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NASA’s next Mars mission will search for fossilized remains of ancient life near once lake

NASA's Mars2020 rover will explore Jezero Crater in search of life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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NASA is gearing up to launch its next Mars rover. Dubbed 2020, the roving scientist is set to blast off to the Red Planet next year, aiming to find signs of life and bag samples for eventual return to Earth.

The rover, scheduled to launch next summer, will touch down in February 2021. It’s landing site: a 28-mile-wide crater on the Martian surface, dubbed Jezero Crater, which scientists think hosted a lake in Mars’s past.

Recent data collected from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter also shows that Jezero contains mineral deposits known to preserve microfossils here on Earth.

Hydrated silica is one such mineral and thanks to the eagle-eyed orbiter, scientists have identified not one but two patches in the crater.

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Orbital imagery has also revealed the remnants of a large delta in Jezero. Deltas are the place where rivers drain into a lake. These are promising areas for life and one of the main factors in choosing this specific location as the landing site.

“The landing site in Jezero Crater offers geologically rich terrain, with landforms reaching as far back as 3.6 billion years old, that could potentially answer important questions in planetary evolution and astrobiology,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate said in a news release.”Getting samples from this unique area will revolutionize how we think about Mars and its ability to harbor life.”

A map of the mineral content in Jezero crater. The green color represents carbonates, which are good at preserving fossilized life on Earth. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

But that’s not the only exciting discovery at Jezero. Carbonate minerals were also found. This is exciting because many organisms here on Earth use carbonate minerals to make sturdy structures, like seashells. These structures can last for billions of years once fossilized.

Scientists say that carbonates plus evidence of ancient water is the perfect combination for preservation. Meaning it’s an excellent spot to search for any signs of past lifeforms and to uncover clues about Mars’s climate history.

Carbonates are not biosignatures or signs of life, but they’re an exciting discovery because they form from the interaction between water and carbon dioxide. So they could also tell us how Mars transitioned from a warm and wet climate to the harsh, cold desert world we see today.

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“The possibility that the ‘marginal carbonates’ formed in the lake environment was one of the most exciting features that led us to our Jezero landing site. Carbonate chemistry on an ancient lakeshore is a fantastic recipe for preserving records of ancient life and climate,” Ken Williford Mars 2020 Deputy Project Scientist said in a statement. “We’re eager to get to the surface and discover how these carbonates formed.”

Anatomy of a Mars2020 rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Cal-tech

Anatomy of a Mars2020 rover. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Cal-tech)

The Mars 2020 rover will scan the crater in search of any potential biosignatures. To that end, the robotic scientist will act as a remote geologist, studying rocks in fine details, caching samples for later return to Earth, and using special instruments to identify minerals in rocks.

Another big aspect of the Mars 2020 mission will be to collect samples for eventual return to Earth, where scientists around the world can study the material.

Mars 2020, will receive an official name before launch as part of a student naming competition hosted by NASA. The six-wheeled rover is destined to touch down in Jezero crater on Feb. 18, 2021, following a July 2020 launch. Around the same time, it’s European counterpart, the Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover will arrive on Mars at a soon-to-be-announced location.

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I write about space, science, and future tech.

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Elon Musk

SpaceX’s IPO might arrive sooner than you think

Musk has hinted for years that an eventual public offering was inevitable, though he has stressed the need to maintain operational focus. Insiders have told outlets that the CEO is pushing for a significant retail investor allocation, reportedly more than 20 percent of shares, and tighter lock-up periods to limit early selling pressure.

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Credit: SpaceX | X

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is on the verge of one of the most anticipated Initial Public Offerings (IPO) in history.

However, a new report from The Information indicates the rocket and satellite giant is aiming to file its IPO prospectus with U.S. regulators as soon as this week, or early next week at the latest.

People familiar with the plans told The Information that advisers involved in the process expect the IPO could raise more than 75 billion dollars, potentially making it the largest stock market debut ever and eclipsing Saudi Aramco’s 29.4 billion dollar offering in 2019.

The filing would mark the formal start of what has long been rumored: SpaceX’s transition from a closely held private powerhouse to a publicly traded company.

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The timing aligns with earlier signals.

In late February, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was targeting a confidential IPO filing in March and a possible public listing in June, with a valuation north of 1.75 trillion dollars. At the time, the company’s private valuation hovered around 1.25 trillion dollars.

SpaceX considering confidential IPO filing this March: report

Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet constellation, has been the primary driver of that surge, now serving millions of customers worldwide and generating steady revenue. Recent Starship test flights and a record pace of Falcon launches have further bolstered investor confidence.

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Musk has hinted for years that an eventual public offering was inevitable, though he has stressed the need to maintain operational focus. Insiders have told outlets that the CEO is pushing for a significant retail investor allocation, reportedly more than 20 percent of shares, and tighter lock-up periods to limit early selling pressure.

A June listing would give SpaceX immediate access to public capital markets at a moment when demand for space-related stocks remains high. It would also allow early employees and long-time investors to cash out portions of their stakes while giving everyday shareholders a chance to own a piece of the company behind reusable rockets, global broadband, and NASA contracts.

Of course, nothing is certain until the SEC filing appears. Market conditions, regulatory reviews, and Musk’s own schedule could still shift timelines.

Yet the latest word from The Information suggests the window has opened. If the filing lands this week, SpaceX’s roadshow could begin in earnest within weeks, setting the stage for what many analysts already call the IPO of the decade.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry

Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI unveiled TERAFAB, a $25B chip factory targeting one terawatt of AI compute annually.

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Tesla TERAFAB Factory in Austin, Texas

Elon Musk took the stage over the weekend at the defunct Seaholm Power Plant in Austin, Texas, to officially unveil TERAFAB, a $20-25 billion joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI that he described as “the most epic chip building exercise in history by far.” The announcement marks the most ambitious infrastructure bet Musk has made since Gigafactory 1 in Sparks, Nevada, and it fuses three of his companies into a single, vertically integrated AI hardware machine for the first time.

TERAFAB is designed to consolidate every stage of semiconductor production under one roof, including chip design, lithography, fabrication, memory production, advanced packaging, and testing.  At full capacity, the facility would scale to roughly 70% of the global output from the current world’s largest semiconductor foundry from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

Elon Musk’s stated goal is one terawatt of computing power annually, split between Tesla’s AI5 inference chips for vehicles and Optimus robots, and D3 chips built specifically for SpaceXAI’s orbital satellite constellation.

Tesla Terafab set for launch: Inside the $20B AI chip factory that will reshape the auto industry

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The logic behind the merger of these three entities is rooted in a supply chain crisis Musk has been signaling for over a year. At Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, he warned investors that external chip capacity from TSMC, Samsung, and Micron would hit a ceiling within three to four years. “We’re very grateful to our existing supply chain, to Samsung, TSMC, Micron and others,” Musk acknowledged at the Terafab event, “but there’s a maximum rate at which they’re comfortable expanding.” Building in-house was, in his framing, not a strategic option, but a necessity.

The space angle is where the announcement becomes genuinely unprecedented. Musk said 80% of Terafab’s compute output would be directed toward space-based orbital AI satellites, arguing that solar irradiance in space is roughly 5x greater than at Earth’s surface, and that heat rejection in vacuum makes thermal scaling viable. This directly feeds the SpaceXAI vision, which is betting that within two to three years, running AI workloads in orbit will be cheaper than doing so on the ground. The satellites, powered by constant solar energy, would effectively turn low Earth orbit into the world’s largest data center.

Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI

Historically, this announcement threads together every major Musk initiative of the past two years: the xAI-SpaceX merger, Tesla’s $2.9 billion solar equipment talks with Chinese suppliers, the 100 GW domestic solar manufacturing push, the Optimus humanoid robot program, and Starship’s development. TERAFAB is the capstone that ties them into a single coherent architecture — chips made on Earth, launched by SpaceX, powered by Tesla solar, run by xAI, and ultimately extended to the Moon.

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“I want us to live long enough to see the mass driver on the moon, because that’s going to be incredibly epic,”Musk said during the presentation.

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Elon Musk

SpaceX is quietly becoming the U.S. Military’s only reliable rocket

Space Force drops ULA for SpaceX on GPS launch after Vulcan rocket anomaly investigation halts flights.

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The U.S. Space Force announced today it is switching an upcoming GPS III satellite launch from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket to a SpaceX Falcon 9, a move that is as much a reflection of Vulcan’s mounting problems as it is a validation of SpaceX’s growing dominance in national security space launch. The GPS III Space Vehicle 09, originally contracted to fly on Vulcan this month, will now target a late April liftoff on Falcon 9, marking the fourth consecutive GPS III satellite the Space Force has moved to SpaceX after contracts were originally awarded to ULA.

The immediate trigger is a solid rocket motor anomaly that occurred on February 12 during Vulcan’s USSF-87 mission. Although the payloads reached orbit and ULA declared the mission successful, the company characterized the malfunction as a “significant performance anomaly” and has since paused all military launches on Vulcan pending a root cause investigation.

“With this change, we are answering the call for rapid delivery of advanced GPS capability while the Vulcan anomaly investigation continues,” said Systems Delta 81 Commander Col. Ryan Hiserote. “We are once again demonstrating our team’s flexibility and are fully committed to leverage all options available for responsive and reliable launch for the Nation.”

The broader reality is that SpaceX’s reliability record and launch cadence have made it the path of least resistance for the Pentagon, and bodes well with Elon Musk’s plans to IPO SpaceX sometime this year. Its Falcon 9 is the most flight-proven rocket in history, and the Space Force’s Rapid Response Trailblazer program was specifically designed to enable exactly this kind of provider swap for GPS missions, and effectively building SpaceX’s flexibility into the national security launch architecture by design.

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SpaceX IPO is coming, CEO Elon Musk confirms

For ULA, the stakes are existential. The company entered 2026 with aspirations of finally turning a corner after years of Vulcan delays, with interim CEO John Elbon pointing to a backlog of over 80 missions as reason for optimism. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s contracts with the Space Force have given it a formal pathway to take on even more national security launches going forward.

The significance of today’s announcement extends beyond one satellite swap. It reinforces that America’s most critical space infrastructure, including GPS, missile warning, and beyond, is increasingly dependent on a single commercial provider.

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