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SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week's test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration announced on Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket's first-stage booster. Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company's investigation. The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The 407-foot (124-metre) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lun
SpaceX got within a half-minute of launching its newest and biggest Starship on a test flight Thursday evening before a cascade of problems halted the countdown. The 407-foot (124-metre) rocket was poised to begin a space-skimming journey from Texas extending halfway around the world. But issues cropped up with the brand-new pad at Starbase near the Mexican border, and the company ran out of time. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk later said the hydraulic pin holding the launch tower's arm in place did not retract. If the problem can be fixed quickly, another launch attempt will be made Friday, he noted. Thursday's launch attempt came one day after Musk announced that his rocket company would be going public. Starship holds 20 mock Starlink satellites to be released before the spacecraft's controlled entry into the Indian Ocean at the end of the hourlong flight. It will be the 12th test flight for a Starship and the first since last fall. NASA is relying on this latest version of Starship to l
Elon Musk vowed this week to upend another industry just as he did with cars and rockets -- and once again he's taking on long odds. The world's richest man said he wants to put as many as a million satellites into orbit to form vast, solar-powered data centres in space -- a move to allow expanded use of artificial intelligence and chatbots without triggering blackouts and sending utility bills soaring. To finance that effort, Musk combined SpaceX with his AI business on Monday and plans a big initial public offering of the combined company. "Space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale," Musk wrote on SpaceX's website Monday, adding about his solar ambitions, "It's always sunny in space!" But scientists and industry experts say even Musk, who outsmarted Detroit to turn Tesla into the world's most valuable automaker, faces formidable technical, financial and environmental obstacles. Feeling the heat Capturing the sun's energy from space to run chatbots and other AI tools wou
Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday threw his weight behind having more players in satellite internet space, saying the service was needed particularly in the rural and underserved areas of the vast market that is India. The government has already granted licences to firms backed by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal to offer satellite internet services, and Scindia indicated more may be granted if players meet security and regulatory norms. The minister's statement is a positive one for Elon Musk's Starlink that has aspirations to operate in the world's most populous nation. Starlink, which had been vying for an India licence for sometime now, last month signed pacts with Ambani's Reliance Jio and Mittal's Bharti Airtel -- which together control more than 70 per cent of the country's telecom market -- to bring the US satellite internet giant's services to India. Citing the licences granted to Bharti Group-backed Eutelsat OneWeb and Jio Satellite ...