SpaceX
SpaceX’s steel Starship gets new official render, this time with a huge NASA telescope
SpaceX recently provided NASA with the third known official render of its stainless steel Starship, focused on the vehicle’s potential utility for launching massive scientific spacecraft for NASA. Starship’s only direct competition for the proposed LUVOIR telescope: NASA’s own SLS rocket.
Published by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Starship is shown with a smaller “B” variant of the proposed LUVOIR space telescope in its payload bay. According to a scientist from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI), the massive LUVOIR-A variant could “barely” fit inside Starship’s clamshell bay, but the telescope could also be tweaked to more perfectly fit the constraints of its chosen launch vehicle. LUVOIR is effectively being designed as a logical follow-up to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and could be ready to launch no earlier than 2039 if NASA selects the idea – one of three under consideration – for future development.
The LUVOIR telescope (shorthand for Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor) is currently grouped into two different categories, A and B. A is a full-scale, uncompromised telescope with a vast 15-meter primary mirror and a sunshade with an area anywhere from 5000 to 20000 square meters (1-4 acres). B is a smaller take on the broadband surveyor telescope, with an 8-meter primary mirror (a quarter of the area of LUVOIR-A’s) accompanied by a similarly reduced sunshade (and price tag, presumably).
— Teslarati, July 2018
Goddard’s “we asked, SpaceX checked” statement refers to a funded analysis of LUVOIR launch options the group announced back in July 2018, at which point the future prospects of NASA’s SLS rocket were far more stable. Approximately nine months later, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that all work on future SLS upgrades – including the Block 1B and Block 2 variants that could have supported the launch of LUVOIR-A – was to be halted as soon as possible. All of that funding would instead be focused on mitigating a never-ending string of delays and pushing SLS to actually prepare for its first launches. Bridenstine has since publicly waffled on that aggressive plan, simultaneously indicating that some of those SLS upgrades (mainly an advanced upper stage, EUS) would be critical for one variant of his proposal to return astronauts to the Moon as early as 2024.
Regardless, the blood of SLS is currently in the water as NASA pursues an answer to the question of whether commercial rockets can instead be used to launch the agency’s Orion spacecraft and Lunar Gateway segments. Based on preliminary interviews focused on NASA’s internal study of the subject, there is still plenty of room for SLS as long as its contractors (namely Boeing) can stem relentless delays, cost overruns, and quality control issues and finally prepare the rocket for its first missions.
As described above, it appears likely that NASA is going to require the SLS rocket’s core stage to conduct a critical mission-duration test fire before permitting the vehicle to begin launch preparations in Florida. As a result, there will be almost no conceivable way for the rocket to rise to the 2020 launch debut challenge issued by Bridenstine, potentially meaning that NASA will put significant resources into studying and developing alternatives to SLS. If or when NASA sets the precedent for allowing serious studies and funding of SLS alternatives, the death of the rocket will almost certainly be assured. Relative to commercial rockets like Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, Vulcan Heavy, and even SpaceX’s BFR (i.e. Starship/Super Heavy), conservative estimates suggest that SLS will be no less than 5-20+ times as expensive on a per-launch basis.
Consequently, it should come as no surprise to see NASA Goddard openly confirm its willingness to launch future flagship science missions on SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, so long as the rocket is successfully developed, launched, and certified by NASA for high-value missions. Given just how distant the proposed ~2039 launch of LUVOIR is and how early SpaceX is in the process of developing Starship/Super Heavy into a highly mature and reliable launch vehicle, one should not read too far into Goddard’s public support.
However, there should be no doubt at this point that SpaceX’s next-generation Starship and current-generation Falcon Heavy rockets are already upsetting certain aspects of the status quo. If SpaceX continues to refine Starship’s design and demonstrate Falcon Heavy’s reliability and readiness, studies like Goddard’s LUVOIR launch case can be expected to crop up throughout domestic and global space industries, both pubic and private.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX Board has set a Mars bonus for Elon Musk
SpaceX has given Elon Musk the goal to put one million people on Mars.
SpaceX’s board approved a compensation plan for Elon Musk that ties his pay directly to colonizing Mars and building data centers in outer space. The details surfaced this week after Reuters reviewed SpaceX’s confidential registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, making it one of the first concrete looks inside the company’s financials ahead of a public offering.
The pay package will reportedly award Musk 200 million super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market valuation milestone, with the most ambitious targets going further. To unlock the full award, SpaceX would need to reach a $7.5 trillion valuation and help establish a permanent human settlement on Mars with at least one million residents. Additional incentives are tied to developing space-based computing infrastructure capable of delivering at least 100 terawatts of processing power.
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
Long before SpaceX filed anything with the SEC, Elon Musk had already spent years framing Mars colonization as an insurance policy against human extinction. The philosophy traces back to at least 2001, when Musk first began researching Mars missions independently, before SpaceX even existed. By 2002 he had founded the company with Mars as the stated long-term goal.
In a 2017 presentation at the International Astronautical Congress, Musk outlined the specific vision that still underpins SpaceX’s architecture today. He described a self-sustaining city on Mars requiring roughly one million people to become viable, the same number now written into his compensation package.
SpaceX’s Starship, still in active development, was designed from the ground up to support the eventual colonization of Mars. Musk has stated publicly that getting the cost per ton to Mars below $100,000 is necessary to make mass migration economically feasible. Everything from Starship’s payload capacity to its full reusability targets flows from that single constraint. One can say that Musk’s latest compensation package has put a formal valuation on Mars for the first time.
SpaceX is targeting an IPO around June 28, Musk’s birthday, at a valuation of approximately $1.75 trillion. Between the Mars rover contract, the Golden Dome software group, Space Force satellite launches, and now a pay structure built around interplanetary colonization, SpaceX has become the single most consequential contractor in American space and defense. The IPO will put a public price tag on all of it for the first time.
News
UPDATE: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy that launched a Tesla into space is back on a mission
SpaceX Falcon Heavy returns after 18 months away to deliver a satellite that only it could carry.
UPDATE: 10:29 a.m. et: SpaceX is standing down from today’s Falcon Heavy launch of the ViaSat-3 F3 mission due to unfavorable weather. A new target date will be shared once confirmed.
After an 18-month absence, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is returning to mission on Monday morning when it’s scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center at 10:21 a.m. EDT.
The mission is called ViaSat-3 F3, and the heavy satellite payload needs to reach geostationary orbit, sitting 22,236 miles above Earth where its speed matches the planet’s rotation. Getting a satellite that heavy to that altitude demands more thrust than a single-core Falcon 9 can deliver.
This marks the Falcon Heavy’s 12th flight overall since its debut in February 2018, and its first since NASA’s Europa Clipper mission in October 2024.
Arguably, the most exciting element for spectators will be watching the booster recoveries in action when the two side boosters, B1072 and B1075, will attempt simultaneous landings at Landing Zone 2 and the newer Landing Zone 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, while the center core will be expended over the ocean.
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
Following satellite deployment, expected roughly five hours after launch, ViaSat-3 F3 will spend several months traveling to its final orbital slot before undergoing in-orbit testing, with service entry expected by late summer 2026
As Teslarati reported, NASA awarded SpaceX a $175.7 million contract on April 16, 2026, to launch the ESA Rosalind Franklin Mars rover aboard a Falcon Heavy no earlier than late 2028, which would mark the first time SpaceX has ever sent a payload to Mars. That contract came on top of an already deep pipeline that includes the Roman Space Telescope, the Dragonfly Saturn mission, and multiple national security payloads.
SpaceX executed 165 missions in 2025 and now accounts for approximately 85% of all global orbital launches. With Starlink surpassing 10 million subscribers and an IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation still ahead, Monday’s launch is one more data point in a company that has quietly become the backbone of both commercial and government space access worldwide.
Elon Musk
The FCC just said ‘No’ to SpaceX for now
SpaceX is fighting the FCC for spectrum that could put satellites inside every smartphone.
SpaceX was dealt a new setback on April 23, 2006 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the U.S. government agency dismissed the company’s petition to access a Mobile Satellite Service spectrum that would allow direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities.
The FCC regulates communications by radio, television, wire, and cable, which also includes regulating D2D technology that lets your existing smartphone connect directly to a satellite orbiting Earth, the same way it would connect to a cell tower.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been building toward this through its Starlink Mobile service, formerly called Direct-to-Cell, in partnership with T-Mobile. The service officially launched on July 23, 2025, starting with messaging and expanding to broadband data in October of that year.
T-Mobile Starlink Pricing Announced – Early Adopters Get Exclusive Discount
It’s worth noting that SpaceX is not alone in this race. AT&T and Verizon have their own satellite texting deals with AST SpaceMobile, while Verizon separately offers free satellite texting through Skylo on newer phones.
The regulatory foundation for all of this dates to March 14, 2024, when the FCC adopted the world’s first framework for what it called Supplemental Coverage from Space, allowing satellite operators to lease spectrum from terrestrial carriers and fill gaps in their coverage. On November 26, 2024, the FCC granted SpaceX the first-ever authorization under that framework, approving its partnership with T-Mobile to provide service in specific frequency bands. SpaceX then went further, completing a roughly $17 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum from EchoStar, which gave it the ability to negotiate with global carriers more independently.
Starlink’s EchoStar spectrum deal could bring 5G coverage anywhere
This recent ruling by the FCC blocked SpaceX from going further, protecting incumbent spectrum holders like Globalstar and Iridium. But the market momentum is already in motion. As Teslarati reported, SpaceX is targeting peak speeds of 150 Mbps per user for its next generation Direct-to-Cell service, compared to roughly 4 Mbps today, which would bring satellite connectivity close to standard carrier performance.
With a reported IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation on the horizon, each spectrum fight, carrier deal, and regulatory win or loss now carries weight beyond just connectivity. SpaceX is quietly becoming the infrastructure layer underneath the phones of millions of people, and the FCC’s next move will help determine how much further that reach extends.
FCC Satellite Rule Makings can be found here.
SpaceX Board has set a Mars bonus for Elon Musk
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