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A federal judge refused to block the Trump administration from giving SpaceX more than 700 acres of wildlife refuge as part of a land swap in Texas, while environmental groups vowed to continue their legal challenge. US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr on Monday declined the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the parcel exchange, saying they failed to prove it would worsen ecological risks to a Gulf Coast region already transformed by billionaire Elon Musk's rocket operations. In June, the US Fish and Wildlife Service approved moving forward with the deal with SpaceX, which would surrender 683 acres the company owns in exchange for the federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The 103,000-acre refuge spans four counties along the Texas border and is home to animal habitats and historical landmarks. Maps show the land SpaceX would acquire would be closer to the company's launchpad near the US-Mexico border. The swap amounts t
Commercial space firm SpaceX is constructing a specialised in-house foundry to manufacture high-spec gas turbine blades and vanes, CEO Elon Musk confirmed. Confirming the plans on social media platform X, Musk on Saturday noted that while SpaceX and Tesla are racing to scale solar panel production, natural gas remains necessary to bridge power demands for several years. The strategic expansion targets a severe supply chain bottleneck that has stalled power generation required for artificial intelligence (AI) data centres across the United States. A turbine blade foundry is a specialised manufacturing facility that uses advanced casting techniques to produce high-precision turbine blades and vanes for jet engines, aerospace systems and power-generation gas turbines. "The limiting factor for nat gas turbine production is casting the blades & vanes," Musk stated. "By doing in-house casting at SpaceX, we can accelerate nat gas turbines coming online by up to 18 months, which is a ...
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has pitched Starlink's satellite internet services as a way to connect underserved parts of India, particularly rural areas. "Starlink would help the least served in India, especially in rural areas," Musk said in a social media post on Wednesday local time. He was responding to a post by X account DogeDesigner, which also pushed for Starlink Services in India to connect remote villages. "11,256 of India's listed villages still had no 4G coverage as of May 2026," DogeDesigner said. "India had 1.093 billion internet subscriptions in March 2026, but only 440.87 million were rural. Rural subscription density was 48.31 per 100 people, compared with 126.80 in urban India," it said. Musk's comments came amid reports that Starlink has made a fresh application to offer satellite communication services in India. The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre had earlier rejected Starlink's application for its Gen 2 satellite network, saying some of i