california institute of technology

Long-exposure shot of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch on September 18, 2022. Image: SpaceXOn Wednesday, Boeing said it’s taking a $190 million hit on its CST-100 Starliner, raising its total loss on the program to $883 million. The announcement comes at an awkward time, as Boeing slips behind SpaceX on NASA’s roster of private partners. SpaceX was NASA’s second-largest private partner in fiscal year 2022, moving it up one notch compared to last year, according to Aviation Week reporter Irene Klotz. Moving down is Boeing, in what…

Spaceflight, once the sole domain of government-backed agencies like NASA and Roscosmos, is now a thriving commercial venture, and innovations in rocketry and orbital technology are increasingly coming from private companies. At the same time, space agencies are still creating incredible new tech (like fully electric planes) and launching new missions to explore the solar system like never before. Many of these plans take shape on the scale of decades, so the work of today’s students and early career engineers will be…