An old rocket body and military satellite—large pieces of space junk dating back to the Soviet Union—nearly smashed into each other on Friday morning, in an uncomfortable near-miss that would’ve resulted in thousands of pieces of debris had they collided.
SpaceX continues to launch its Falcon 9 rocket at a frenetic pace, as the calendar flips over to February this week. Excitingly, the company could perform its first full static fire test of the enormous Starship, in which all 33 Raptor engines will simultaneously roar to life.
NTB/Carina Johansen via REUTERS
Adult Swim
SpaceX’s freakishly reliable Falcon 9 continues to impress. The rocket delivered 56 Starlink satellites to Earth orbit this morning, and with a collective weight around 17.4 metric tons, it’s now the heaviest payload ever lifted by a Falcon 9 rocket.
As NASA gears up for a return to the Moon with the Artemis missions, the administration has announced that its researchers have successfully developed and tested a new type of supersonic rocket engine called a rotating detonation rocket engine.
If Tesla was any other company, most analysts would think it a shining diamond compared to the hard time most other tech-related companies have had at the end of 2022. But this is Tesla, driven by the (cough) magnificent billionaire Elon Musk.
Vicki Behringer/Reuters
Vicki Behringer/Reuters
AstroForge has announced an ambitious commercial mission to observe a distant asteroid—an important step for the California startup as it strives to become the world’s first deep space mining company.
