SpaceX deploys 27 Starlink satellites from the West Coast
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully deploys a Global Positioning System satellite on Friday, and another launch on Saturday deployed 27 Starlink communications satellites. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo
May 31 (UPI) -- SpaceX ended May with another successful launch of its Falcon 9 rocket Saturday afternoon at its West Coast launch facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The launch occurred at 1:10 p.m. PDT with a payload of 27 Starlink satellites bound for low-Earth orbit, SpaceflightNow reported.
It was the Falcon 9's 16th successful launch and the 25th for its first-stage booster rocket.
The booster rocket successfully landed on the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.
The successful landing marked the 133rd successful booster rocket landing and 455th overall on the droneship.
Anne Mason, director of National Security Space Launch for SpaceX, said at least 170 more Falcon launches are planned this year.
"This demonstrates how Falcon's reusability and reliability ... have been critical to supporting assured access to space," Mason told media before the afternoon launch.
SpaceX is producing a second-stage rocket every 2.5 days to meet the demand for the large number of planned launches.
Officials for the Elon Musk-owned space company also are looking to buy Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base to support the ambitious launch schedule.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's business empire was built on government help. How badly could Donald Trump hurt him?
Even for Elon Musk, this is — to use the precise technical term — bonkers. Barely one week after leaving the Trump administration with every semblance of amity, the world's richest person is going scorched earth against the leader of the world's richest nation. Insults and threats. Calls for impeachment. Sinister references to Jeffrey Epstein. Somehow, Kanye West is also involved. It's like the messiest online influencer drama you've ever seen, except the parties are two of the most powerful people on Earth. But when it comes down to brass tacks, what exactly does Musk stand to lose in this titanic celebrity divorce? If Trump were to follow through on all his threats, and use every available weapon against Musk's business empire, how badly could it hurt him? The short answer is: pretty badly. In fact, with some admittedly quick and dirty math, we can put a price tag on some of it. Elon Musk's estimated $388bn fortune — already $26.6bn smaller than it was before this frank exchange of thermonuclear warheads — depends on the success of two companies which are both intertwined with the U.S. political system. One is Tesla, which makes electric vehicles; the other is SpaceX, which builds rockets, spacecraft, and satellites. X, formerly Twitter, can be left aside for now; having bought the social network 2022 for $44bn, Musk is still struggling to recoup his investment and has almost certainly lost money overall. Let's start with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., aka SpaceX. Not many people can afford to rent a rocket, so a lot of its business comes from government contracts, and U.S. government contracts most of all. As of writing, according to federal data, the Texas-based company has been paid or promised just under $21bn by Uncle Sam since 2008. The total potential value of all SpaceX's existing contracts, however, is much higher: $89.2bn. If Trump cancelled every contract tomorrow, that would mean a theoretical maximum of $68bn in lost potential income. For context, that's more than four times SpaceX's entire forecasted revenue for 2025, and nearly 15 times its revenue from 2022. Of course, there's no way to know if those maximum payments would ever actually have been made. So we could also get a rough sense of what SpaceX stands to lose by looking at the actual cash it received from federal coffers every year. In 2022 that was $2.8bn; in 2023, $3.1bn; and in 2024, $3.8bn. On the plus side for Musk, the U.S. government is so dependent on SpaceX that some critics have called it a monopoly in the making. SpaceX ferries our astronauts to and from the International Space Station, is heavily involved in Nasa's moon landing program, and manages an increasing share of government satellite communications as well. Still, that does not guarantee safety. Would you really, in all soberness, bet against Donald Trump doing something that hurts the country merely to punish his personal enemies? In fact, as Talking Points Memo editor-in-chief Josh Marshall argues, SpaceX's critical role might actually put it in greater danger, because it leaves the feds with few options except "expropriation or nationalization". Like SpaceX, Tesla has benefited greatly from taxpayer money, mostly in the form of emission trading payments from non-electric carmakers and tax credits or consumers buying electric vehicles. An analysis by The Washington Post put Tesla's total income from emission credits since 2007 at $11.4bn as of this February. Its gain from tax credits, which allow more people to buy its cars at higher prices, has been estimated at $3.4bn. Those emission credit schemes are run by U.S. states, not by the federal government. Nevertheless, Trump and the Republican Party have tried to undermine such schemes by contesting states' ability to set their own emissions rules. The wider impact is difficult to calculate. In contrast to SpaceX, Tesla sells to ordinary people, who tend to have their own opinions independent of government. In reputational terms, splitting noisily with Trump could reverse some of its recent sales losses; on the other hand, it might just make Tesla hated on both sides of politics. The biggest risk may be regulatory. At the time of Trump's second inauguration, Tesla was being investigated by numerous federal agencies including the Justice Department, the National Labor Relations Board, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — which by itself had six pending probes. During his time at DOGE, Democrats feared Musk could use his power to influence or cancel these cases. But Trump's unabashed willingness to wield state power to punish those who displease him while rewarding loyalists cuts both ways. Live by the chainsaw, die by the chainsaw. How much that costs Tesla would depend on how far Trump is willing to go, and on the outcome of any ensuing court battle. But when U.S. stock exchanges closed on Thursday its share price had crashed by nearly 12 percent, wiping $122bn off its market value. So far we've only addressed Elon Musk's finances. Yet there are other, more personal ways that Trump could hurt him if the former reality TV star truly isn't here to make friends. For example, Trump's old advisor Stephen Bannon — who has previously branded Musk a "parasitic illegal immigrant" — urged the administration to investigate Musk's immigration history, and potentially deport him. Unlike some of the feverish allegations that emanate from the extended Trump-o-sphere, this one actually has some substance. An investigation by The Washington Post last year alleged that Musk had worked illegally in the U.S. while launching his Silicon Valley career in the mid-90s. Musk has denied this, and in any case he has been a U.S. citizen since 2002. Still, legal experts have said his citizenship could technically be revoked if he were proven to have lied to immigration authorities. And while those laws have only rarely been enforced in the past 25 years, some Trump aides and allies have said they want that to change. Nor is that anywhere close to the only alleged skeleton in Musk's closet. What is his relationship with ecstasy, Adderall, ketamine, or magic mushrooms? Has he ever been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin? Did his colleagues at DOGE rigorously follow information security laws when extracting sensitive data from federal systems? What happened to all that data after it was obtained? At least we can probably can rule out plain old assassination by government special forces. Although, to be fair, that is literally something that Trump and his lawyers have argued should be protected by presidential immunity. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
SpaceX set to for Friday night rocket launch from Florida's Space Coast
SpaceX crews are planning to launch a Falcon 9 rocket Friday night from Florida's Space Coast. The launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is planned for 11:19 p.m. The launch is looking to send a SiriusXM satellite into orbit. SpaceX said this will be the eighth flight for the first-stage rocket booster supporting this launch, which previously launched Crew-9, RRT-1, Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1, Fram2, and three Starlink missions. Following the launch, SpaceX plans the launch the first-state booster again on its 'A Shortfall of Gravitas' droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. If the launch is delayed, a back-up launch window will open Saturday at 11:19 p.m. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Tesla stock rises as it rebounds from Trump-Musk public feud
The rebound for Tesla comes after shares in Elon Musk's electric vehicle company plunged by more than 14% in a stunning wipeout on Thursday, as investors dumped their holdings amid a bitter war of words between the president and the world's richest man. By the end of the trading day, $150 billion (€139bn) of Tesla's market value had been erased — more than what it would take to buy all the shares of Starbucks and hundreds of other big publicly traded US companies. However, by Friday afternoon, Tesla's share price was back in the green, up 4.63%, as of 16:38 CEST. The disagreement started over the president's budget bill, then quickly turned nasty after Musk said that Trump wouldn't have been elected without his help. Trump then implied that he may turn the federal government against Musk's companies, including Tesla and SpaceX. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' Trump wrote on his social messaging service Truth Social. 'I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!' Related Elon Musk claims Donald Trump is mentioned in Epstein Files in X post The latest volatility for Tesla also follows a big run-up in the eight weeks since Musk confirmed that Tesla would be testing an autonomous, driverless 'robotaxi' service in Austin, Texas, this month. Investors fear Trump might not be in such a rush to usher in a future of self-driving cars in the US, and that could hit Tesla. 'The whole goal of robotaxis is to have them in 20 or 25 cities next year," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, said. "If you start to heighten the regulatory environment, that could delay that path.' He added that there's a fear Trump is not going to play 'Mr Nice Guy' anymore. Related Elon Musk calls Trump's flagship 'Big Beautiful Bill' a 'disgusting abomination' However, Trump's threat to cut government contracts could be aimed more at another of Musk's businesses, SpaceX. The privately held rocket company has received billions of dollars for sending astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, providing launches and doing other work for NASA. The company is currently racing to develop a mega-rocket for the space agency to send astronauts to the Moon next year. A subsidiary of SpaceX, the satellite internet company Starlink, appears to also have benefited from Musk's once-close relationship with the president. On a trip with Trump to the Middle East last month, Musk announced that Saudi Arabia had approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use. Though its not clear how much politics has played a role, a string of other recent deals in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere has followed, as Trump has threatened tariffs and sent diplomats scrambling to please the president. Related Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he will spend 'a lot less' on future political campaigns One measure of SpaceX's success: A private financing round followed by a private sale of shares in recent months reportedly valued it at $350 billion (around €325bn), up from an estimated $210 billion (about €195.3bn) a year ago. Now all that is possibly in danger. Tesla shares got an even bigger lift from Musk's close relationship with Trump, initially at least. After the presidential election in November, investors rushed into the stock, adding more than $450 billion (€418.5bn) to its value in a few weeks. The belief was that the company would see big gains as Trump eased regulatory oversight of Tesla. They also bet that the new administration would embrace Musk's plans for millions of cars on US roads without drivers behind the wheel. Related Tesla earnings decline as anti-Elon Musk sentiment hampers sales After hitting an all-time high on 17 December, the shares retreated as Musk's time as head of a government cost-cutting group led to boycotts and a hit to Tesla's reputation. They then recently popped higher again after Musk vowed to focus more on Tesla and its upcoming driverless taxi launch. Now investors aren't so sure, a worry that has translated into much market volatility for Tesla.
