SpaceX

April 5, 2025 11:00 AM

SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin clinch $13.5 billion-dollar Pentagon launch contracts

Elon Musk's SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin on Friday won U.S. Space Force rocket launch contracts worth a combined $13.5 billion through 2029 to send some of the Pentagon's most sensitive and complex satellites into space. The Space Force's flagship National Security Space Launch procurement program will assign roughly 54 missions through 2029 in incremental task orders, according to its Space Systems Command office. SpaceX, awarded 28 of the missions, won $5.9 bill...

April 2, 2025 4:18 PM

SpaceX rocket cargo project puts Pacific seabirds in jeopardy

A project proposed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and the U.S. Air Force to test hypersonic rocket cargo deliveries from a remote Pacific atoll could harm the many seabirds that nest at the wildlife refuge, according to biologists and experts who have spent more than a decade working to protect them. It would not be the first time that SpaceX's activities have affected protected birds. A SpaceX launch of its Starship rocket in Boca Chica, Texas, last year involved a blast that destroyed nests and eggs o...

March 19, 2025 9:47 AM

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore return to Earth after nine-month space mission

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule on Tuesday with a soft splashdown off Florida's coast, nine months after their faulty Boeing Starliner craft upended what was to be a week-long stay on the International Space Station. Their return caps a protracted space mission that was fraught with uncertainty and technical troubles, turning a rare instance of NASA's contingency planning - and the latest failures of Starliner - into a global and political...

March 18, 2025 2:40 PM

NASA astronauts head home on SpaceX capsule after drawn-out space station stay

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams departed the International Space Station early on Tuesday morning in a SpaceX capsule for a long-awaited trip back to Earth, nine months after their faulty Boeing Starliner craft upended what was to be a roughly week-long test mission. Wilmore and Williams, two veteran NASA astronauts and retired U.S. Navy test pilots, strapped inside their Crew Dragon spacecraft along with two other astronauts and undocked from the orbiting laboratory at 1.05 a.m...

March 16, 2025 10:20 AM

Astronaut crew docks with space station to replace ‘Butch and Suni’

A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station early on Sunday in a NASA crew-swap mission that will allow a pair of stuck astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to return home after nine months on the orbiting lab. About 29 hours since launching at 7:03 p.m. ET on Friday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Crew-10 astronauts' SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule docked to the ISS at 12:04 a.m. ET (0404 GMT) on Sunday. They were welcomed by the station's...

March 15, 2025 9:52 AM

SpaceX, NASA launch mission to bring back astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore from ISS

SpaceX and NASA have launched a mission to bring back U.S. astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station (ISS), where they have been stranded for nine months. The mission lifted off at 7:03 ET on Friday, with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft as part of the Crew-10 mission. Along with the return of Williams and Wilmore, the launch also carried four new crew members to the ISS: NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace ...

March 13, 2025 9:31 AM

NASA, SpaceX delay flight that was to retrieve stuck astronauts

NASA and SpaceX on Wednesday delayed the launch of a replacement crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station that would have set in motion the long-awaited homecoming of U.S. astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. NASA had been set to launch a SpaceX rocket from Florida carrying a replacement crew for the International Space Station in a mission that would set up the return to Earth of Wilmore and Williams - stuck in space for nine months after a trip on Boeing's fault...

March 11, 2025 6:25 PM

Airtel partners with Musk’s SpaceX to bring Starlink’s high-speed internet to India

Telecom major Airtel on Tuesday said it has signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring Starlink’s high-speed internet services to its customers in India. This is the first agreement to be signed in India, which is subject to SpaceX receiving authorisations to sell Starlink in the country. Airtel and SpaceX will explore offering Starlink equipment in Airtel’s retail stores, Starlink services via Airtel to business customers, opportunities to connect communities, schools, and hea...

March 7, 2025 9:31 AM

SpaceX’s Starship explodes in space, again raining debris over Caribbean

SpaceX's massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space on Thursday minutes after lifting off from Texas, prompting the FAA to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk's Mars rocket program. Several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the missi...

March 4, 2025 10:07 AM

SpaceX postpones Starship test flight over unspecified ship issue

SpaceX on Monday called off its eighth Starship test flight from Texas over an unspecified issue on the rocket system's core, delaying for at least 24 hours the company's attempt to deploy mock Starlink satellites in space for the first time. The test mission would have been the first Starship launch since a January mission ended eight minutes into flight when Starship, atop a rocket booster, exploded over the Caribbean, sending fiery debris streaking over the Turks and Caicos Islands and promp...