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Billionaire Elon Musk triggered a flood of attention on social media on Wednesday as he joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The president confronted South African president Cyril Ramaphosa on the issue of the deaths of white farmers. Musk did not speak during the event, as President Trump asked staff to dim the lights in the Oval Office as he played a video of EFF leader Julius Malema chanting 'Shoot the Boer, Shoot the farmer.' Trump also showcased a series of news clippings including a file from the Daily Mail about the horrific crimes committed against...

Pad B is crossing a major milestone: the Orbital Launch Mount has arrived! With Ship 35 doing another static fire and the launch window fast approaching, how close is Flight 9? And how about the Starship future? SpaceX is radically redesigning major parts of Starship! Meanwhile, Rocket Lab is getting closer to pulling off a move even SpaceX hasn’t accomplished yet. Ready For Flight 9? SpaceX Starship- MASSIVE Progress In One Single Day!! | 21:12 What about it!? | 595K subscribers | 281,558 views | May 13, 2025

Elon Musk said Saudi Arabia has approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use in the region, speaking at an investment forum during a White House-led trip to the kingdom on Tuesday. Starlink is the satellite internet service owned and operated by Musk's aerospace and defense contractor, SpaceX. Musk also briefly discussed his other business ambitions in the region, promising to bring Tesla robotaxis to Saudi Arabia at an unspecified date. "I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the kingdom, indeed, if you're amenable," Musk said. Musk also said he showed several of Tesla's Optimus...

Starship Flight 9: New Local Notice to Mariners cites NET May 19 for launch. Obvious caution required as we wait for status on Ship 35. NASASpaceflight.com on Facebook

NASA... gears up for another attempt to get the Artemis I mission off the ground...November 14, with a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. ET. The launch will stream live on NASA’s website. he rocket had been stowed away for weeks after issues with fuel leaks that thwarted the first two launch attempts and then a hurricane rolled through Florida, forcing the rocket to vacate the launchpad and head for safety. The Artemis team again is monitoring a storm that could be heading toward Florida, but officials felt confident to move ahead with rollout, according to Jim Free,...

7:38 a.m. Countdown clock in 30-minute hold The countdown clock went into a 30-minute hold at T-40 minutes while the liquid hydrogen team continues to troubleshoot a problem with the RS-25 engines at the base of the core stage. The 30-minute hold is supposed to end with the countdown with only 10 minutes ahead of launch, but a T-0, and has already pushed beyond the start of the two-hour window at 8:33 a.m. An earlier noted potential issue of what seemed to be a crack seen in the inner tank has in NASA engineers’ opinion been not in the actual...

NASA unexpectedly lost contact with its moonbound Orion capsule early Wednesday morning (Nov. 23), for reasons that remain unclear. Mission controllers lost communication with Orion at 1:09 a.m. EST (0609 GMT) while reconfiguring a link between the capsule and the Deep Space Network, the set of radio dishes that NASA uses to talk to its farflung spacecraft. Orion is gearing up for a crucial maneuver: It's scheduled to perform an engine burn on Friday (Nov. 25) that will insert the capsule into orbit around the moon. If all goes well, Orion will stay in that orbit for about a week,...

['Civ: Did anyone not see this coming?]Boeing Expects NASA to Cancel SLS Contracts, Signaling The Demise of SLS... | 10:03Ellie in Space | 179K subscribers | 69,824 views | February 7, 2025

If you think Boeing's doing a lousy job with Starliner, just wait until you hear the latest about SLS!Boeing is doing a worse job with SLS than it is with Starliner!!The latest from NASA OIG! | 17:18The Angry Astronaut | 145K subscribers | 37,566 views | August 10, 2024

Before the SLS program was officially started, the five-segment SRB concept was proven out with three development motor (DM) firings in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Those previous firings flight-qualified the five-segment SRB. Now, the Flight Support Booster (FDB) tests examine overall process quality, changes, and modifications... FSB-2 will test a newly qualified motor ignition system along with qualifying a new ablative nozzle lining. A new thrust vector control (TVC) system will also be tested, as part of early testing related to the Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) boosters...planned to fly from Artemis IX onwards. There are enough Shuttle-era SRB...

NASA announced it is delaying Artemis II and III missions, meant to take American astronauts back to the moon, because of a problem with the capsule’s heat shield. Artemis II, a mission to take astronauts around the moon, was moved from September 2025 to April of 2026. Artemis III would land astronauts on the south pole of the moon, and likely won’t happen until mid-2027, NASA said. NASA decided to push the launch of Artemis II because they found cracks in the heat shield after the Artemis I mission in 2022. Artemis I flew around the moon with no astronauts...

Report signals concern for Artemis space missions | 3:04WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando | 436K subscribers | 7,082 views | May 10, 2024

The Space Launch System's booster and engine are now projected to cost at least $13.1 billion over 25 years. An independent report looking into the development of NASA's new moon rocket has found significant cost overruns and delays that could harm the agency's plans to put astronauts back on the moon. Development of the Space Launch System (SLS) began in November 2011. It had a successful test flight in November 2022, six years after its first targeting a debut launch in late 2016. The SLS megarocket is intended to return humans to the moon as part of NASA's Artemis program,...

Left to right, NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, G. Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor J. Glover Jr., and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will be taking part in the Artemis II mission. Photo courtesy of NASA April 3 (UPI) -- NASA officials Monday revealed the four names that will make up a team astronauts from the United States and Canada that will journey around the moon next year as part of the first crewed flight of the Artemis mission. The four include a woman and a person of color, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency confirmed during the joint...

=================================================================== The suits feature new capabilities for space exploration. Photo courtesy Axiom Space Axiom Space today unveiled the spacesuits for NASA's Artemis III mission in 2025 to send humans to the moon. Photo courtesy Axiom Space =================================================================== March 15 (UPI) -- Axiom Space on Wednesday unveiled its next-generation spacesuit that astronauts from NASA's Artemis III mission will be wearing when they return to the moon. The spacesuits, which will be delivered to NASA this summer, provide more flexibility and greater protection to withstand the environment and contain built-in specialized for exploration and scientific opportunities, Axiom said in a statement. "Our...

published about 2 hours ago The agency wants to send huge payloads towards the moon starting with Artemis 5. Getting there requires more power from recycled RS-25 space shuttle engines. NASA fired up an engine Wednesday (Feb. 8) to boost human moon missions. The RS-25 engine, a veteran of the space shuttle program, has a new design for the NASA's Artemis program. Starting with Artemis 5 late in the 2020s or so, the modified engines will fly on the Space Launch System. NASA says the newer RS-25s will deliver even more power to send the Orion spacecraft, astronauts and other...

While two names are cited repeatedly as top candidates for Artemis 2, a four-person moon mission, no official confirmation will come until at least late spring. A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large just beyond the Orion spacecraft in this image taken on the sixth day of the Artemis 1 mission by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays. (Image credit: NASA) ************************************************************************************* NASA will soon name the astronauts on its first crewed moon mission since 1972. Artemis 2 is the next flight after the agency's uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, which launched...

The Orion spacecraft has been secured in the well deck of the USS Portland. The ship will soon begin its trip back to U.S. Naval Base San Diego, where engineers will remove Orion from the ship in preparation for transport back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for post-flight analysis. Upon Orion’s successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California at 9:40 PST/12:40 EST Dec. 11, flight controllers in mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston spent about two hours performing tests in open water to gather additional data about the spacecraft, including on its thermal...

Tech billionaire and DOGE chief Elon Musk is constantly under fire these days by the lunatic left, but on the real world, where relevant things are in motion, he continues to excel and thrive. His SpaceX company is reported to be about to considerably expand its share of military business, as the Pentagon considers overhauling a program to deploy hundreds of missile-tracking satellites into low orbit. Washington Post reported: “Competitors have fallen so far behind SpaceX that many fear they won’t be able to catch up, leaving NASA and the Pentagon with few other options as it faces increased competition...

If SpaceX can clean up Starship's reliability issues, the company is free to fly ... the company was limited to 5 launches, but now it will be able to conduct up to 25 Starship launches and landings during a calendar year.