views.

As Starship reenters Earth’s atmosphere, the external cameras are capturing the heat and plasma field generated.


Starship reentry
Image:SpaceX
The Starship won’t attempt an in-flight engine relight this time.

We’ve skipped over one planned element of this test flight, as the Starship 28 prototype continues on its way toward a planned splashdown.


View of Earth from an external camera on the Starship prototype
Image: SpaceX
Propellant transfer demo completed.

SpaceX finished another test for this Starship flight and ended internal views from the flight. As the live broadcast continues, it has gone in and out as the vehicle continues to barrel roll in space on its way to a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean.


View of Earth from Starship vehicle in space.
Image: SpaceX
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Now Starship is in a “coast phase.”

The next milestone for this flight test is a planned in-space relight of the Raptor engines, which is scheduled for 40:46 into the flight, or a about 18 minutes from now.


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SpaceX says the Super Heavy booster “fell a little short” of its planned relight control.

On the stream, we watched the return of the Super Heavy booster rocket after separation, which seemed to have partial success on some of its planned maneuvers as it came back to Earth. The commentators noted it “feel a little short,” of the plan, but didn’t go into detail.


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Starship flight test three is under way.

The vehicle took off successfully and is now heading toward the “Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation).”


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SpaceX’s Starship reentry plans.

As we wait to see if the Starship will launch, SpaceX posted this clip showing what the splashdown could be like.


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Chilling effects.

The countdown just crossed T-10 minutes and counting.


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Where is the Starship supposed to go?

If everything works out as planned, the Starship will attempt an in-space relight of its Raptor engines and eventually splash down in the Indian Ocean, as shown in this animation.


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SpaceX readies its third Starship rocket test flight: watch the launch here.

After the first two Starship tests went up in flames, SpaceX says it’s now attempting “a number of ambitious objectives” for today’s targeted 9:25AM ET launch, including:

The successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean.


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SpaceX’s projected Starship launch time keeps moving.

If SpaceX attempts another Starship launch this morning, it now says the launch could happen about an hour and a half into the planned 110-minute launch window that started at 8AM ET.

An update from SpaceX said it is “go for propellant load,” and the launch is targeting 9:25AM ET. An official livestream has not started yet, but the folks at Spaceflight Now are broadcasting live with cameras set up near the Boca Chica, TX, launch site.

Update March 14th, 8:26AM ET: Updated launch timing (again) from SpaceX.


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House Democrats are looking into Russia’s alleged Starlink use.

The Washington Post reports that Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia sent a letter to SpaceX on Wednesday night, expressing concern that the company “may not have appropriate guardrails and policies in place” to prevent Russia from illegally acquiring Starlink terminals.

Ukraine claims that Russia has deployed the terminals in occupied areas of eastern Ukraine. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says, “To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia.”


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Maybe third time’s the charm for SpaceX’s Starship.

The third flight test for the Starship rocket might take place on March 14th at 7:30AM ET, SpaceX has announced on X. (This is assuming the FAA signs off, and that it's not delayed for some other reason.)

Starship’s last two tests failed memorably; during the most recent November launch the booster and Starship exploded after their separation.


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Starlink just got cheaper, again.

In some countries including the Netherlands (where I live), the price has dropped to €50/mth (from €65/mth) for residential customers while my roam plan that lets me take my dishy anywhere in Europe has dropped to €59/mth (from €100/mth), down from €124/mth when I started service back in 2022. One-time hardware costs have now been lowered from €450 to €225, as well, down from the €720 I paid for gen 1.


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The methane-tracking satellite Jeff Bezos essentially paid for just launched.

But it’s not on one of his rockets. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is carrying MethaneSat, a satellite made to measure the potent greenhouse gas methane. The Bezos Earth Fund gave the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) $100 million to build and launch the satellite. Google is also partnering with EDF to create a global map of methane pollution coming from oil and gas infrastructure.


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SpaceX will dispose of 100 orbiting Starlink satellites because of an undisclosed glitch.

[T]he Starlink team identified a common issue in this small population of satellites that could increase the probability of failure in the future. The satellites will follow a safe, circular, and controlled lowering operation that should take approximately six months for most of the vehicles. 

It’s a small fraction of the 5,828 Starlink sats in orbit, and SpaceX says it’s deorbited 406 sats previously. Unusual to decommission so many at once, though.


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SpaceX is being investigated for discrimination and sexual harassment.

The California Civil Rights Department is investigating complaints by seven workers that SpaceX execs “discriminated against women, joked about sexual harassment and fired workers for raising concerns,” reports Bloomberg and Reuters.

The same agency is also suing Tesla over charges of operating a “racially segregated workplace.”

In the SpaceX complaints, employees cite a pattern of discrimination, as well as inappropriate tweets by Musk that they said they couldn’t easily avoid because he uses the platform for important company announcements.


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How independent are the boards of Musk’s companies?

Not very, according to The Wall Street Journal’s examination, published last night.

It’s not just that some members have earned, for example, “hundreds of millions of dollars” — far more than typical board member compensation, the Journal says.

It’s that reportedly, some members are heavily invested in Musk’s and each other’s companies, and regularly do drugs with him “because they think refraining could upset the billionaire, who has made them a lot of money.”


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Trader Joe’s: run by Elon Musk stans?

That’s right, Trader Joe’s also thinks the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, just like Musk’s SpaceX. I’m sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with the case the NLRB is bringing against the grocer, and is just a fun coincidence.


Starlink’s community gateways promise “fiber-like speeds from space.”

The satellite internet company has announced a new program that lets internet service providers deliver symmetrical download and upload speeds of up to 10Gbps to remote areas.

One remote town in Alaska is already using the gateway to provide connectivity across the community — the only catch is that it costs ISPs $1.25 million upfront on top of a $75,000 / Gbps per month fee.


Starlink’s community gateway in Unalaska, Alaska.
Starlink’s community gateway in Unalaska, Alaska.
Image: Starlink
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Starlink is coming to John Deere.

It makes sense that a new deal will see the company outfitting new and existing hardware with Starlink. That should allow people who live in the middle of nowhere to better take advantage of the high-tech tools John Deere has been packing inside recently. Because right now the rural internet situation is hellish.

As for cost, John Deere hasn’t settled on a price for the new connectivity option, but it does plan to generate 10-percent of its annual revenue from software service fees by 2030.


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First Starlink satellites launched to connect mobile phone users anywhere on the planet.

Six of the 21 new Starlink satellites launched last night support the company’s new Direct to Cell service announced in 2022. SpaceX will now test the service with ordinary 4G LTE-compatible phones on T-Mobile in the US before the text messaging service goes live in multiple countries this year. Voice and data (and IoT devices) will be added in 2025 as more D2C satellites come online.


HughesNet’s satellite internet service gets a big boost.

HughesNet announced its rural internet service now has up to 100Mbps downloads and 5Mbps uploads. Plans range from $74.99 to $109.99 and throttle once you hit 100GB or 200GB, depending on the plan. As PCMag noted, the best HughesNet offered before was an unthinkable 50Mbps down on a $149.99 plan.

That makes it more competitive with Starlink, which starts at $120 per month for a “Standard” plan with up to 100Mbps down and 5-10Mbps up — and have no specific limit before throttling.


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The FCC is going to let SpaceX test its upcoming Starlink satellite cellular service.

The FCC issued SpaceX a “Special Temporary Authorization” so the company can test “direct-to-cellular communications payloads” to unmodified cell phones, as reported by PCMag.

SpaceX and T-Mobile are planning to launch texting through the “Starlink Direct to Cell” service in 2024, with more functionality coming in 2025.


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The trouble with Hubble.

It’s down to just three of the six gyroscopes NASA upgraded it with in 2009 — and one of those is flaking out. According to Ars Technica, the agency’s engineers figured out a way to keep the Hubble going on a single gyro.

In this one-gyro mode, Hubble’s control system would receive inputs from the single gyroscope in combination with magnetometers, Sun sensors, and star trackers.

Unfortunately, it’s also got issues with one of its guidance sensors, and its orbit is decaying, putting it a little over a decade from falling out of the sky. NASA and SpaceX have studied whether they can push it farther out again.