Space

President and COO Gwynne Shotwell took to X to comment on yesterday’s vague commitment by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to plug the long-standing gaps in rural US coverage, as frustrated residents adopt solutions from Starlink, Amazon, and AST SpaceMobile:

Last year, EchoStar agreed to offload 65Mhz of its spectrum to SpaceX for its direct-to-cell service, while AT&T snapped up 50Mhz of its spectrum to build out its 5G network. Now it’s official, with the FCC noting that SpaceX will be able to use its spectrum for “terrestrial, space-based, and hybrid network architectures.”

The Wall Street Journal has the story.

The Trump Administration has made another website, this time a dedicated Pentagon page with “new, never-before-seen files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).

Following its acquisition by Elon’s other company, xAI is now being referred to as SpaceXAI. Presumably this is only the start of the brand synergy to come.

In Wednesday’s annoucement of its compute partnership with Anthropic, the company formerly known as xAI referred to itself as “SpaceXAI.” It was the first time I had seen that name, and while I don’t think it’s a good one, it made some sense following SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI.

Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) is the tool NASA uses to model reentry, aerodynamics, and fluid dynamics for Mars landers and the SLS (Space Launch System) that launched Artemis II. And now it’s available for researchers and commercial aerospace companies, even those without a supercomputer:

That’s listed among SpaceX’s “substantial capital expenditures” in the S-1 registration filed ahead of its IPO, reports Reuters.

After Jeff Bezos lost one of AST’s giant space-based cell towers last weekend, the FCC has stepped up with some good news by approving its commercial license. AST can now operate a constellation of up to 248 satellites in low Earth orbit in order to deliver space-based cellular broadband to everyday smartphones. It was supposed to go live sometime later this year before the Blue Origin debacle.

Astronauts aboard the ISS are getting new custom HP laptops, an upgrade to an orbital compute setup that already includes HP workstations and printers. But is the company getting a little ahead of itself?

A rock NASA’s Curiosity rover drilled in 2020 contained “the most diverse collection of organic molecules ever found on the Red Planet,” including seven never previously detected on Mars. The finding published today in Nature was made using its onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory.

Astronauts having very human reactions to witnessing Earthset. “Gone! It’s gone. Oh my god.”

We just flew around the Moon, which remains an incredible feat for human beings. On this planet, I’m really psyched to print and frame the official NASA posters for the Artemis II mission. And because they’re public works you can get them for free. What a great use of taxes.

Some parts of the probe were powered down last year, but power dropped unexpectedly during a maneuver on February 27th, leading NASA to shut down the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment (LECP) earlier than expected. A fix is in the works that could extend the life of both Voyagers and possibly bring LECP back online.

During a press conference on Thursday, astronaut Reid Wiseman said if Artemis II had a lander, “at least three of my crewmates would have been in it trying to land on the Moon.”

Reporting from Bloomberg on how many Cybertrucks Elon’s other companies have been buying:

The billionaire space race sure heated up yesterday with Amazon’s purchase of Globalstar. In response, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched 54 new Starlink satellites in less than 24 hours via two deployments, while Jeff Bezos has only managed to launch a total of 241 Leo satellites in the last 12 months.

The new Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) antenna will enable air travelers bandwidth of up to 1 gigabit per second for downloads and 400 megabits per second for uploads on Delta, JetBlue, and any other commercial airlines Amazon signs up.

Elon Musk has apparently made the jump from X to infect both TikTok and Instagram with new verified accounts. According to the New York Times:

We love a good space mission patch and this one worn by the Navy rescue team is top-tier. You can check out more photos from the Artemis II splashdown from NASA right here.

The Artemis II crew has successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. They’ve now finished their 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon. It’s been so inspiring to follow.

When the four astronauts aboard Orion return to Earth tonight, they’ll rely on a heat shield that NASA has admitted is flawed. Former astronaut Dr. Charlie Camarda told the New York Times that NASA never should’ve launched Artemis II, guessing there’s a 95 percent chance it will return safely.

You might not be able to fly on an Artemis mission, but you could help them navigate transitions across the gravity on Earth, in transit, and on the Moon. Navy researchers are seeking volunteers to help find out “how the brain and inner ear respond to motion and to space motion sickness mitigation techniques” using an Air Force centrifuge:

On its way to and from visiting the Moon, the 33 engines of the ESA’s European Service Module are keeping Orion on track, as explained in this video. The crew has also tested manual piloting and plans another demonstration tonight at about 10:55PM.

While thousands of smartphones and cameras were trained on the sky on April 1st capturing the historic launch of Artemis II, Redditor Cambot72 recorded it on a Nintendo 3DS XL. The 0.3-megapixel footage has some retro Apollo vibes, and you can download the original version to watch in 3D if you’ve still got a 3DS.