Space
New Sun mission to launch in attempt to snap 1st-ever photos of star’s poles
A new spacecraft is set to launch on a journey to the Sun. It’s goal: to snap the first pictures of the Sun’s north and south poles.
Dubbed Solar Orbiter, the spacecraft is a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The 3,970-lb. (1,320 kg) spacecraft will launch atop United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket on Feb. 7, 2020, during a two-hour launch window that opens at 11:15 p.m. EST (0415 GMT Feb. 8).
It’s launching at night because the spacecraft is on a path to Venus where it will use the planet’s gravity to slingshot itself out of the ecliptic plane — the area of space where all planets orbit.
From that vantage point, Solar Orbiter’s on-board cameras will capture the first-ever view of the Sun’s poles.
“Up until Solar Orbiter, all solar imaging instruments have been within the ecliptic plane or very close to it,” Russell Howard, space scientist at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C. and principal investigator for one of Solar Orbiter’s ten instruments said in a mission update. “Now, we’ll be able to look down on the Sun from above.”
“It will be terra incognita,” added Daniel Müller, ESA project scientist for the mission at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands. “This is really exploratory science.”
The spacecraft is taking a suite of specialized instruments with it on its journey to the sun. It will also work in tandem with another solar-observing spacecraft—NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.
Launched in 2018, Parker has now completed its first few close passes of the sun. The spacecraft is already making discoveries, showing that despite appearance, the sun is anything but quiet.
It plays a central role in shaping space around us. As a magnetically active star, the sun unleashes powerful bursts of light and a slew of charged particles (racing at near light-speed) across the solar system. This violent activity has been happening throughout the sun’s 5.5 billion-year lifespan and affects our planet daily.
The sun has a massive magnetic field, which stretches far beyond Pluto, and creates the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space. It also creates a path for charged particles to whiz across the solar system.
The barrage of energetic particles, known as the solar wind, can damage spacecraft, satellites, and is harmful to our astronauts. It can disrupt navigation signals, and during extreme flares, can even trigger power outages.
But we can prepare for these things by monitoring the sun’s activity and magnetic field. However, our view from Earth is limited and leaves us with incomplete data. Scientists are hoping that by observing the sun’s polar regions, Solar Orbiter will be able to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.
“The poles are particularly important for us to be able to model more accurately,” Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “For forecasting space weather events, we need a pretty accurate model of the global magnetic field of the Sun.”
Solar Orbiter will take seven years to reach a viewpoint 24 degrees above the Sun’s equator, increasing to 33 degrees if the mission is extended an additional three years. That will provide the best views ever of the poles.
Additionally, the poles may be able to shed some light on the driving force behind sun spots — dark spots on the sun’s surface that mark strong magnetic fields. In 1843, German astronomer, Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, discovered that the spots increase and decrease during the solar cycle in a repeating pattern.
There are an abundance of sunspots during solar maximum (when the sun is active and turbulent) and fewer during solar minimum (when the sun is calmer). But scientists don’t understand why the cycle lasts 11 years, or why some solar maximums are stronger than others.
They hope to find the answer by observing the changing magnetic fields at the poles.
There’s only been one other spacecraft to fly over the sun’s polar regions: another joint ESA/NASA venture called Ulysses. It made three passes around the sun before being decommissioned in 2009. However, unlike Solar Orbiter, Ulysses did not have an imager on board to take pictures of the poles.
That spacecraft also did not get nearly as close as Solar Orbiter will. That’s because it lacked the technology required to keep it cool. Scientists have been waiting more than 60 years for missions like Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter to come online.
It’s takes a lot of technology development to be able to design and build a spacecraft that will survive a close encounter with the sun.
Solar Orbiter is outfitted with a custom-designed titanium heat shield, topped with a calcium phosphate coating that withstands temperatures over 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius). That’s thirteen times the amount of heat that spacecraft in Earth-orbit are subjected to.
President Donald Trump unveiled an upgraded Boeing 747-8 at Joint Base Andrews on June 19, 2026, describing the Qatar-gifted aircraft as an interim Air Force One equipped with advanced communications systems, including Starlink, Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet service.
The plane, valued at around $400 million and modified for presidential use, serves as a bridge until the delayed VC-25B replacements arrive. Trump highlighted its luxury features and new technology during remarks to service members.
Trump stated:
“We have communication equipment up there that nobody’s ever seen before. It’s the highest level and, uh, including Starlink. My friend Elon is going to be very happy, but, uh, Starlink and we have, uh, four or five different sets of double and triple communications like people haven’t seen.”
He added:
“And it represents what can happen with hard work, innovation, and aggressive timelines because we did this quickly and yet there’s never been communication like is on this plane.”
🚨 President Trump confirmed today that the new Air Force One is equipped with Starlink:
“We have communication equipment up there that nobody’s ever seen before, it’s the highest level and including Starlink…my friend Elon is going to be very happy.” pic.twitter.com/IhkDmtr5hL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 20, 2026
The aircraft features a redesigned red, white, and blue livery and has been outfitted with Starlink satellite connectivity alongside other secure systems.
Trump praised the plane’s uniqueness, calling it among the world’s most luxurious. The gift from Qatar and subsequent modifications have drawn attention, with the jet positioned as a solution for presidential travel. It is expected to support operations, including potential ceremonial roles such as Fourth of July flyovers.
The event marked the formal introduction of the converted jet, which will help maintain capabilities while the primary Air Force One fleet undergoes modernization. Defense observers note the inclusion of commercial satellite technology like Starlink as part of efforts to ensure resilient communications, crucial to keep the country running as the President is in the sky.
President Trump’s comments underscored appreciation for rapid upgrades and innovation in equipping the aircraft. The plane remains a U.S. government asset and is slated for eventual transfer related to presidential library purposes after its service.
SpaceX has exercised its option to acquire Cursor, the innovative AI coding company, in an all-stock transaction valued at $60 billion. The deal, announced on June 16, marks a significant step in SpaceX’s expansion into advanced artificial intelligence, building on months of close collaboration between the companies.
Cursor, officially operated by Anysphere, Inc., is an AI-native code editor and coding agent designed to transform software development. Founded in 2022 by a group of MIT graduates in San Francisco, Cursor builds on the familiar foundation of Visual Studio Code but integrates powerful AI capabilities directly into the core experience.
Unlike traditional code editors or simple extensions, Cursor functions as a full “coding agent” that turns natural-language instructions into actionable code.
SpaceX has exercised the option to acquire @cursor_ai in an all-stock transaction with the goal of building the world’s most useful AI models.
For the past few months, SpaceXAI has been jointly training a model with Cursor, which will be released in Cursor and Grok Build soon.… https://t.co/X5mepgXgjJ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 16, 2026
Developers interact with Cursor through features like its Composer agent, which can search entire codebases, edit multiple files, run terminal commands, debug issues, and complete complex multi-step programming tasks autonomously.
Users describe high-level goals, such as “build a scalable API endpoint with authentication,” and the AI plans, implements, tests, and refines the solution while the human oversees decisions. Additional tools include advanced autocomplete (Tab), context-aware chat, and infrastructure for handling billions of daily requests.
The platform has gained considerable traction, surpassing $3 billion in annual recurring revenue by early 2026 and earning adoption by over half of the Fortune 500 companies. Its agentic approach accelerates development dramatically, allowing engineers to focus on architecture and creativity rather than repetitive coding.
The acquisition integrates Cursor’s leading product, expert team of roughly 300 engineers, and distribution network among top software developers with SpaceX’s unparalleled computational resources. SpaceX’s Colossus supercomputer, equivalent to a million H100 GPUs, has already powered joint training of next-generation models. These models are expected to launch soon within Cursor and SpaceX’s Grok Build environment.
This combination positions SpaceX to develop the world’s most capable AI systems for coding and knowledge work. Access to Cursor’s real-world usage data from millions of professional developers provides unparalleled feedback loops for model improvement. Training on Colossus enables rapid iteration on massive datasets, potentially creating AI that outperforms current leaders in reliability, context handling, and complex reasoning.
For SpaceX, the benefits extend far beyond software tools. Rocket engineering, satellite constellation management, autonomous flight systems, and Starship development involve millions of lines of highly specialized, safety-critical code.
Cursor’s AI agents, supercharged by proprietary models trained on SpaceX’s domain expertise, could slash development timelines, reduce errors, and enable faster innovation cycles. This vertical integration of AI tooling strengthens SpaceX’s competitive edge in both aerospace and the broader AI race, complementing its xAI initiatives.
The deal reflects the exploding value of AI-native developer platforms. By owning Cursor outright, SpaceX secures a strategic talent pool and product pipeline that will accelerate internal projects while potentially offering enhanced tools to the wider engineering community. As AI continues reshaping software creation, this acquisition underscores SpaceX’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology for ambitious goals, from Mars colonization to global connectivity.
Renowned investor Ron Baron, founder and CEO of Baron Capital, has once again demonstrated his unwavering faith in Elon Musk’s ventures.
Just after SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO, Baron announced he purchased an additional $1 billion in SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) shares. This move pushes Baron Capital’s total holdings in the company to a staggering $25 billion in market value, underscoring one of the most successful private-to-public investment stories in recent history.
Baron’s relationship with SpaceX dates back to 2017, when his firm began investing approximately $1.75–2 billion through secondary markets and employee tender offers at valuations around $20–22 billion.
By the time of the IPO, which valued SpaceX at over $2 trillion with shares closing near $161, those early stakes had generated more than $13 billion in unrealized gains. Post-IPO, Baron’s position ballooned further, reflecting the company’s meteoric rise driven by reusable rocketry, Starlink’s global satellite internet constellation, Starshield defense applications, and ambitious plans for orbital infrastructure.
In a recent interview, Baron articulated his bullish outlook with characteristic enthusiasm.
Ron Baron said today that he bought $1 billion of @SpaceX IPO shares last Friday, and said that all of Baron Capital’s $SPCX holdings are now worth $25 billion.
“I think we’re going to make hundreds of billions of dollars; If you read the prospectus, you realize what they… pic.twitter.com/U8F471KtJS
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 15, 2026
“I think we’re going to make hundreds of billions of dollars,” he stated, emphasizing that SpaceX’s achievements in rocketry and satellite technology are “not possible for anyone else to accomplish.” He envisions the company as a cornerstone of humanity’s multi-planetary future, potentially reaching valuations of $10–30 trillion within 10–15 years.
Baron has repeatedly affirmed he has no plans to sell, viewing SpaceX as a “lifetime investment” alongside Tesla.
Tesla bull Ron Baron reveals $100M SpaceX investment, sees 3-5x return on TSLA
This conviction stems from SpaceX’s unparalleled execution. The company has revolutionized access to space with Falcon 9 reusability, deployed thousands of Starlink satellites, and is advancing Starship for Mars missions and point-to-point Earth transport.
Baron highlights emerging opportunities like space-based AI data centers and direct-to-cell satellite connectivity, positioning SpaceX at the forefront of a new space economy projected to generate trillions in value.
Critics may question the lofty projections amid high valuations and execution risks, but Baron’s track record speaks volumes. His Tesla holdings, initiated in the mid-2010s, have also delivered outsized returns. As one of the largest institutional holders of SpaceX pre-IPO, Baron Capital’s funds, such as Baron Partners, benefited immensely from valuation markups.
Baron’s $1 billion IPO purchase signals deep confidence in SpaceX’s post-IPO trajectory. In an era of short-term market noise, his strategy exemplifies patient capital: backing visionary leadership and transformative technology.
For investors watching the space sector, it serves as a powerful endorsement that the final frontier may indeed yield the next great wealth-creation engine. As Baron puts it, SpaceX isn’t just building rockets—it’s trying to “save humanity” by expanding our horizons beyond Earth.
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