SpaceX tells companies building NASA's Moon cargo landers it will not launch them, Ars Technica reports

The rest of the day

17 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

1. 02

   US military watchdog won't probe Starshield slowdown

   The US Defense Department's own watchdog has refused to investigate the Starshield slowdown in Ukraine. [7] Starshield is the military version of Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet service. [6] Ukraine said this month its drones lost satellite links when flying above 161 km an hour. [6] Musk later said SpaceX had slowed Starlink, saying Ukraine's military broke its terms of service. [8] 5 Democratic and 4 Republican senators asked for the inquiry on 15 October. [6] The watchdog said the US Air Force and Space Force should answer instead. [6]

   Why it matters — Musk says the US government controls any changes to Starshield. [7] Trump says he did not order any restrictions. [7] Senator Richard Blumenthal had already announced his own inquiry into the slowdown. [23] Senator Jeanne Shaheen says "there must be an independent accounting and review." [7]

2. 03

   Spacewalkers fit the seventh new solar panel

   Two astronauts fitted a new solar panel to the International Space Station on Thursday. [9] They were NASA's Anil Menon and Canada's Joshua Kutryk, on his first spacewalk. [10] It was the 100th US spacewalk from the station without a space shuttle docked. [9] The walk lasted 7 hours and 11 minutes, about an hour ahead of plan. [10] The panel unrolled to 19 metres with no motor, using energy stored in its carbon booms. [9] Each of these new panels makes about 8 kilowatts of power. [10] The station's original panels have passed their 15-year design life and give less power. [9]

   Why it matters — The extra power must keep the station running until it is brought down in 2030. [9] The same pair go out again on 5 November to fit the last panel. [10]

3. 04

   Oldest known piece of Mars dated

   Scientists say a meteorite found in the Sahara is the oldest known rock from Mars. [11] It was blasted off Mars by a giant impact and later fell to Earth. [11] Nomadic meteorite hunters found the stone, called Teghaza 001, in 2022. [11] A paper in the journal Science on Thursday dates it to at least 4.1 billion years. [11] The team dated tiny crystals called zircons, which hold radioactive atoms used for dating. [11] Lead author Yang Liu, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says no Earth rock is older. [11] Most Mars meteorites record only the last 600 million years or so. [11]

   Why it matters — Earlier work by the team found signs that liquid water once seeped through it. [11] Another scientist says it shows why rocks must be brought back from Mars itself. [11]

4. 05

   Starship's top half test-fired for Flight 15

   SpaceX test-fired Ship 42, its next Starship upper stage, on Monday and Tuesday. [4] Starship is SpaceX's giant rocket, built so that both halves can fly again. [4] The ship ran all 6 engines for a full-length test while held to the ground. [4] One engine also fired alone, copying the burn that brings a ship down from orbit. [4] The booster for the flight, the bottom half, already fired all 33 of its engines. [4] Musk says Flight 15 is aimed at November. [4]

   Why it matters — SpaceX will try to catch both halves with its tower's arms, if regulators allow it. [4] It has caught the booster 3 times but never the ship. [4] Catching both would get them ready to fly again faster, SpaceX says. [4]

5. 06

   Blue Origin rebuilds its damaged launch pad

   Blue Origin has rebuilt the tower at its Florida pad, damaged in a test in May. [5] Its chief, Dave Limp, said on 24 October all 9 tower sections are back in place. [5] Next door, crews poured 4,500 cubic yards of concrete for a second pad. [5] About 450 trucks lined up nearly 3 miles along the coast to deliver it. [5] The company aims to fly its New Glenn rocket again by the end of 2026. [5]

   Why it matters — New Glenn must launch Blue Origin's test Moon lander for NASA's Artemis III flight. [5] NASA will choose the Artemis IV lander by how both landers do on that flight. [5]

6. 07

   NASA's ultraviolet telescope set for 2031

   NASA says UVEX, a new space telescope, will launch in 2031. [12] It will map the whole sky in ultraviolet, light our eyes cannot see. [12] Flares on stars and exploding stars show up fully only in ultraviolet. [12] Caltech, a university in California, will lead the mission. [12] It will be up to 100 times more sensitive than GALEX, NASA's last ultraviolet survey telescope. [12] GALEX's mission ended in 2013. [12]

   Why it matters — Its maps will sit beside surveys by the Rubin Observatory and Europe's Euclid telescope. [12] Together they will show the same sky in several kinds of light. [12]

7. 08

   Artemis II commander to help run JPL

   Reid Wiseman, who commanded NASA's flight around the Moon in April, has a new job. [13] He becomes deputy director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL, on 30 November. [13] JPL builds and flies NASA's robot explorers, including the Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rovers. [13] Caltech, a California university, runs JPL for NASA. [13] All 4 Artemis II astronauts have now stepped away from spaceflight. [13] Pilot Victor Glover now advises the president of Cal Poly, his old university. [13] Christina Koch becomes NASA's acting deputy chief engineer on 1 November. [13]

   Why it matters — NASA chief Jared Isaacman praised Wiseman's technical judgement in JPL's announcement. [13]

8. 09

   Artemis III crew meet the US president

   The four Artemis III astronauts met US President Donald Trump this week. [14] They are NASA's Randy Bresnik, Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio, and Europe's Luca Parmitano. [14] Artemis III is due to launch to Earth orbit, not the Moon, in summer 2027. [14] NASA's Orion capsule will practise docking with one or both private Moon landers. [14]

   Why it matters — The roughly two-week flight is practice for the first landing, on Artemis IV in 2028. [14] NASA has not yet said which lander will fly on either mission. [14]

9. 10

   Italian satellite maker raises 50 million euros

   Argotec, an Italian maker of small satellites, has raised 50 million euros. [15] That is about $55.8 million. [15] NUO Space, the space arm of a Milan investment firm, led the funding. [15] Argotec builds satellites of up to 350 kg. [15] Two of its small satellites flew with NASA's DART and Artemis I missions. [15] The money should lift output from 52 satellites a year to 80. [15] It will also speed up work at its Florida factory, opened this year. [15]

   Why it matters — Its satellites will serve Italy's own Earth-imaging fleet and a Japan-India mission to find Moon water. [15] Argotec says a much larger fundraising round is already under way. [15]

10. 11

    Young Earth may have made its own water

    Earth may have made much of its own water as it grew, a new study says. [16] Many scientists have thought comets and asteroids brought Earth's water. [16] The study, led from the University of New Mexico, is in the journal Nature Geoscience. [16] Young planets gather a thick layer of hydrogen gas from the cloud around their star. [16] Molten pebbles fell through that hot hydrogen onto the growing Earth. [16] The hydrogen pulled oxygen out of iron in the pebbles, and that made water. [16] In lab tests, rock heated in hydrogen lost almost 80% of its iron oxide. [16]

    Why it matters — The team says this could have made hundreds of oceans' worth of water. [16] If so, almost any Earth-sized planet should have water, co-author Zachary Sharp says. [16]

11. 12

    Two dwarf planets crashed near a young star

    Hubble has now seen the Cat's Tail, a long dust trail beside the star Beta Pictoris. [17] Beta Pictoris is a young star about 63 light years away, ringed by dust. [17] The tail stretches about 1,000 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. [17] Before, only the Webb telescope, which sees infrared light, had spotted it. [17] Its dark carbon-rich dust soaks up visible light, lead author Arin Avsar says. [17] The team thinks two dwarf planets the size of Pluto's moon Charon smashed together. [17]

    Why it matters — Beta Pictoris is only about 23 million years old. [17] It shows what our own solar system may have looked like when crashes were common. [17]

12. 13

    Lasers crush a crystal past Earth's core pressure

    Scientists squeezed a crystal with lasers to copy the conditions deep inside planets. [18] The crystal was magnesium oxide, built from one of the commonest elements inside rocky planets. [18] The team came from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University in the US. [18] It melted at 572 gigapascals of pressure and 13,000 kelvin, about 12,900 degrees Celsius. [18] Earth's centre is at about 360 gigapascals and 6,000 kelvin. [18] That set a new record for pressure and heat in a lab experiment. [18] The crystal also behaved differently depending on which way it was squeezed. [18]

    Why it matters — Whether it stays solid matters for how planets move heat, co-author June Wicks says. [18] On big rocky planets, liquid magnesium oxide could make magnetic fields stronger than Earth's. [18]

13. 14

    The Sun's jets may be curtains seen side-on

    The Sun's spinning jets of hot gas may really be folded curtains seen from the side. [19] These jets, called spicules, rise at tens of kilometres a second, then fall back. [19] There may be millions of them across the Sun at any time. [19] Teams from Newcastle, Sheffield and the Indian Institute for Astrophysics built a computer model. [19] Seen from the side, the folds of one rippling sheet look like separate jets. [19] Old data from the Hinode and IRIS satellites matched the model. [19]

    Why it matters — The model also found giant swirls that may lift gas and heat into the corona. [19] Why the corona, the Sun's outer layer, is hotter than its surface is still unsolved. [19]

14. 15

    Eclipse photos show 'smoke rings' on the Sun

    Newly released photos of the 12 August solar eclipse show the Sun's outer layer in detail. [20] That outer layer, the corona, is a million times dimmer than the Sun's surface. [20] The team, Solar Wind Sherpas, is coordinated by the University of Hawaii. [20] They took the photos from Pico Trigaza, a mountain in Spain. [20] The photos show twisted rings in the solar wind, first seen in eclipse photos in 2008. [20] The team now says temperature differences in the Sun's gas make them. [20] The photos also show a giant coronal hole, an opening in the Sun's magnetic field. [20]

    Why it matters — Solar wind can stream out of such holes at up to 800 km a second. [20] Coronal holes are cooler, so they look dark in ultraviolet and X-ray pictures. [20]

15. 16

    A ghostly cloud in Carina is making stars

    Two space telescopes have studied a ghostly cloud in the Carina Nebula. [21] A nebula is a huge cloud of gas and dust in space. [21] The Carina Nebula is more than 7,500 light years away. [21] NASA's Chandra telescope sees X-rays and the Webb telescope sees infrared light. [21] Despite its ghostly look, the cloud is making batches of hot, young stars. [21] Light from nearby hot stars is eating the cloud away. [21] That has carved comet-shaped knots of gas, called cometary globules. [21]

    Why it matters — Nearby, the Trumpler 14 cluster holds more than 2,000 big young stars, very bright in ultraviolet. [21] Such stars live short lives, so the region will one day be full of dead stars. [21]

16. 17

    Hubble and Webb look at the Cat's Head

    Hubble and Webb have photographed the Cat's Head, a pillar of dust in the Carina Nebula. [22] It is named for its shape: a cat facing away, with a star as its eye. [22] Hubble saw it in visible light, where filters pick out sulphur, oxygen and hydrogen. [22] Webb's near-infrared view shows more stars, because less of their light is blocked by dust. [22] In mid-infrared, carbon molecules and warm dust glow instead. [22] Light from big nearby stars is driving gas off the pillar's edge. [22]

    Why it matters — Astronomers use such pictures to study how big stars both help and stop new stars forming. [22]

17. 18

    Anthropic is SpaceX's biggest customer

    Anthropic, an AI company, is SpaceX's biggest customer, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing a source. [24] A SpaceX filing said one customer, called only Customer B, paid 34.5% of its quarterly revenue. [24] That makes Anthropic a bigger customer than the US government, long SpaceX's main source of income. [24] Anthropic rents computer power at SpaceX's data centres in Memphis, Tennessee. [24] SpaceX's AI unit, now called Super Intelligence, made a profit for the first time last quarter. [24] Anthropic could spend up to $3.1 billion a month there from December, under deals to 2029. [24] Google, another customer, pays SpaceX about $920 million a month. [24]

    Why it matters — Anthropic can cancel with 90 days' notice after early 2027. [24] That leaves SpaceX heavily exposed to one client. [24] SpaceX is also turning down new US government launch work, Ars Technica reported this week. [1]