SpaceX

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

From the SpaceX livestream, the team there said about 15 minutes into the 8AM ET launch that Starship’s signal had disappeared, and it appears the craft’s flight termination system ended its journey soon after the planned engine shutdown.

SpaceX’s rocket launched just after 8AM CT. The rocket is currently heading towards space. The booster exploded seconds after the stage separation, but Starship itself continued.

The FAA still hasn’t cleared SpaceX to attempt another Starship orbital launch from its Boca Chica, TX, site after the first one caused significant damage to the pad and surrounding environment. SpaceX’s website and this teaser trailer indicate it’s ready to try again as soon as November 17th.

This time last year Musk said that Starlink was losing about $20 million a month. Now he says it’s breakeven, which is good news for a service that keeps people connected in remote locations, in times of disaster and war, or while tooling around in a van or boat. Unimpeded growth could be bad for astronomers trying to see past those roughly 5,000 satellites currently operating in low-Earth orbit, with plans for up to 37,000 more.

The Elon Musk-owned company could launch up to four of the ESA’s Galileo navigation satellites into space next year, according to The Wall Street Journal. The deal reportedly involves two US-based launches, each with two Galileo satellites aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets.

The company reportedly told ArsTechnica it’s shooting for 144 launches next year. That’s 12 launches a month, or about every two-and-a-half days.

Yes, NASA just revealed preliminary results from the OSIRIS-REx mission that snagged material from the asteroid Bennu, but this morning, it successfully launched Psyche, an orbiter that will attempt to visit an asteroid of that name, which was the 16th one discovered, on March 17th, 1852.

Elon Musk’s company is arguing in a Texas federal court that the Justice Department’s lawsuit alleging that the company is illegally disqualifying asylees and refugees from employment is unconstitutional.