Verge Science is here to bring you the most up-to-date space news and analysis, whether it’s about the latest findings from NASA or comprehensive coverage of the next SpaceX rocket launch to the International Space Station. We’ll take you inside the discoveries of new exoplanets, space weather, space policy, and the booming commercial space industry.
Wait, you’re telling me that consumer tech can be foiled by a determined and well-funded military?
The new outages appeared to be the first time the Russians have caused widespread disruptions of Starlink. If they continue to succeed, it could mark a tactical shift in the conflict, highlighting Ukraine’s vulnerability and dependence on the service provided by Mr. Musk’s company.
Time for Musk to deploy the Starshield! Or, did he?
The video call works, barely, and that’s before fighting other LTE-compatible phones for access to the T-Mo service first announced in 2022.
But when the choice is no coverage versus this, well, I’d call that a win. And it’ll only be available for texting later this year in the US, with data coming in 2025 as SpaceX launches more D2C Starlink satellites.
All of the crew of Blue Origin’s NS-25 flight have emerged from the capsule, safe and sound. That includes Ed Dwight, who was selected as the first Black Astronaut candidate in the early days of NASA’s space program but never went to space before today.
“I thought I really didn’t need this in my life,” he said during Blue Origin’s livestream, “but now I need it in my life.”
The capsule parachuted down to the desert too, landing shortly after the New Shepard rocket. One of its parachutes didn’t deploy fully, but Blue Origin’s webcasters say the company has tested for that possibility and that it’s fine. They added that the crew are reporting they’re fine.
The reusable rocket that just took the NS-25 capsule into space has now touched down in the desert of West Texas.
At about 3:46 into the flight, Blue Origin confirmed its NS-25 mission had passed into space, and its astronauts were in zero g space. The capsule is now descending back to earth.
Blue Origin’s rocket engines have fired, carrying its crew of six space tourists skyward.
The walkway is retracted and New Shepard has switched to autonomous mode — the launch now can’t be canceled.
Blue Origin’s livestream popped this image up, showing that about eight percent of women who’ve flown to space have been on New Shepard.
The company has also updated its targeted launch time for New Shepard’s NS-25 mission to 10:13AM ET. The livestream is also showing video now.
Live coverage should be starting soon for the 25th launch of New Shepard, which hasn’t taken humans aboard in about two years after a booster malfunction on an uncrewed mission paused its space tourism launches in September 2022.
Blue Origin’s rocket is vertical on the launch pad and the company now targeting 9:52AM ET for launch.
We’ve been waiting for the Quesst X-59 and the return of supersonic air travel for years now, and NASA’s latest update says things are moving along:
A Flight Readiness Review board composed of independent experts from across NASA has completed a study of the X-59 project team’s approach to safety for the public and staff during ground and flight testing.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is already running over budget and behind schedule. But it may also be our best chance of finding extraterrestrial life.
The Crew Flight Test was scrubbed Monday night just as the astronauts settled into position, but now NASA says the launch will be pushed back by a couple of weeks, at least.
NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test now is targeted to launch no earlier than 6:16 p.m. EDT Friday, May 17, to the International Space Station. Following a thorough data review completed on Tuesday, ULA (United Launch Alliance) decided to replace a pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank on the Atlas V rocket’s Centaur upper stage.
The China National Space Administration released a video showing its concept for a future lunar base, which it says it will have set up by 2045, writes Space.
The China Global Television Network appears to have blurred out the Shuttle in the video on YouTube.
Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope recently produced the “sharpest infrared images to date” of the Horsehead Nebula, according to the European Space Agency.
As BBC Science Focus explains, images like this are made up of multiple composites taken at different infrared wavelengths, then shifted to the visible spectrum and combined.
The epic Saturn V and Space Shuttle Discovery didn’t come with a gantry, but Lego’s making up for it with the 3,091-piece NASA Artemis Space Launch System, coming May 28th for $259.99.
How much better is it? Here it is alongside all the other official Lego launchpad examples I could think of:
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NASA has finally found a fix after the 46-year-old space probe stopped sending readable data to Earth in November. Voyager 1 can only send information about its health and status for now, but NASA says it’s working to get it back to transmitting scientific data, too.
Tesla paid X $280,000 for advertising and other services, according to the company’s proxy statement. X paid Tesla $1.02 million for unspecified work. SpaceX paid Tesla $2.9 million for “certain commercial, licensing and support agreements.” Tesla paid SpaceX $800,000 for use of its corporate jet. And Tesla paid the Boring Company $1.2 million.
No one paid Neuralink anything.
The spacecraft is being readied to carry astronauts Barry Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station, with liftoff from Cape Canaveral scheduled for no earlier than 10:34PM ET.
The crew is expected to spend about a week at the orbiting laboratory before their capsule makes an airbag and parachute-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.
After making its final flight in January, NASA’s Mars helicopter has transmitted its last message to Earth and will now serve as a stationary testbed for collecting up to 20 years’ worth of data. Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager, gave it this moving farewell:
“Whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills — either with a rover, a new aircraft, or future astronauts — Ingenuity will be waiting with her last gift of data, a final testament to the reason we dare mighty things. Thank you, Ingenuity, for inspiring a small group of people to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds at the frontiers of space.”
The European Space Agency plans to find out with a project called Solaris. Scientists and engineers have been trying to figure out how to make space-based solar power work since the 1960s. And the rise of the commercial space industry is finally bringing launch costs down enough to really put the technology to the test.
The accounting is “more of an art than a science,” anonymous sources tell Bloomberg. But on an operational and ongoing basis? No, not profitable, according to those sources.
Previously, The Wall Street Journal reported Starlink fell short of expectations in 2022. Hm!
