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Starship — the spacecraft that Elon Musk says will one day take people to Mars — is preparing for its eighth test flight. This trip to space, on Monday, will largely be a do-over of the seventh flight, which launched in January. In that test, Starship’s mammoth booster, or the bottom of the rocket, successfully … Read more
The singer and songwriter Katy Perry and the broadcast journalist and show host Gayle King will be among the all-female crew on the next mission of New Shepard, the space tourism rocket that is operated by Jeff Bezos’ private company, Blue Origin. Blue Origin announced the lineup on Thursday, ahead of a planned spaceflight this … Read more
Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos, is laying off roughly 10 percent of its work force, according to an email that was sent to staff on Thursday and that was viewed by The New York Times. The cuts, which could affect about 1,000 roles, follow several years of rapid growth and the … Read more
new video loaded: SpaceX Launches Intuitive Machines’ Moon Lander transcript Back transcript SpaceX Launches Intuitive Machines’ Moon Lander Onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is Athena, Intuitive Machine’s second moon lander, with instruments designed to dig up lunar soil and search for compounds like frozen water. 3, 2, 1, ignition and liftoff. There is that … Read more
Star Wars is back, with an executive order from President Trump that the White House said “directs the building of the Iron Dome missile defense shield for America.” The order, issued on Monday night, didn’t quite do that. It was more a vaguely worded set of instructions to accelerate current programs or explore new approaches … Read more
Two canyons near the south pole of the moon rival the Grand Canyon, both in depth and length. Unlike the sinuous chasm in Arizona, the two lunar canyons, known as Vallis Schrödinger and Vallis Planck, are straight, as if the crust of the moon had been cut by a knife. And unlike the Grand Canyon, … Read more
NASA’s second thoughts about VIPER opened an opportunity for someone else to book that ride to the moon. Just because its cargo was canceled did not mean Astrobotic’s journey was off — it remains scheduled for later this year. And on Wednesday, a small startup named Venturi Astrolab Inc. announced it had claimed that opportunity … Read more
Astute skywatchers may have already seen the striking line of planets across the night sky in January. This week Mercury joins the queue. Now every other world in our solar system will be visible among the stars at the same time — if you know where to look. According to Gerard van Belle, director of … Read more
The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket failed on Thursday as the vehicle’s upper stage experienced a catastrophic malfunction as it headed upward to space. SpaceX was able to achieve some success by repeating the feat of catching the gargantuan Super Heavy booster back at the launchpad. But then data indicated that some of … Read more
Our solar system contains planets, dwarf planets, asteroids and comets — but only one world is known to harbor life. Scientists have long debated whether Earth is truly unique. Perhaps our planet just happened to have the right combination of ingredients, conditions and timing to allow life to emerge. But a pinch of grit from … Read more