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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk breaks his silence on the Starlink impact to Ukraine drones
Musk says the US military and president set Starshield limits, not SpaceX, amid Ukraine complaints.
Elon Musk says the speed limit cutting out Ukraine’s military Starlink terminals is not SpaceX’s decision. In a post on X Wednesday, Musk wrote that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” He added that Starlink is a commercial service limited to civilian or defensive activities and “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
He was replying to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s former defense minister, who had thanked Musk for restoring connectivity at speeds up to 160 km/h and said removing the Starshield limit entirely is “now critical for Ukraine’s defense.”
Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.
Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX. Usage of Starlink is limited to civilian or defensive activities and cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 14, 2026
The complaint started Tuesday night, when Ukrainian officials said military terminals began losing service above roughly 100 mph. Presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov said the defense forces got no warning and several missions were disrupted, as Teslarati reported earlier Wednesday. The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps told Reuters connections dropped for 10 to 20 seconds at speeds well below the limit, which made drones harder to control. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, asked Musk on X whether he is “playing politics with your products again.”
That is why the Starlink and Starshield distinction matters. SpaceX introduced Starshield in 2022 as the government version of Starlink, with an initial focus on Earth observation, communications and hosted payloads. It won a Space Force contract in 2023 with a $70 million ceiling. In December 2024, the Pentagon moved Ukraine’s terminals onto Starshield, covering about 3,000 units across two contracts. Ukraine’s military connections therefore run through a service that Musk now says sits under Washington’s control.
While Musk’s post describes who holds authority, it does not infer that anyone ordered the limit, and neither SpaceX nor the US government has confirmed who set it. Ukrainian officials have pointed to the timing, which follows President Trump’s push for an energy ceasefire and Musk’s Saturday post that “Zelensky has gone too far.” The BBC noted Trump denied threatening to restrict intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and no evidence has been presented that Washington requested the cap.
The episode also revives a promise from 2025. After Poland accused him of threatening Ukraine’s access, Musk said Starlink “will never turn off its terminals” and would not be used as a bargaining chip. Poland has since supplied more than 29,000 terminals to Ukraine. Teslarati also covered Kyiv’s search for Starlink alternatives in 2025, and the latest dispute gives that search new urgency.
News
SpaceX brings four astronauts home after 8 months in space, and the return was flawless
SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom returned four Crew-12 astronauts home after 237 days aboard the station.
Four Crew-12 members are back on Earth after 237 days at the International Space Station. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles west of Los Angeles at 11:34 a.m. ET on Thursday.
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev landed one day after undocking from the station’s Harmony module at 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday. NASA confirmed the splashdown minutes later. SpaceX had flagged the 27.5 hour trip home on X while Dragon was still firing its departure burns away from the station.
The descent ran on schedule when Freedom started a nine minute deorbit burn at 10:46 a.m. ET, then hit the thicker atmosphere about 36 minutes later at nearly five miles per second. Chutes deployed at around 18,000 feet, and four main parachutes brought the capsule down to roughly 15 mph at splashdown.
SpaceX fast boats secured Dragon before the recovery ship Shannon hoisted it onto the deck with the crew still inside. Flight surgeons on board ran initial medical checks. All four crew members will be flown ashore by helicopter and then head to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for rehabilitation.
Splashdown of Dragon confirmed! https://t.co/P2o7A3Gytf
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 8, 2026
Crew-12 launched on February 13 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, a flight that also marked the first Falcon 9 booster landing at SpaceX’s new LZ-40 pad. Over the mission, the crew completed 3,792 orbits, covered nearly 101 million miles, and carried out four spacewalks to maintain and upgrade the station.
Meir now has 440 cumulative days in space, which places her in NASA’s top 10. This was the first spaceflight for Hathaway and for Adenot, a French Air Force colonel and former helicopter pilot. Fedyaev, who spent 186 days in orbit on Crew-6 in 2023, has now flown two long duration Dragon missions.
The return closes out a busy stretch of Dragon traffic. Crew-13 arrived on October 1 aboard Crew Dragon Grace, which docked just 7 hours and 55 minutes after liftoff, the fastest launch to docking of any U.S. spacecraft in ISS history. Commander Jessica Watkins, pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov remain aboard alongside the three person Soyuz MS-29 crew.
With Crew-12 gone, the port is clear for CRS-35, a cargo Dragon carrying the final pair of ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays. NASA is holding a post-splashdown teleconference at 1:15 p.m. ET covering both the crew’s return and the upcoming cargo launch.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk shuts down talk of TSMC taking over Terafab
Musk says Tesla and SpaceX will build and run Terafab, with TSMC limited to renting.
Elon Musk has drawn a firm line around who will be in charge of Terafab, the giant chip factory Tesla and SpaceX are planning in Texas.
Musk replied to a post on X arguing that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would most likely end up owning and operating the plant. “No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that,” Musk wrote. “Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.”
In plain terms, a sublease means TSMC could rent a section of the complex to make chips, similar to a tenant renting one floor of an office tower. The building, the equipment decisions and the daily operation would stay with Tesla and SpaceX.
@herbertong @thejefflutz No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that.
Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 7, 2026
The comment shuts down speculation that started last week. On October 2, tech journalist Tim Culpan reported that TSMC was exploring ways to help run Terafab’s factories. Musk responded the next day that it was “just discussions, but something may come of it,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That left room for a scenario where the world’s largest contract chipmaker took the wheel. Musk’s latest post closes that door.
Some background helps explain why this matters. Tesla designs its own AI chips today but pays outside companies like TSMC and Samsung to manufacture them. Musk unveiled Terafab in March as a joint project between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, arguing that existing suppliers cannot expand fast enough to meet his companies’ future demand. The goal is to produce enough chips each year to supply one terawatt of computing power, roughly 50 times what the entire global AI chip industry produces now.
Those chips are meant for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, the Cybercab and Full Self-Driving computers, along with chips for SpaceX’s planned data centers in orbit. Owning the factory means Musk’s companies would not have to compete with every other chip customer for time on someone else’s production lines.
Intel is still part of the picture. The company signed on in April to help design, build and package chips for the project, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg this week that Intel will keep working on Terafab despite the TSMC chatter.
The project moved from concept to construction planning over the summer. In August, SpaceX confirmed the Grimes County site about an hour from Houston, sent the county a $10 million payment under its tax abatement deal and said civil work would begin shortly. The first phase carries a $16.8 billion price tag, and total spending across all phases could reach as much as $119 billion.
TSMC chairman C.C. Wei has said a new fab typically takes two to three years to build and another one to two years to reach full output. Tesla and SpaceX have never run one, which is why TSMC’s expertise drew so much attention. Musk’s answer suggests he would rather learn that process in house than hand control of a project this central to Tesla’s robotics and autonomy plans to an outside company.
Terafab Texas will be the largest and most valuable building on Earth by far.
And it will be stunningly beautiful. https://t.co/4NweOqTL7y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026
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