Verge Science is here to bring you the most up-to-date space news and analysis, whether it’s about the latest findings from NASA or comprehensive coverage of the next SpaceX rocket launch to the International Space Station. We’ll take you inside the discoveries of new exoplanets, space weather, space policy, and the booming commercial space industry.
The mission will launch “hopefully the first of May,” according to Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore, who was joined by fellow astronaut Suni Williams during a NASA press conference yesterday.
NASA postponed the first crewed Starliner flight test last summer over safety concerns. When the mission launches, Wilmore and Williams will dock with the International Space Station for up to two weeks before returning to Earth.
BurstCube is aboard SpaceX’s Dragon resupply spacecraft, which launched on the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on Thursday. After it arrives and is unpacked, the shoebox-sized CubeSat will be released into orbit, where it will locate and study gamma-ray bursts linked to the gravitational waves that were first detected in 2016.
You can see NASA’s simulation of the BurstCube below.
SpaceX already filed one lawsuit claiming the agency’s actions o (on a complaint about workers who say they were fired illegally for criticizing Elon Musk) are unconstitutional and now there’s this complaint issued Wednesday night.
SpaceX is accused of using severance agreements with ”unlawful confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses, and an unlawful limit on participation in other claims against SpaceX,” among other issues. The parties can either settle (seems unlikely), or there will be a hearing on October 29th.
Two diplomats (presumably Jim Jones, Juelz Santana, and Freekey Zekey were not all available) tell Politico that with the Ariane 6 delayed and Russia’s Soyuz unavailable, the European Space Agency (ESA) is using SpaceX to launch satellites for its Galileo global navigation system and have set up a special security deal to make it happen.
Separately, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said it will start selling the lasers Starlink satellites use for in-space communication to other companies.
‘The old fear has come back.’
Leaked documents viewed by TechCrunch say SpaceX can prevent former or current employees from selling shares during a tender offer if they engaged in “an act of dishonesty against the company” or violated policies.
Since SpaceX is a private company, this could prevent employees from selling their shares until SpaceX goes public — which may not even happen. SpaceX also reserves the right to buy back vested shares six months after an employee leaves the company, TechCrunch reports.
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.
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.”
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.
As Starship reenters Earth’s atmosphere, the external cameras are capturing the heat and plasma field generated.
We’ve skipped over one planned element of this test flight, as the Starship 28 prototype continues on its way toward a planned splashdown.
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.
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.
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.
The vehicle took off successfully and is now heading toward the “Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation).”
As we wait to see if the Starship will launch, SpaceX posted this clip showing what the splashdown could be like.
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.
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.
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.
The solid-fueled “Kairos” rocket carrying an experimental government satellite exploded just seconds after launching on Wednesday. The Space One startup had hoped to become the first private Japanese company to put a satellite into orbit.
‘The rocket terminated the flight after judging that the achievement of its mission would be difficult,’ company president Masakazu Toyoda said at a news conference.
Space.com points out this recent announcement that China and Russia are considering putting a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2035, linked to their plans for a joint lunar outpost.
Roscosmos CEO Yury Borisov says they’re readying technology that could carry out the mission autonomously — an ambitious statement considering it couldn’t quite nail an attempted lunar landing last August.
This is the first successful powered flight of its reusable Talon-A TA-1 autonomous hypersonic plane, which it announced yesterday “reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5” during the test.
The TA-1 launched from Roc, its massive twin-fuselage plane that recently flew with the TA-1, attached and fully-fueled for the first time. Eventually, the company hopes to launch space planes from the 385-foot-wide flier.
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.”
[The Washington Post]
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.
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.
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.
NASA’s Crew-8 mission, comprised of US astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, is set to fly to the International Space Station, where they’ll serve a six month stint as flight engineers.
Weather halted yesterday’s planned takeoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA writes on Crew-8’s mission blog that after launch, video coverage will stop until about 1AM ET on March 5th.
Varda Space Industries captured its W-1 capsule’s descent from low-earth orbit for the rest of us to watch in 4K on YouTube. Ars Technica has a thorough write-up about the mission.
Varda’s clip isn’t quite as dramatic as the 25-minute Artemis I reentry video you can download from NASA, but the clarity makes it a sight to behold.
Yesterday, it responded after a roughly two-week lunar night — something that was possible, but not expected. Japan’s space agency cut off contact to protect it from mid-day lunar temperatures but did get pictures.
Japan’s SLIM lander already regained power once after landing upside-down on the Moon last month. Guess it takes more than a lunar night to get rid of the MOON SNIPER!
During a NASA press conference Friday evening, Intuitive Machines co-founder and CEO Steve Altemus showed the attitude of its lunar lander, the first from the US to reach the Moon’s surface in over 50 years.
As Swapna Krishna explains, they believe it tipped over after catching a foot on the surface while landing, but fortunately, it’s still getting sunlight to power the battery. Plans for the coming days include deploying a CubeSat it’s carrying called EagleCam to take photos from the surface.
