Space

Astra launched its first rocket from Florida’s “Space Coast” today, with a liftoff from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It was the startup’s second attempt after an earlier one was scrubbed on Monday due to a technical issue, and this time the

Almost all of the Starlink internet satellites that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried beyond the atmosphere on February 3rd won’t reach their intended orbit. SpaceX has revealed that a geomagnetic storm that took place a day after the liftoff had a severe impact on the satellites, and up to 40

SpaceX has revealed a new tier for its Starlink satellite internet service with higher performance but pricing that might make your eyes water, The Verge has reported. Called Starlink Premium, it offers speeds between 150 and 500Mbps with 20 to 40 milliseconds of latency, up from 50 to 250Mbps with

Welcome back to Max Q, our weekly newsletter about space and the business thereof. NFTs were bound to intersect with space in a number of ways, and the way they do in this week’s newsletter is very likely not the first such intersection, but it is the first one I’ve noticed. Also, some

You’ve got a hundred-million-dollar mission — why are you using software built in the ’90s to design and launch it? That’s the question being asked by many new space companies, and Epsilon3 is looking to help them bring their operations out of spreadsheets and Word docs and into

Welcome back to Max Q, our weekly newsletter about space and the business thereof. This week, plans for a private sports and entertainment complex in orbit materialize. Don't forget to sign up to get the free newsletter version of Max Q delivered to your inbox. The Space Station is getting a mo

A module that hosts a film studio and sports arena could be connected to the International Space Station by December 2024. Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE), which is co-producing a Tom Cruise movie that will partly be shot in space, is behind the project. If and when SEE-1 is up and running, it

In a new partnership that should break new ground for sustainable orbital operations, “gas stations in space” startup Orbit Fab has teamed with Astroscale to provide on-orbit refueling services to the latter company’s LEXI (life extension in-orbit) geostationary servicing spacecra

Welcome to Max Q, the technewss newsletter that’s all about things blasting off. Or floating. Or I guess also crashing. Whatever happens in and on the way to space. We’re now into 2022 and already people are launching rockets. Don't forget to sign up to get the free newsletter vers

Technology has come a long way in 2021. There are widespread mRNA vaccines! An asteroid-deflecting space mission! A very powerful laptop with a very controversial notch! But it’s unfortunately easier to think about the cringiest moments of the year than it is to remember times when we marvel

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck has had an eventful couple of years, despite the unpredictable challenges that COVID-19 threw in the path of the rocket maker’s LA and New Zealand-based operations. Just this year, Rocket Lab had its public market debut, revealed its plans for a new medium-lift launc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdjEnalHPfs Kathy Lueders, head of NASA’s newly minted Space Operations Mission Directorate, joined us at TC Sessions: Space last week for a chat about the future of the agency and what she is looking forward to — and dreading — in the next decade of missio

Hi, and welcome to Max Q, it’s your former newsletter writer now returned while Aria is out. We just wrapped our TC Sessions: Space 2021 event, but as is often the case in the space biz, things aren’t slowing down just because it’s almost the end of the year. Don't forget to s

The rapid expansion of the commercial space industry over the last couple of years has led early-stage investors to consider very different types of companies than they did when space startups were a novelty. The availability of more affordable rides to space, the maturity of ground infrastructure