Latest news with #EverydayAstronaut
Express Tribune
28-05-2025
- Science
- Express Tribune
SpaceX Starship spins out of control mid-flight, marks third explosive failure
[1/6]SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its Super Heavy booster is launched on its ninth test at the company's launch pad in Starbase, Texas, U.S., May 27, 2025. PHOTO:REUTERS Listen to article 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 earlier this year that sent debris streaking over Caribbean islands and forced dozens of airliners to divert course. For the latest launch, the ninth full test mission of Starship since the first attempt in April 2023, the upper-stage cruise vessel was lofted to space atop a previously flown booster - a first such demonstration of the booster's reusability. But SpaceX lost contact with the 232-foot lower-stage booster during its descent before it plunged into the sea, rather than making the controlled splashdown the company had planned. Starship, meanwhile, continued into suborbital space but began to spin uncontrollably roughly 30 minutes into the mission. The errant spiraling came after SpaceX canceled a plan to deploy eight mock Starlink satellites into space - the rocket's "Pez" candy dispenser-like mechanism failed to work as designed. "Not looking great with a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today," SpaceX broadcaster Dan Huot said on a company livestream. Musk was scheduled to deliver an update on his space exploration ambitions in a speech from Starbase following the test flight, billed as a livestream presentation about "The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary." Hours later, he had yet to give the speech and there was no sign that he intended to do so. In a post on X, Musk touted Starship's scheduled shutdown of an engine in space, a step previous test flights achieved last year. He said a leak on Starship's primary fuel tank led to its loss of control. Got to catch up with @elonmusk for a few minutes before today's launch! We were going to chat after today's speech, but unfortunately that changed, but, always happy to talk rockets!!! Join our Flight 9 coverage in 15 minutes!! Best of luck today @SpaceX!!! — Everyday Astronaut (@Erdayastronaut) May 27, 2025 "Lot of good data to review," he said. "Launch cadence for next 3 flights will be faster, at approximately 1 every 3 to 4 weeks." SpaceX has said the Starship models that have flown this year bear significant design upgrades from previous prototypes, as thousands of company employees work to build a multi-purpose rocket capable of putting massive batches of satellites in space, carrying humans back to the moon and ultimately ferrying astronauts to Mars. Hours before the spaceship lost control, Musk had tweeted on X, "Great achievement by the SpaceX team." Risk-tolerant The recent setbacks indicate SpaceX is struggling to overcome a complicated chapter of Starship's multibillion-dollar development. But the company's engineering culture, widely considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry's more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition. Starship's planned trajectory for Tuesday included a nearly full orbit around Earth for a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean to test new designs of its heat shield tiles and revised flaps for steering its blazing re-entry and descent through Earth's atmosphere. But its early demise, appearing as a fireball streaking eastward through the night sky over southern Africa, puts another pause in Musk's speedy development goals for a rocket bound to play a central role in the US space program. NASA plans to use the rocket to land humans on the moon in 2027, though that moon program faces turmoil amid Musk's Mars-focused influence over US President Donald Trump's administration. Mishap probe Federal regulators had granted SpaceX a license for Starship's latest flight attempt four days ago, capping a mishap investigation that had grounded Starship for nearly two months. The last two test flights - in January and March - were cut short moments after liftoff as the vehicles blew to pieces on ascent, raining debris over parts of the Caribbean and disrupting scores of commercial airline flights in the region. The Federal Aviation Administration expanded debris hazard zones around the ascent path for Tuesday's launch. The previous back-to-back failures occurred in early test-flight phases that SpaceX had easily achieved before, in a striking setback to a program that Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who founded the rocket company in 2002, had sought to accelerate this year. Musk, the world's wealthiest individual and a key supporter of US President Donald Trump, was especially eager for a success after vowing in recent days to refocus his attention on his various business ventures, including SpaceX, following a tumultuous foray into national politics and his attempts at cutting government bureaucracy. Closer to home, Musk also sees Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in the company's commercial launch business, which already lofts most of the world's satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Musk photo slightly doctored to enlarge chest and gut size
Claim: A photo authentically shows tech entrepreneur Elon Musk with a larger-than-normal chest and stomach. Rating: A photo that circulated online for months allegedly showed tech billionaire Elon Musk — who is also an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump — standing in front of a large facility while displaying an unusually large chest and gut. For example, on April 27, 2025, an X user posted (archived) the picture with the caption, "If you were wondering why his body is shaped like this, it's because he takes human growth hormone without exercising." The post had amassed more than 9.7 million views and 217,000 likes as of this writing. (@TheRocketRalph/X) Months earlier, on Nov. 10, 2024, another user also featured the same photograph along with an artificial intelligence-generated image of Musk wrapped in an American flag. The post (archived) read, "He always posts AI pictures of himself because he actually looks like this." It received 26.4 million views and 540,000 likes. (@esjesjesj/X) However, an unknown user slightly altered the photo to inauthentically extend the size of Musk's chest and stomach — meaning it was a fake. A user replying (archived) to a post showing the inauthentic photo helped clarify that a YouTube video was the source of the picture, prior to someone altering the image. Snopes created a comparison between the original and fake images: (Image courtesy of Snopes Illustration) The YouTube channel Everyday Astronaut posted the video on June 22, 2024, with the title, "First Look Inside SpaceX's Starfactory w/ Elon Musk." As the X user's reply noted, the 2:26 mark featured the frame an unknown person later edited. A reverse-image search showed at least one Reddit user previously shared the same doctored picture shortly after the YouTube video's release in June. Since that time, users on Reddit, Threads and X also shared other screenshots from the same video to make light of Musk's appearance. For further reading, a previous fact-check article examined the veracity of another picture purportedly showing Musk standing next to convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, associate of the late financier and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. "First Look Inside SpaceX's Starfactory w/ Elon Musk." YouTube, Everyday Astronaut, 22 June 2024, "Reverse Image Search." Google, Slodysko, Brian. "Elon Musk Commits $70 Million to Boost Donald Trump." The Associated Press, 16 Oct. 2024,
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Musk photo slightly doctored to enlarge chest and gut size
Claim: A photo authentically shows tech entrepreneur Elon Musk with a larger-than-normal chest and stomach. Rating: A photo that circulated online for months allegedly showed tech billionaire Elon Musk — who is also an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump — standing in front of a large facility while displaying an unusually large chest and gut. For example, on April 27, 2025, an X user posted (archived) the picture with the caption, "If you were wondering why his body is shaped like this, it's because he takes human growth hormone without exercising." The post had amassed more than 9.7 million views and 217,000 likes as of this writing. (@TheRocketRalph/X) Months earlier, on Nov. 10, 2024, another user also featured the same photograph along with an artificial intelligence-generated image of Musk wrapped in an American flag. The post (archived) read, "He always posts AI pictures of himself because he actually looks like this." It received 26.4 million views and 540,000 likes. (@esjesjesj/X) However, an unknown user slightly altered the photo to inauthentically extend the size of Musk's chest and stomach — meaning it was a fake. A user replying (archived) to a post showing the inauthentic photo helped clarify that a YouTube video was the source of the picture, prior to someone altering the image. Snopes created a comparison between the original and fake images: (Image courtesy of Snopes Illustration) The YouTube channel Everyday Astronaut posted the video on June 22, 2024, with the title, "First Look Inside SpaceX's Starfactory w/ Elon Musk." As the X user's reply noted, the 2:26 mark featured the frame an unknown person later edited. A reverse-image search showed at least one Reddit user previously shared the same doctored picture shortly after the YouTube video's release in June. Since that time, users on Reddit, Threads and X also shared other screenshots from the same video to make light of Musk's appearance. For further reading, a previous fact-check article examined the veracity of another picture purportedly showing Musk standing next to convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, associate of the late financier and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. "First Look Inside SpaceX's Starfactory w/ Elon Musk." YouTube, Everyday Astronaut, 22 June 2024, "Reverse Image Search." Google, Slodysko, Brian. "Elon Musk Commits $70 Million to Boost Donald Trump." The Associated Press, 16 Oct. 2024,
