Free Republic

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited SpaceX's location in Texas, also known as Starbase. The visit was part of Hegseth's ‘Arsenal of Freedom’ industry tour to advance President Trump's "Peace Through Strength" agenda. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk introduced Hegseth. Earlier in the day, Hegseth visited Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth F-35 production plant this afternoon. He addressed Lockheed Martin employees and the local press on the administration's defense plans. "For too long, Pentagon bureaucracy has hindered the speed and might of our manufacturing base, obstructing innovation and warfare solutions from companies like SpaceX and Lockheed Martin," the Department of Defense said...

Mission Success. Haven Demo, our Haven-1 space station technologies test bed is now on orbit and healthy. Watch footage from our onboard cameras in full duration 4K. More to come. Haven Demo On Orbit | 4K Mission Footage | 2:31 Vast | 18.5K subscribers | 10,566 views | November 4, 2025Haven Demo @ VastSpaceX launches private space station pathfinder 'Haven Demo,' 17 other satellites to orbit (video) | Mike Wall | November 2, 2025SpaceX rockets the 'Haven Demo' pathfinder module and 17 other satellites into space:Falcon 9 marks its 140th launch with SpaceX's Bandwagon-4 | posted by Raina Saha |...

This week at Starbase construction rolls on at the launch site and air separation plant, work continues on Booster 19 and Ship 39, and an interesting new truss structure begins taking shape at the Massey Outpost. Meanwhile, in other space news, SpaceX reaches an important milestone with this week's Starlink launches, Rocket Lab contributes a pair of launches to this week's activities, along with one from ULA and another from Arianespace, and NASA's 15th administrator is officially sworn in. Is SpaceX Ready to Start Testing Orbital Refilling? - Spaceflight Weekly #198 | 9:42LabPadre Space | 250K subscribers | 19,838 views...

BREAKING: SpaceX has announced that @Starlink now has over 9 million customers, up from 8M in November and 7M in August 2025. Starlink added a record 21,275 new customers on average per day since they hit 8M, smashing their previous record of 14,250. That growth rate is a whopping 49.3% higher than it was just last month! 🤯

AOC stuck her foot into her mouth, AGAIN! During an interview, AOC made the following statement: “Elon Musk is one of the most unintelligent billionaires I’ve ever met or seen. The wealth doesn’t match the wisdom.” Elon Musk didn’t stay quiet, probably because this was hilarious and she opened up a can of whoop-arse he enjoyed replying to: “Interesting take. I build rockets, electric cars, satellites, and AI… you build tweets and talking points. If this is ‘unintelligent,’ I’ll take it … seems to be working pretty well for my bank account and the laws of physics.” Then Elon delivered...

NEWS: Today, Trump signed an executive order committing the United States to return to the Moon by 2028, build a lunar outpost by 2030 and prepare for the journey to Mars. Everything in the Executive Order: • Return Americans to the Moon by 2028 • Begin building a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 • Make U.S. space superiority a core national priority • Expand commercial launch, lower costs, increase cadence • Develop next-gen space-based missile defense by 2028 • Detect and counter threats in LEO and cislunar space • Rapidly modernize national security space architecture • Deepen allied cooperation in...

BREAKING: The U.S. Senate has just officially confirmed Jared Isaacman as the new head of NASA. At just 42 years old, he now becomes the youngest person in history to lead the agency. Congrats @rookisaacman! To the Moon and Mars!🚀

SpaceX plans to go public at $1.5 trillion valuation in 2026, the largest IPO in history, Bloomberg reports

Beijing — A private Chinese space firm successfully sent its Zhuque-3 rocket to orbit but failed in its historic attempt to re-land the rocket booster Wednesday – the first such trial by a Chinese firm as the country’s growing commercial space sector races to catch up with American rivals like SpaceX. Beijing-based LandSpace, one of the sector’s leading firms, launched its Zhuque-3 rocket into space from a remote, desert launch site in northwestern China. The rocket entered orbit as planned, but its first stage – the portion of the vehicle that propels it at liftoff – did not successfully return...

There is this recurring narrative that SpaceX needs government funding to survive. Not only does SpaceX not rely on government contracts for the majority of it’s revenue, it’s actually saved the US government Billions of dollars by being far cheaper than the competition.

[snip] On November 21st, Superheavy booster 18, the first next generation block 3 Superheavy, suffered a catastrophic structural rupture during ground testing at the Massiey's outpost. Intended to fly alongside ship 39 for Starship flight 12, the vehicle experienced an energetic failure in the opening phase of its proof campaign. The event immediately ended booster 18's qualification path and pushed flight 12 several months beyond SpaceX's original target. [/snip] Elon Musk Revealed Root Cause 'COPV Failure' on Booster 18 V3 After Inspection! Weird Explosion | 10:29 SpaceX Community | 69.2K subscribers | 5,114 views | November 22, 2025

SpaceX Starlink finally has real competition 🚀 and your internet bill may never look the same. Amazon’s new LEO network is directly challenging SpaceX, and in this video I break down what actually matters: speed, reliability, coverage, latency, and how this fight could put real money back in your pocket. You’ll see how Starlink’s upgraded low-orbit system stacks up against Amazon Leo’s fresh constellation, what this means for rural users and families, when prices could drop, and why major ISPs are quietly panicking. If you want to know how the future of satellite internet affects your wallet, performance, and options,...

&This week at Starbase while various construction projects continue at the usual rapid pace, crews begin scrapping Booster 17, test article B18.1 undergoes another round of cryo testing at the Massey Outpost and the Pad 1 launch mount practically disappears right before our eyes. Meanwhile in Florida, SpaceX launches 4 separate Starlink missions, ULA launches the ViaSat-3 F2 satellite aboard an Atlas V, and Blue Origin launches their second New Glenn mission to send a pair of Satellites to Mars.nbsp;SpaceX's Gigabay Begins to Take Form - Spaceflight Weekly #193 | 12:09 LabPadre Space | 250K subscribers | 12,200 views |...

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck breaks down the company's latest space projects and what's next on 'Making Money.' Rocket Lab CEO reveals two 'BIG' opportunities for humanity | 5:27 Fox Business | 3.24M subscribers | 9,348 views | November 12, 2025

54 years since the UK last launched a satellite from British soil—now a House of Lords report demands we "urgently distance" from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which carries half our satellites. Is this dependence a crisis—or a golden opportunity? We unpack the £1.2B plan, Shetland’s new spaceport, Brexit’s space fallout, and why sovereignty matters without ditching the world’s best rockets. Time to launch from Britain again?

A 62-page document written by President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again pick to run NASA, billionaire Jared Isaacman, outlines a sweeping, ambitious, and at times controversial plan for the space agency.... The leak — according to a recent Ars Technica report and a source who confirmed the account to CNN — looked to have been part of an effort by Duffy, who is temporarily running NASA, to spur controversy and potentially thwart Isaacman’s renomination... A Mars shot and nuclear propulsion One eye-popping proposal in Project Athena is to set up a new Mars program, dubbed “Olympus.”...The document also includes numerous mentions of...

On Saturday, Nov. 8, less than an hour before the planned launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, chunks of metal and other debris were spotted streaking across the sky across Florida. Spaceflight Now Photographer John Pisani captured video of what was later determined to be the upper stage of a Chinese Long March 3B rocket that launched back in 2019. Chinese Long March 3B upper stage makes uncontrolled reentry over Florida | 1:36 Spaceflight Now | 383K subscribers | 1,650 views | November 8, 2025

Beginning next week, all daytime rocket launches in the United States will be grounded as the record-breaking federal government shutdown drags into its second month.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued an emergency order restricting access to navigable airspace in an effort to reduce strain on the nation’s air traffic system, already under pressure from severe staffing shortages.

A global plea is growing for Elon Musk to rescue three Chinese astronauts stranded in space after their return capsule was reportedly struck by an 'unknown object.'The Shenzhou-20 team, mission commander Senior Colonel Chen Dong and crew members Colonel Chen Zhongrui and Colonel Wang Jie, launched to China's Tiangong space station in April and were set to return home on November 5. But officials revealed this week that their spacecraft may have sustained damage while docked in orbit for the past six months.Chinese officials are unsure what struck the spacecraft, but the damage is believed to have been caused by...

With Bill Gates retreating from his high-profile climate crusade, the stage has opened for more unconventional actors to step into the planetary arena. Enter Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX and self-styled architect of humanity’s future in space.This week, Musk floated an audacious vision: a vast swarm of orbiting satellites, not merely to beam internet or data, but to harvest solar energy and regulate how much sunlight reaches Earth. On Monday, he wrote on his platform X:A large solar-powered AI satellite constellation would be able to prevent global warming by making tiny adjustments in how much solar energy reached...