SpaceX | DD News

June 20, 2025 3:03 PM

Axiom Mission 4 launch postponed again; NASA to announce new date

The launch of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), has been delayed once again as NASA and its partners continue technical assessments. A new launch date is expected to be announced in the coming days. Originally scheduled for May 29 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the mission has faced multiple postponements—first to June 8, then June 10, 11, and 19. The latest delay follows ongoing evaluations of repair wor...

June 20, 2025 10:31 AM

SpaceX Starship rocket explodes in setback to Musk’s Mars mission

SpaceX's massive Starship spacecraft exploded into a dramatic fireball during testing in Texas late on Wednesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for billionaire Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program. The explosion occurred around 11 p.m. local time while Starship was on a test stand at its Brownsville, Texas Starbase while preparing for the tenth test flight, SpaceX said in a post on Musk’s social-media platform X. The company attributed it to a "major anomaly" and said all personnel were sa...

June 18, 2025 2:20 PM

Axiom Mission 4 launch to ISS rescheduled for June 22

NASA has once again rescheduled the launch of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), setting a new target date of no earlier than June 22. The decision comes as NASA, in collaboration with Axiom Space and SpaceX, continues to evaluate recent repair work conducted in the aft (rear) segment of the ISS’s Russian Zvezda service module. Originally scheduled for May 29, the launch has faced multiple delays. It was first deferred to Ju...

May 30, 2025 10:43 AM

Musk aiming to send uncrewed Starship to Mars by end of 2026

Two days after the latest in a string of test-flight setbacks for his big new Mars spacecraft, Starship, Elon Musk said on Thursday he foresees the futuristic vehicle making its first uncrewed voyage to the red planet at the end of next year. Musk presented a detailed Starship development timeline in a video posted online by his Los Angeles area-based rocket company, SpaceX, a day after saying he was departing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump as head of a tumultuous campaign to...

May 28, 2025 9:19 AM

SpaceX’s Starship spins out of control after flying past points of previous failures

SpaceX's Starship rocket roared into space from Texas on Tuesday but spun out of control about halfway through its flight without achieving some of its most important testing goals, bringing fresh engineering hurdles to CEO Elon Musk's increasingly turbulent Mars rocket program. The 400-foot tall (122 meter) Starship rocket system, the core of Musk's goal of sending humans to Mars, lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase, Texas, launch site, flying beyond the point of two previous explosive attempts ...

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...