spacex

Astronomy experts say they originally misread the secrets of the night sky last month: it turns out that a rocket expected to crash into the Moon in early March was built by China, not SpaceX.A rocket will indeed strike the lunar surface on March 4, but contrary to what had been announced, it was built not by Elon Musk's company, but by Beijing, experts now say.The rocket is now said to be 2014-065B, the booster for the Chang'e 5-T1, launched in 2014 as part of the Chinese space agency's lunar exploration programme.The…

Elon Musk's SpaceX achieved yet another milestone on February 21. It has successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth for the 100th time after deploying its payload into orbit. The rocket was launched from Florida, US, at 8:14pm IST, carrying 46 Starlink satellites. About nine minutes later, the rocket's first stage (booster) returned to Earth for a vertical touchdown on a SpaceX drone ship, A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), stationed a few hundred kilometres off the Florida coast. The successful return marked the…

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from California on Friday and carried 50 more satellites into orbit for the Starlink internet constellation.A SpaceX webcast showed the rocket's upper stage deploying the satellites a little over an hour after the 9:12am liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base.The satellites will use their own thrusters to move into their operational orbits over a period of weeks.The first stage successfully landed on a “droneship” in the Pacific Ocean. It was the fourth successful launch and landing…

Elon Musk has said his company SpaceX would save the International Space Station (ISS) from crashing after the head of the Russian space agency warned that the crippling sanctions announced by the West against Moscow could lead to the ISS falling into the US, Europe, or India. In a Twitter thread, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin had warned the sanctions announced in response to the Russian military action in Ukraine have the potential to destroy the cooperation on ISS. He had asked who would save the space station from an…

NASA has granted three more missions — Crew-7, Crew-8, and Crew-9 — to SpaceX as part of its Commercial Human Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract for crew transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS). This takes the space agency's total number of crewed missions to the ISS to nine, including the three successful operational trips over the last two years. The original $2.6-billion (roughly Rs. 19,700 crore) contract was awarded to SpaceX in 2014 for the development of American crewed launch…

The state of a three-tonne discarded rocket part that should have crashed into the far side of the Moon by now is not known, say astronomers. Scientists had expected the rocket part to hit the lunar surface on Friday at a speed exceeding 8,800kmph, dig out a small crater, and create a plume of smoke. But there have been no such signs so far. They hope to confirm the crash in the coming days. First spotted from Earth in March 2015, the rocket part was continuously tracked since then.Initially it was thought that the space…

Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has launched another 48 Starlink Internet satellites into orbit. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida, US, on March 9 and helped place the small satellites a little later. The rocket's first stage then returned to Earth for a smooth touchdown on a SpaceX drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 10th launch by SpaceX in 10 weeks, with each carrying a similar number of satellites. SpaceX has said that the idea behind placing these satellites is to provide low latency high-speed…

SpaceX will delay the maiden flight of Starship, the spaceship designed to transport humans to Moon and Mars, as it is switching priorities to cyber defence and overcoming signal jamming, CEO Elon Musk said. The tech billionaire did not say what or who was causing these attacks on SpaceX. But Musk and his SpaceX-operated Starlink Internet satellite constellation has been assisting Ukraine to remain online after the Russian invasion. SpaceX has sent free Starlink terminals at the request of the Ukrainian government. Since…

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Sunday the US electric carmaker and his rocket company SpaceX are facing significant inflationary pressure in raw materials and logistics.Musk in a tweet also asked about inflation rate outlook and said his companies "are not alone", retweeting an article saying the Ukraine-Russia conflict sent commodity prices to their highest levels since 2008.Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been ramping up the prices of metals used in cars, from aluminum in the bodywork to palladium in…

NASA is set to roll out its Space Launch System (SLS), which will take humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, into the public view for the first time on Thursday. The system has been under development for over a decade and is beset by delays and mounting costs. However, the agency hopes once it is launched successfully, it will make up for the delays in its development. The Space Launch System (SLS) comprises two parts: the super-heavy rocket and the Orion spacecraft. Both these parts will roll out to the launchpad for…