Space
Mars study reveals subsurface water in Red Planet’s vast lake system
Researchers working with data from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter have detected four subsurface lakes at the planet’s south pole. In a follow up to the 2018 discovery of a large body of water about 1.5 kilometers beneath the surface, three more water bodies were found in the same region spanning about 75,000 square kilometers.
“We identified the same body of water, but we also found three other bodies of water around the main one,” planetary scientist Elena Pettinelli of the University of Rome, one of the scientists responsible for the discovery, said in comments published by the journal Nature. “It’s a complex system.” The full data findings were detailed in a paper published on September 28th.
The Martian lakes were found using an instrument called the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) which measures with radio waves similar to how subsurface glacial lakes on Earth are identified. Given both the depth and the freezing temperatures on the planet, it’s also thought that the subsurface water must have a high salt content similar to some Antarctic regions. “From a thermal point of view, it has to be salty,” Pettinelli said.
Where water is found, the potential for also finding life is increased substantially, and salt levels up to five times that of Earth’s ocean water have been found to be amenable to life on our planet. NASA’s Perseverance rover, currently on its way to the red planet, will be searching for those very indicators with its astrobiologically-focused mission. At the super salt concentrations that might be required for liquid water on Mars, though, the environment is more problematic if not impossible.
“There’s not much active life in these briny pools in Antarctica,” John Priscu, an environmental scientist at Montana State University explained. “They’re just pickled. And that might be the case [on Mars].” Priscu’s group in Bozeman studies microbiology in icy environments, and in water where salt concentrations reach around 20 times ocean water levels, life is absent.
Another issue with the recent Mars Express data may be what the findings indicate overall, namely whether the ‘bright spots’ identified as possible lakes are actually lakes at all. There has been debate among scientists since the original 2018 discovery over whether Mars’s core emits enough heat to support liquid lakes, for instance.
“I do not think there are lakes,” Jack Holt, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, countered. “There is not enough heat flow to support a brine here, even under the ice cap.” Holt is on one of the science teams of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. “If the bright material really is liquid water, I think it’s more likely to represent some sort of slush or sludge,” concurred Mike Sori, a planetary geophysicist at Purdue University.
Still, regardless of the outcome, the findings add to the growing dataset for future Mars-bound travelers to use in their exploration plans. But if these subsurface lake findings are further confirmed in the near future, the search for life on Mars just became a bit more promising.
Elon Musk
SpaceX to decommission Dragon spacecraft in response to Pres. Trump war of words with Elon Musk
Elon Musk says SpaceX will decommission Dragon as a result of President Trump’s threat to end his subsidies and government contracts.
SpaceX will decommission its Dragon spacecraft in response to the intense war of words that President Trump and CEO Elon Musk have entered on various social media platforms today.
President Trump and Musk, who was once considered a right-hand man to Trump, have entered a vicious war of words on Thursday. The issues stem from Musk’s disagreement with the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which will increase the U.S. federal deficit, the Tesla and SpaceX frontman says.
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The insults and threats have been brutal, as Trump has said he doesn’t know if he’ll respect Musk again, and Musk has even stated that the President would not have won the election in November if it were not for him.
President Trump then said later in the day that:
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Government Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Musk’s response was simple: he will decommission the SpaceX capsule responsible for transporting crew and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS): Dragon.
🚨 Elon says Dragon will be decommissioned immediately due to President Trump’s threats to terminate SpaceX’s government contracts https://t.co/XNB0LflZIy
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 5, 2025
Dragon has completed 51 missions, 46 of which have been to the ISS. It is capable of carrying up to 7 passengers to and from Earth’s orbit. It is the only spacecraft that is capable of returning vast amounts of cargo to Earth. It is also the first private spacecraft to take humans to the ISS.
The most notable mission Dragon completed is one of its most recent, as SpaceX brought NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth after being stranded at the ISS by a Boeing Starliner capsule.
SpaceX’s reluctance to participate in federally funded projects may put the government in a strange position. It will look to bring Boeing back in to take a majority of these projects, but there might be some reluctance based on the Starliner mishap with Wilmore and Williams.
SpaceX bails out Boeing and employees are reportedly ‘humiliated’
News
SpaceX hit with mishap investigation by FAA for Starship Flight 9
Starship’s ninth test flight has the FAA requiring a mishap investigation from SpaceX.
SpaceX has been hit with yet another mishap investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) related to the company’s ninth test flight of Starship earlier this week.
The FAA said the mishap investigation is “focused only on the loss of the Starship vehicle, which did not complete its launch or reentry as planned.” The agency said the loss of the Super Heavy booster is covered by one of the FAA’s approved test induced damage exceptions requested by SpaceX.
All of Starship and Super Heavy booster debris landed within the designated hazard areas, the FAA confirmed.
It said it activated a Debris Response Area out of an abundance of caution as the booster “experienced its anomaly over the Gulf of America during its flyback toward Texas. The FAA subsequently determined the debris did not fall outside of the hazard area. During the event there were zero departure delays, one flight was diverted, and one airborne flight was held for 24 minutes. ”
SpaceX has become accustomed to mishap investigations by the FAA, as they have been impacted by them on several occasions in the past, including on Flight 8. However, they are a precautionary measure and usually are resolved within a few weeks.
Flight 9 was one of SpaceX’s most eventful, as there were several discoveries during the launch. First, it was SpaceX’s first time reusing a Super Heavy booster, as the one utilized for Flight 9 was also used on Flight 7 in January.
Contact with the booster and Starship were both lost during Flight 9. SpaceX said the booster was lost “shortly after the start of landing burn when it experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly approximately 6 minutes after launch.”
Meanwhile, Starship was set to make a splashdown in the Indian Ocean, but the vehicle was lost about 46 minutes into the flight, SpaceX said in a mission recap.
It was an improvement from the previous two flights, as both 7 and 8 resulted in the loss of Starship after just a few minutes. Flight 9 lasted considerably longer. These flights are also not intended to make it to Mars, despite what other reports might try to tell you.
These are ways to gain information for when SpaceX eventually tries to get Starship to Mars.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship gets FAA nod for ninth test flight
The FAA has given the green light for Starship’s ninth test flight.
SpaceX has received FAA approval for the ninth test flight of the Starship rocket. The approval was delayed due to the federal agency finishing its comprehensive safety review of the eighth flight earlier this year.
The FAA said in a statement that it has determined that SpaceX has “satisfactorily addressed the causes of the mishap, and therefore, the Starship vehicle can return to flight.”
The eighth test flight occurred back on March 6. SpaceX completed a successful liftoff of Starship and the Super Heavy Booster, before the two entered stage separation a few minutes after launch.
Starship Flight 8: SpaceX nails Super Heavy booster catch but loses upper stage
The booster returned and was caught by the chopsticks on the launch pad, completing the second successful booster catch in the program’s history. However, SpaceX lost contact with Starship in the upper atmosphere.
The ship broke up and reentered the atmosphere over Florida and the Bahamas.
The debris situation caused the FAA to initiate a mishap investigation:
Starship Flight 8’s Ship 34 provided some beautiful fireworks in the sky during its rapid unscheduled disassembly. Beautiful but unfortunate.
Hopefully, Flight 9 would no longer have any RUD incidents. pic.twitter.com/p4qAToDXOM
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) March 7, 2025
The FAA said it will verify that SpaceX implements all the corrective actions on Flight 9 that it discovered during the mishap investigation.
There is no current confirmed launch window, but the earliest it could take off from Starbase is Tuesday, May 27, at 6:30 p.m. local time.
To prevent any injuries and potentially limit any damage, the FAA has stayed in contact with various countries that could be impacted if another loss of vehicle occurs:
“The FAA is in close contact and collaboration with the United Kingdom, Turks & Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Mexico, and Cuba as the agency continues to monitor SpaceX’s compliance with all public safety and other regulatory requirements.”
The agency has also stated that the Aircraft Hazard Area (AHA) is approximately 1,600 nautical miles and extends eastward from the Starbase, Texas, launch site through the Straits of Florida, including the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos.
For flight 8, the AHA was just 885 nautical miles.
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