Tag: spaceflight
Starship survives reentry to splash down in the Indian Ocean after successful fourth flight test
SpaceX’s Starship just soared through a series of critical milestones in its development, surviving reentry through Earth’s atmosphere and demonstrating a landing burn for the first time, before splashing down in the Indian Ocean. Starship lifted off from the company’s Texas Starbase at around 8:50AM ET for its fourth flight…
Read More
Billionaire space barons want to build ‘mixed-use business parks’ in low Earth orbit
The Space Race is no longer a competition between the global superpowers of the world — at least not the nation-states that once vied to be first to the Moon. Today, low Earth orbit is the battleground for private conglomerates and the billionaires that helm them. With the Mir Space…
Read More
Suing your way to the stars
Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! I’m back from a very fun and rehabilitative couple weeks away from my phone, my Twitter account and the news cycle. That said, I actually really missed writing this newsletter, and while Greg did a fantastic job while I was out,…
Read More
Astra targets first commercial orbital launch for August 27
Astra’s last test launch went better than expected, nearly achieving orbit — kind of a stretch goal for that specific mission. The company at the time said that it would only need to tweak software to reach an orbital destination, and now we know when it’s going to get the…
Read More
Japanese startup ispace raises $46M to support planned moon missions
Japanese startup ispace has raised $46 million in a fresh round of Series C funding as it looks to complete three lunar lander missions in three years. The funding will go toward the second and third of the planned missions, scheduled for 2023 and 2024. The first mission, which ispace…
Read More
US government watchdog rejects Blue Origin’s protest over lunar lander contract
Blue Origin’s protest to a U.S. governmental watchdog over NASA’s decision to award SpaceX a multi-billion dollar contract to develop a lunar lander was rejected. The Government Accountability Office said Friday that it was denying both Blue Origin’s protest and a separate challenge filed by Dynetics, a defense contractor that…
Read More