Space
NASA’s next Mars rover will pave the way for humans
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to land on the red planet in February 2021, and when it does, it will touch down in Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake that existed 3.5 billion years ago. The next generation rover, which will get an official name soon, will build on the success of the robotic explorers who came before it by collecting the first samples of Mars for a future return to Earth.
But the new rover will also lay the groundwork for future human exploration by testing new technologies.
The Mars 2020 rover, which looks nearly identical to the Curiosity rover that landed in 2012, will begin its mission exploring Jezero Crater. The six-wheeled rover is equipped with a suite of instruments designed to help it look for signs of life called biosignatures.
Artist rendition depicting the early Martian environment (right) versus the Mars we see today (left). Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA believes that Mars was habitable sometime in its past. The inhospitable desert-like planet we see today was not always the case. Mars’ once ample atmosphere eroded over time, stripped away by solar particles, resulting in the thin atmosphere we see today.
But so far, we haven’t been able to detect any real signs of ancient life yet. The rover’s team thinks that its specialized suite of instruments will change that.
The twin Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) were tasked with finding evidence of water, and they were successful right out of the gate. The Mars Science Laboratory (aka Curiosity) was designed to understand habitability and if the conditions were right for life. Now, the Mars 2020 rover will take that one step further and search for actual signs of life.
Artist rendition depicting the early Martian environment (right) versus the Mars we see today (left). Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
The 2020 rover will do so by drilling into its surroundings and extracting samples that will be returned to Earth at a later time. Returning the samples is a challenge that NASA is already starting to tackle. The agency estimates that the earliest it can send a mission to fetch the rover’s samples would be some time around 2026 or 2027.
In the meantime, 2020 will be busy sciencing the heck out of Mars to search for microbial life as well as testing out technologies that future human missions will rely on.
Here’s how four of those instruments will work.
Terrain Relative Navigation
Landing on Mars is tricky. To date, only about half of the missions attempted have successfully touched down on the red planet. The 2020 rover will be equipped with a specialized feature to help it avoid any potential hazards in the landing zone.
Past missions, like Curiosity, needed a landing spot that was free of debris (like rocks, boulders, etc). But 2020 will be able to navigate around them. That’s because the rover is equipped with a unique lander vision system. This system take pictures during the parachute descent stage. It then compares those images to an onboard map.
A view of how the terrain-relative navigation works. Credit: NASA/JPL_Caltech
The computer matches the map (which is created from orbital imagery), to create a guide that can identify landmarks such as craters and mountains.
The system then ranks landing sites based on safety, and can even identify a hazard. The Mars 2020 mission will be the first to test out this new system. If all goes well, it will be used on future missions, including human missions to Mars and even the moon.
MOXIE
Astronauts traveling to Mars will need oxygen to breathe and to use as rocket fuel. However, hauling it with the other cargo is expensive and not a viable solution. The Mars 2020 rover is equipped with an instrument on called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE for short).Â
MOXIE will convert carbon dioxide (a gas that’s abundant on Mars) into the oxygen, which astronauts can use as needed. 2020 is equipped with a small, prototype version of the equipment needed for future human missions.Â
The team will study how the experiment performs and use that data to scale up the technology to use on subsequent missions. But how will it work?
MOXIE can only run for a few hours at a time, and only about once a month. (That’s because the system uses a full day’s worth of rover power each time it runs.) Humans use about 20 grams per hour of oxygen and MOXIE can only produce about half of that.Â
In order to support a crew of 4-6 astronauts and be able to generate propellant, future iterations of MOXIE will need to produce about 200 times that amount of oxygen.Â
MEDA
The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer, aka MEDA, is a suite of sensors designed to study the Martian weather, as well as dust and radiation and how they change over the Martian seasons.
NASA is trying to better understand dust storms and other Martian weather phenomenon. Credit: NASA
Day and nighttime temperatures on Mars can fluctuate by as much as 80 or 90 degrees. MEDA will help scientists track those changes as well as measure radiation from the surface, to understand how much the sun heats the air. This solar heating causes changes in the Martian wind and can help scientists better understand the Martian water cycle.
Understanding the current weather patterns and environment could also lead to a better understanding of Mars’s history and shed light on how it transitioned from a warm, habitable planet into the dusty, cold desert we see today.
RIMFAX
The Mars 2020 rover will be equipped with a ground-penetrating radar instrument: Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment, or RIMFAX.Â
The Korolev crater on Mars as seen by Mars Express. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
Scientists hope that RIMAX will help them study the history of Jezero Crater by peering below the surface. With the instrument’s help, scientists will be able to look at subsurface rock and ice. To date, only orbital observations have been made of the Martian polar ice, but this will increase our understanding of the planet’s inner geology.Â
The Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to launch in July of 2020, and will land on the Martian surface six months later. If all goes according to plan, we may finally be able to answer the question of whether or not Mars once hosted life.
SpaceX confirmed today that it has officially signed its third massive compute deal, providing compute at its Colossus data center in Southaven, Mississippi.
Reflection AI will gain immediate access to NVIDIA GB300 chips at SpaceX’s Colossus 2 data center. In return, Reflection will pay SpaceX $150 million per month starting on July 1, with total payments reaching approximately $6.3 billion if the contract runs through its duration, which is until 2029. Either party can terminate the agreement with 90 days’ notice after the initial three-month period.
CNBC first reported the deal.
🚨 SpaceXAI has agreed to a new compute deal with Reflection AI.
Reflection gets access to NIVIDIA GB300s, and will pay $150M per month to SpaceXAI for the compute. pic.twitter.com/bNPare8U5u
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 22, 2026
This latest partnership highlights SpaceX’s strategy of commercializing its massive Colossus supercomputing infrastructure, originally developed to power Elon Musk’s Grok AI models. The company has rapidly expanded its customer base in the AI sector following its February 2026 merger with xAI, a transaction that valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion.
SpaceX has previously signed significant compute deals with other major players.
It granted Anthropic exclusive access to the full capacity of its Colossus 1 data center, which exceeds 300 megawatts and includes over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs. Details from SpaceX’s IPO filings indicate Anthropic will pay $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, potentially generating around $45 billion over the term of the deal.
Additionally, Google agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million per month for compute capacity from October 2026 through June 2029. This 32-month period will provide Google access to roughly 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, along with supporting processors and memory. Capacity ramps up through September at a reduced fee, with termination options after the first year.
SpaceXA also established arrangements for computing power with Cursor, an AI coding startup. SpaceX acquired them in a $60 billion all-stock deal.
These arrangements position SpaceX’s collective position as an AI infrastructure powerhouse with high-margin revenue potential. The Google deal alone could generate nearly $29.5 billion over its term, while the Reflection contract adds another $6.3 billion.
Combined with the Anthropic arrangement, SpaceX stands to realize tens of billions in revenue from compute leasing in the coming years, which diversifies beyond SpaceX’s traditional rocket launches and Starlink operation.
The deals underscore growing demand for advanced AI training and inference capacity amid chip shortages and surging model development needs. Reflection, valued at $25 billion and focused on “American open intelligence” with government and national security ties, cited recent restrictions on closed models as validation for open-source approaches.
For SpaceX, the partnerships transform capital-intensive data centers into flexible revenue sources while supporting its broader AI ambitions after the company has gone public.
It is safe to say SpaceX won’t be going for electric rockets anytime soon.
In a characteristically blunt reply on X, SpaceX frontman Elon Musk stated, “Unfortunately, electric rockets are impossible,” following reports that MSCI had assigned SpaceX its lowest possible ESG rating of CCC.
The assessment, issued just this past week, coinciding closely with SpaceX’s public market debut, placed the company on par with nations like Russia in sustainability scoring and cited significant risks in environmental, social, and governance areas.
MSCI flagged SpaceX’s exposure to rocket emissions and other operational impacts, alongside governance concerns such as concentrated control by Musk and limited shareholder protections. Musk’s terse comment directly addressed the environmental pillar, underscoring a core physical constraint that ESG frameworks often overlook when evaluating high-thrust industries.
Unfortunately, electric rockets are impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2026
Electric propulsion systems do exist and are widely used in space. Ion thrusters and Hall-effect thrusters accelerate ionized propellant, typically xenon or krypton, using electric fields, achieving very high specific impulse, often exceeding 3,000 seconds compared to roughly 300–450 seconds for chemical rockets.
This efficiency makes them ideal for satellite station-keeping, orbit raising, and deep-space missions where low thrust over long durations is sufficient. SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites employ electric propulsion for these purposes.
However, launching from Earth’s surface demands something entirely different: enormous thrust delivered rapidly to overcome gravity and atmospheric drag. A typical orbital-class booster must generate thrust far exceeding its weight, often in the millions of Newtons within seconds.
Chemical rockets achieve this through exothermic combustion of dense propellants, producing high-mass-flow, high-velocity exhaust. Electric systems, by contrast, expel very small amounts of mass at extremely high speeds. Generating equivalent thrust would require impractical onboard power levels, massive energy storage or generation systems, and prohibitive added mass, rendering the approach infeasible with current or near-term technology.
Musk has previously expressed a similar sentiment, noting a desire for electric orbital rockets while acknowledging the inescapable requirements of Newton’s third law and energy delivery. The distinction is clear: electric propulsion excels once a vehicle is already in space; it cannot replace the high-thrust chemical phase required to reach orbit from the ground.
The episode illustrates broader critiques of ESG ratings. Proponents argue they incentivize better risk management and long-term sustainability. Detractors, including Musk—who has previously called ESG a “scam”—contend that such metrics can penalize essential activities when no practical alternative exists, potentially discouraging innovation in sectors like space access.
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SpaceX has sought to mitigate launch-related impacts through reusability: Falcon 9 boosters have flown more than 30 times in some cases, dramatically lowering the manufacturing and emissions burden per kilogram delivered to orbit. Starship’s design further emphasizes rapid reusability and methane propellant, which can theoretically be produced via sustainable pathways.
Ultimately, Musk’s remark serves as a reminder that certain engineering realities persist regardless of scoring systems. As humanity expands its presence in space for communications, science, and exploration, balancing genuine environmental progress with technological necessity remains a central challenge.
ESG frameworks may evolve, but the fundamental limits of electric launch propulsion are unlikely to change soon.
Investor's Corner
SpaceX is launching a secret spacecraft that could change how things are made in space
SpaceX’s secret disk-shaped Starfall capsule is targeting a market no reentry vehicle has cracked.
SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, June 23 for the first flight of Starfall, a reentry capsule the company has developed almost entirely in private. The Falcon 9 launch window opens at 6:43 a.m. ET from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, with a backup window available the same time on June 24. SpaceX has made no public announcement about the vehicle, only providing launch details. Everything known about it has come through FAA and FCC regulatory filings.
What makes Starfall different starts with its shape. Rather than the traditional cone used by Dragon and every other cargo return capsule in operation, Starfall is a flat disk that measures roughly  10.2 feet (3.1 meters) wide and just 2.5 feet (0.75 meters) tall, and weighing 4,630 pounds (2,100 kg) and capable of returning up to 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of payload from orbit. The disk geometry maximizes structural efficiency and payload volume relative to mass, and the heat shield mechanically jettisons just before splashdown, allowing recovery teams to retrieve both the capsule and the shield separately from the Pacific Ocean.
The difference with Starfall from existing competitors, such as Varda Space Industries, which has largely built the orbital manufacturing market and returns heavy payloads per flight is that Starfall’s specification is roughly 30 times more per mission, and is designed to be mass-produced and launched on either Falcon 9 or Starship. That combination of volume and launch access is something no standalone startup can replicate, and it puts SpaceX in direct competition with the companies that currently pay it to reach orbit.
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The intended market is orbital manufacturing: pharmaceuticals, protein crystals, semiconductors, and advanced optical fiber that physically cannot be produced in the presence of gravity. FAA documents describe Starfall’s long-term purpose as building a “self-sustaining commercial in-space manufacturing market” and as a potential successor to the industrial capabilities of the International Space Station, which is set to retire in the late 2020s. Military rapid global cargo delivery is a parallel application under active discussion with the Pentagon.
The reason some industries seek manufacturing in space comes down to gravity. On Earth, gravity causes materials to settle, separate, and deform during production. In microgravity, those constraints disappear.
SpaceX’s already controls launch access, which means it currently functions as the landlord for every competitor in the orbital manufacturing return space. Starfall converts that landlord position into vertical ownership, and it would no longer just carry other companies’ capsules to orbit, but rather operate the capsule, own the return logistics, and capture the service revenue directly. Viewed alongside Starlink, Colossus, and the xAI merger, Starfall fits a consistent pattern: SpaceX identifying infrastructure layers that others depend on and moving to own them outright. Orbital manufacturing return is the next layer on that list.
If Tuesday’s reentry, parachute sequence, and recovery demonstration goes as planned, the second FAA-approved test flight follows. A successful pair of demos would position SpaceX to begin offering Starfall as a commercial service, likely first to pharmaceutical and materials science customers before scaling toward the military and broader manufacturing segments.
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