Space

With Musk cozying up to President-elect Donald Trump, more countries, including South Africa, are considering loosening requirements to allow Starlink to operate, Bloomberg reports:

A British startup has miniaturized the interfaces Apollo astronauts used aboard the command and lunar modules to create the DSKY Moonwatch. In addition to basic calculator functions the watch has GPS waypoint navigation and a battery good for 24 hours of use between charges with a USB cable.

Taipei wants to make its communications networks less vulnerable to Chinese attack. Starlink isn’t an option because of Musk’s business ties to China and his company’s refusal to relinquish control in a joint venture. And Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellation of low Earth satellites isn’t up to snuff, according to technology minister Wu Cheng-wen:

Specifically, NASA says more than 800 students observing the April 2024 solar eclipse over North America found that the Earth’s ionosphere rises as the Moon blocks the Sun, then returns to normal as it moves on, creating “atmospheric gravity waves.”

Trump mentioned his dinner with the billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post owner during his interview with Kristen Welker for Meet the Press today, according to NBC News.

The satellite internet company received a Pentagon contract that will give 2,500 Starlink terminals access to Starshield, its secure satellite service for governments, according to Bloomberg. With this contract, Ukraine will have a total of 3,000 terminals connected to Starshield.

Need something more intense than a burning log to help you relax this season? NASA now has its own festive fireplace featuring an eight hour loop of the burning RS-25 engines used for the launch of the Artemis I mission two years ago. The fireplace can be streamed on NASA Plus, or you can watch it on YouTube.

The Starship vehicle successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space before splashing down in the Indian Ocean, writes SpaceX.

The launch is happening in Boca Chica, Texas and is scheduled for 5PM ET. SpaceX’s stream for the launch is live now.

The “Beaver Moon” can be seen across the US tonight. It’s “super” because the full moon will be at its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit.

Bezos, who killed The Washington Post’s endorsement of Harris and also owns a space company with billions in government contracts, was among the first major US tech leaders to chime in this morning. He is certainly aware that one of his biggest rivals in aerospace is run by a close confidant of the president-elect.

Blue Origin leadership has viewed Donald Trump as positive for space. Most of Jeff Bezos’ focus is currently on Blue Origin. “Elon’s real superpower is getting government money,” Bezos has said, according to The Post.

Did you know SpaceX’s “latest generation broadband satellites” use AMD chips? The chipmaker just bragged about that in Q3 2024 earnings, and it’s news to me.

It was just a little whoopsie it got announced so close to the election, that’s all! Also he didn’t know about the Blue Origin meeting with Trump and besides that was not his fault. “I sighed when I found out,” he says. I guess people are still canceling their subs!

Nothing to see here, I’m sure. Jeff Bezos, owner of Blue Origin and The Post, just really strongly felt like there didn’t need to be a presidential endorsement this time around, no reason.

Okay, this one’s weird: Musk has posted a three-minute clip of a game, but the audio is someone telling him how “We were one second away from telling the rocket to abort” — and how the amazing ‘chopstick’ Super Heavy booster catch was close to being a scary crash.