Musk: Saudi, UAE investments in SpaceX ‘not true’
Musk denies the report that investors from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates plan to invest in an upcoming multi-billion dollar funding round for SpaceX.
Not true
Not true
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2023
Saudi, Abu Dhabi companies to invest in SpaceX
An Abu Dhabi-based company and a unit of Saudi Arabia’s investment fund plan to invest in a multi-billion dollar funding round for SpaceX. The round is reportedly expected to value Musk’s company at about $140 billion.
Musk ‘not saying’ Starship will get to orbit
SpaceX will debut its Starship vehicle in a month or so, but the chances of its first-ever orbital mission being a success are apparently only about 50%.
I’m not saying it will get to orbit, but I am guaranteeing excitement. So, won’t be boring!…So I think we’ve got, hopefully, about an 80% chance of reaching orbit this year. It’ll probably take us a couple more years to achieve full and rapid reusability.
According to Musk, Starship will be the most powerful rocket to ever fly, featuring about 2.5 times more thrust at liftoff than NASA’s Saturn V. SpaceX hopes that, among other things, Starship will get people and cargo to the moon and Mars. It is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, which Musk considers the most important breakthrough for making Mars colonization and other ambitious exploration feats feasible.
Musk: Expendable Starship is ‘an option’
Musk says SpaceX could eventually develop an expendable version of its next-generation Starship rocket.
Expendable upper stage may or may not fly, but it is an option
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 31, 2023
Starship is designed to launch up to 150 tons (330,000 lbs) to low Earth orbit while still recovering the orbital ship and suborbital booster for reuse (by comaprison, the Saturn V rocket could lift 118 tons). Musk says the reusable ship may be turned aoround in hours, enabling multiple flights a day, lowering the price of each launch. However, in early 2023, SpaceX updated the Starship section of its website, revealing that an expendable version of the rocket will be able to launch up to 250 metric tons (~550,000 lbs) to low Earth orbit in a single launch.
StarshipSpaceX’s Starbase factory is already building multiple intentionally-expendable Starships. Ship 26 and Ship 27 feature no thermal protection, have no heat shield tiles, and will not be fitted with flaps, making them impossible to recover or reuse. They will be used to test other crucial Starship technologies like orbital refilling and cryogenic fluid management. The first few Starship Moon landers may also be functionally expendable.
Starship completes first full ‘wet’ dress rehearsal
Starship completes its first full wet dress rehearsal, where it is loaded with more than 10m pounds of propellant. SpaceX says the test will help verify a full launch countdown sequence, as well as the performance of Starship and the orbital pad for flight-like operations.
Starship completed its first full flight-like wet dress rehearsal at Starbase today. This was the first time an integrated Ship and Booster were fully loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellant pic.twitter.com/btprGNGZ1G
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 24, 2023
Fired SpaceX employees file charges
Eight former SpaceX employees file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging they were let go for being part of a group that had drafted and circulated a letter to SpaceX executives in June. The letter asked SpaceX executives for three things: to curb “Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior,” to define and enforce the company’s sexual harassment policies, and ensure that all leadership is held accountable for violating such policies.
SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values, as many employees continue to experience unequal enforcement of our oft-repeated ‘No Asshole’ and ‘Zero Tolerance’ policies.
US labor law prohibits employers from firing workers who band together to advocate for better working conditions. At the time, Musk called the letter a “distraction and embarrassment” to the company.
SpaceX buys Twitter Starlink ad campaign
Musk confirms SpaceX purchased a $250,000 ad campaign on Twitter to promote Starlink services in Australia and Spain, which will place SpaceX’s ad on top of the main Twitter timeline for a full day. Users will see the ad the first three times they open Twitter when the ad campaign is scheduled. The ad buy is the first for any of Musk’s companies, including Tesla, which does not engage in traditional advertising.
SpaceX Starlink bought a tiny – not large – ad package to test effectiveness of Twitter advertising in Australia & Spain. Did same for FB/Insta/Google.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2022
Falcon Heavy double booster landing
The two side boosters from Falcon Heavy USSF-44 mission return to Earth safely, marking the 150th and 151st succesful orbital-class booster recovery. The middle booster was expended. The mission is to deploy two payloads for the US Space Force into geosynchronous orbit, one of which is the TETRA 1 microsatellite.
Falcon Heavy’s side boosters have landed – marking the 150th and 151st recovery of orbital class rockets pic.twitter.com/vK4ZdfDQtX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 1, 2022
Musk will continue to cover Ukraine Starlink costs
Despite earlier tweeting that SpaceX could not fund Starlink ‘indefinitely’, Musk says he will continue to pay for Starlink to cover Ukraine. SpaceX has told the US government that Ukraine’s use of Starlink has already cost $80 million and could cost close to $400 million over the next 12 months.
The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free
The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2022
When a Twitter user told Musk “No good deed goes unpunished”, he replied:
Even so, we should still do good deeds.
Even so, we should still do good deeds
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2022
Crew-4 returns to Earth on Dragon Freedom
After 170 days in space, Crew-4 astronauts return to Earth, in a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Teams aboard SpaceX recovery vessels retrieve the spacecraft and astronauts. After returning to shore, all astronauts will fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Cristoforetti then will board a plane to Europe.
The mission launched at 3:52 a.m. EDT April 27 on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Throughout their mission, the Crew-4 astronauts contributed to a host of science and maintenance activities and technology demonstrations. Cristoforetti completed two spacewalks with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev to perform station maintenance and upgrades.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson:
Welcome home Crew-4! This international crew has spent nearly six months on the International Space Station conducting science for the benefit of all. Their work aboard the orbiting laboratory will help prepare future explorers for future space missions. Working and living on the space station is the opportunity of a lifetime, but it also requires these explorers to make sacrifices, especially time away from loved ones. Kjell, Bob, Jessica and Samantha, thank you for your contributions over the past six months to science, innovation, and discovery!
Welcome home @SpaceX #Crew4 astronauts after a 170-day @ISS_Research mission that began on April 27! Splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean occurred at 4:55pm ET today. More… https://t.co/Kfzv8VmUdP pic.twitter.com/5OjWFKsBmL
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) October 14, 2022
Musk: SpaceX cannot fund Starlink in Ukraine ‘indefinitely’
Following a report that SpaceX told the US government that Ukraine’s use of Starlink has already cost $80 million and could cost close to $400 million over the next 12 months, Musk says SpaceX cannot fund the existing system “indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals” that have high data usage. SpaceX’s donated Starlink internet terminals have been crucial in keeping Ukraine’s military online during the war against Russia.
SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022
Musk also said he was following the recommendation of Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, who told Musk to ‘F off’ after he posted his Twitter peace plan.
We’re just following his recommendation 🤷♂️
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2022
Starlink debuts in Japan
SpaceX announces Starlink’s debut in Japan, the first Asian country to get the satellite internet service. Starlink’s service map shows the satellite internet service is available in parts of Japan’s main island including the Tōhoku and Kantō regions, and parts of the Chūbu region. The monthly service fee is 12,300 yen ($84) on top of hardware costs of 73,000 yen. The company signed an agreement with Japanese telecommunications operator KDDI to act as Starlink integrator for rural and remote areas. KDDI:
Starlink’s unmatched performance is a great fit for our persistent endeavor to bring the urban mobile experience to rural customers, With Japan having more than 16,000 mountains and 6,000 islands, Starlink’s industry-leading satellite constellation is uniquely suited to provide Japanese enterprises with reliable, sustainable internet connectivity, even in times of natural disaster
Starlink が日本でのサービスを開始しました － アジアでは初めてのサービス国です → https://t.co/slZbTmHdml
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 10, 2022
Musk post Starship night photo: ‘This is real’
Musk posts a night image of the newly-stacked Starship, on its launchpad at Boca Chica, Texas, with the caption:
This is real
This is real
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 13, 2022
Dennis & Akiko Tito join second SpaceX Moon mission
Dennis and Akiko Tito are the first two crewmembers announced on Starship’s second commercial spaceflight around the Moon. The flight will be Dennis’ second mission to space after becoming the first commercial astronaut to visit the International Space Station, for 7 days at a cost of $20 million, in 2001, and Akiko will be among the first women to fly around the Moon on a Starship. Over the course of a week, Starship and the crew will travel to the Moon, fly within 200 km of the Moon’s surface, and complete a full journey around the Moon, before returning to Earth. This mission is expected to launch after the Polaris Program’s first flight of Starship and dearMoon. Dennis:
I think another first that’s very important is that we’ll be the first married couple to fly around the moon. And hopefully that’ll be inspiring to other couples to do the same. And I think I probably will end up being the oldest person to go beyond Earth orbit, so that will be nice.
SpaceX fully stacks Starship rocket
For the first time in more than six months, SpaceX stacks both stages of Starship, creating the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever fully assembled. SpaceX has conducted three other full-stack Starship demonstrations: in August 2021 and February and March 2022. This stack includes Super Heavy Booster 7 (B7) and Starship 24 (S24). The stacking is taking place at Starship’s orbital launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas.
After an aborted predawn attempt on October 11th, the Starship was lifted at sunset about 80 meters (250 ft) off the ground, translated over to Booster 7, and lowered on top of the 69-meter-tall (225 ft) first stage. After about two more hours of robotically tweaking their positions, the two Starship stages were secured together.
According to Musk, Booster 7 and Ship 24 will attempt Starship’s first full-stack wet dress rehearsal (WDR) once all is in order, which is a fully loaded countdown up to the point of launch.
Starship 24 and Booster 7 fully stacked on the orbital launch pad at Starbase pic.twitter.com/1VKn6juQor
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 12, 2022
Elon Musk
SpaceX loses Starlink Mexican domain battle
SpaceX loses a cybersquatting challenge against StarGroup, a 60-year-old Mexican telecommunications and entertainment services company in Mexico that registered the domain name starlinkmx.com. StarGroup’s brands include Star TV, Star Go, Star Line and Star Group.
The company applied for trademarks in Mexico for Starlink for communications starting in 2015. In November 2017, SpaceX legal representatives contacted StarGroup, initially not naming its client, to see if StarGroup would sell its Star Line and Starlink marks.
In finding for StarGroup, the WIPO panel noted that the company’s brand name starts with star, and it has a history of naming products that start with star. The panel also pointed out that StarGroup applied for trademarks in 2015, which predates SpaceX’s intentions to use the mark. The panel found that SpaceX did not show that StarGroup lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain and did not show that StarGroup registered the domain in bad faith.
SpaceX Dragon Capsule docks with ISS
Elon Musk shares a video of the SpaceX Dragon capsule docking with the International Space Station. The docking took place 29 hours after the Falcon 9 spacecraft took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX Crew-5 is the fifth crewed NASA flight, carrying two NASA astronauts, one Japanese astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut. During their time on the orbiting laboratory, the crew will conduct over 200 science experiments.
SpaceX Dragon docking with @Space_Station (extended video) pic.twitter.com/AFBDKHddgI
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2022
SpaceX, NASA move ahead with second Dragon launch pad
SpaceX and NASA officials confirm they are moving forward with plans to modify the LC-40 launch pad to support Crew and Cargo Dragon missions. SpaceX began studying the possibility of modifying the pad earlier this year, after NASA raised concerns about the risks posed by plans to operate its next-generation Starship rocket out of LC-39, which is currently used for Dragon missions. Likely modifications include building a new crew access tower, crew access arm, escape system (39A uses baskets and ziplines), and an on-site bunker for astronauts.
NASA's Steve Stitch says that SpaceX and NASA continue to look at outfitting SLC-40 for Dragon missions given Starship work at 39A. SpaceX's Gerst says that hardware is already in work to prepare SLC-40. Starship will only come to 39A after it is proven reliable in Texas.
— Michael Baylor (@nextspaceflight) September 26, 2022
One million Starlink terminals manufactured
After its recent launch of 52 Starlink satellites, Musk announces that SpaceX has manufactured one million Starlink terminals. The one-million milestone has been achieved less than two years after Starlink began taking pre-orders for the satellite broadband service in February 2021.
Starlink now over 1M user terminals manufactured
Starlink now over 1M user terminals manufactured
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 25, 2022
Iran blocks SpaceX Starlink website
The government of Iran blocks SpaceX’s Starlink website following Elon Musk activating Starlink for Iranians.
The website https://t.co/yZnnlfljYg has been blocked in Iran, according to media reports and users. pic.twitter.com/19HwQ2j1Tk
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) September 24, 2022