NASA has certified SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (likely F9 v1.2) to launch the space agency’s most valuable and critical scientific spacecraft, opening up the floor for SpaceX to routinely compete for missions comparable to Hubble Space Telescope, the Curiosity Mars rover (Mars Science Laboratory), Cassini (a Saturn orbiter), and James Webb Space Telescope, among many others.

The first satellite launched into orbit, Sputnik, launched from a spaceport in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The Central Asian country was then a Soviet republic. Later, the first human to fly into space, Yuri Gagarin, also launched from Kazakhstan. Today, despite its independence, this spaceport remains the primary launch site for the Russian space program. However, when Kazakhstan wanted to get a small scientific satellite named KazSaySat and a technology satellite called KazistiSat into space...

Musk fired SpaceX managers, aims to stay on schedule for mid-2019 launch.

Elon Musk captured the world's attention by launching rockets from Cape Canaveral and California air bases. But all along, his company has been trying to realize its own home base by the Mexican border.

The United States space industry is booming, and not everyone is excited about it. The Europeans, who dominated commercial spaceflight before the rise of American upstarts like SpaceX, are suddenly worried that the America's effort “now represents a further strong challenge to European competitiveness and freedom to act in space.”

When the Falcon Heavy rocket launched for the first time in February, some critics of the company wondered what exactly the rocket's purpose was. After all, the company's Falcon 9 rocket had become powerful enough that it could satisfy the needs of most commercial customers. One such critic even told me, "The Falcon Heavy is just a vanity project for Elon Musk."

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk added yet another wearying episode to our multi-month-long Musk news cycle this week by smoking weed on camera with podcast host Joe Rogan, sending Tesla’s stock tumbling and triggering yet more speculation about his capacity to serve as CEO. But the episode may have bigger ramifications over at SpaceX, which is a federal contractor and privy to classified information like the details of government satellites.

Speaking on a panel titled “Future of Space” at a 2018 conference for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) 60th anniversary, SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell reportedly confirmed that SpaceX is still targeting integrated BFR tests in 2019, in the form of hops with the next-gen rocket’s upper stage (known as BFS).

SpaceX has signed its first customer to fly on the company’s huge new rocket, the BFR, the company says. The passenger will fly on the monster ship around the Moon, though there are no details yet regarding when the trip will happen. SpaceX says it will announce who is flying — and why — on Monday, September 17th. The BFR, or the Big Falcon Rocket, is the giant rocket that SpaceX is currently developing to send humans to the Moon and Mars. The BFR design, presentated by CEO Elon Musk last year, consists of a combined rocket and spaceship, called the BFS for Big Falcon Spaceship.

SpaceX on Thursday announced a new plan to launch a tourist around the Moon using its Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), a massive launch vehicle that is being designed to carry people into deep space.

The moon may soon get its first tourist — and first human visitor in more than four decades. SpaceX announced Thursday that it's booked the world's first private passenger to the moon. Elon Musk's space technology company said on Twitter the unnamed traveler would board its BFR (or Big Falcon Rocket) to the moon, where only 24 people have ever traveled. Only 12 of those people actually walked on the moon, and they were all Americans.

It's going to be a big night for space tourism. The private spaceflight company SpaceX will reveal its first passenger for a trip around the moon on the company's massive BFR rocket and you can watch it all live online. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has even dropped tantalizing previews of the BFR's new rocket design on Twitter.

SpaceX revealed Monday that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will be its first space tourist. Maezawa has chartered a flight aboard the company's Big Falcon Rocket, which is still being developed, for a slingshot trip around the Moon as soon as 2023. He's planning to take six to eight artists with him on the mission free of charge.

Today, it’s Tesla Roadsters; tomorrow, space lasers? SpaceX’s president and CEO says the firm would consider launching weapons into orbit for the U.S. government, if asked. “If it’s for the defense of this country, yes, I think we would,” Gwynne Shotwell said, in response to a question about SpaceX’s willingness to launch “offensive weapons” into space for the United States. She made her remarks at the Air Force Association’s annual conference. The crowd broke into applause.

On a Monday night filled with emotion as much as engineering, one of the most poignant moments came toward the end of the program at SpaceX's rocket factory in California. The company's founder, Elon Musk, choked up as he described the financial contribution from a Japanese businessman, Yusaku Maezawa, to his Big Falcon Rocket project. "I’ll tell you, it’s done a lot to restore my faith in humanity," Musk said, seated in front of the end of a Falcon 9 rocket and its nine engines.

Musk said he plans to use his future Starlink satellite system to broadcast the mission.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk has tweeted two photos that give us a peek into the company's Martian dreams. One of the images shows the BFR, the massive rocket SpaceX is developing for deep space missions, while the other shows the BFR and what he called "Mars Base Alpha." It's no secret that the private space corporation wants to build a human settlement on the red planet. Back in 2017, it announced its plans to launch two BFR cargo missions to Mars by 2022 to prepare for the arrival of the first Martian settlers by 2024. Before any of that can happen, though, SpaceX has to be able to start testing its BFR system in the first half of 2019.

A Japanese space agency, iSpace, announced on Wednesday 26th September that it will launch a lunar lander and rover to the moon in 2020 and 2021. The uncrewed iSpace spacecraft will go to space on board a SpaceX Faclon 9 Rocket, the organization said. On the off chance that it all g oes well, in 2020, the company will endevour to orbit the moon with one of its landers. In 2021, it will attempt to securely place a lander on the lunar surface and send lunar rovers to investigate further

In early August, Boeing's Leanne Caret and SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell took the stage at Johnson Space Center to announce the first astronauts who will fly on their commercial crew spacecraft. It was a significant moment to see two of the most powerful women in aerospace alongside one another—two fierce competitors coming together for the good of the country.

NASA has announced the first crewed flight by a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) is expected to take place in June 2019. It will be the first manned US launch to the orbiting research laboratory since the space shuttle program was retired in 2011, forcing US astronauts to hitch costly rides aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

A large sheet of metal found on a North Carolina beach has been identified as debris from a SpaceX rocket. The National Park Service told The Charlotte Observer that Elon Musk's rocket building company confirmed the 10-foot by 6-foot (3-meter by 2-meter) debris found Sunday was "rocket hardware." Chief Ranger Boone Vandzura of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore says "it's being handled appropriately."

In rocketry, what goes up usually comes down in pieces. The cost of getting to orbit is exorbitant, because the rocket, with its multimillion-dollar engines, ends up as trash in the ocean after one launching.

paceX had to scrub Tuesday's attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station and make a historic rocket landing in the process. The landing experiment would have involved bringing the first stage of the two-stage rocket down onto a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean, about 200 miles off the coast of Florida. Such a feat has never been done before. A successful maneuver would have marked a significant step toward making rockets more reusable...

SpaceX's Dragon capsule is one step closer to flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. SpaceX has passed NASA's "certification baseline review," which required the California-based company to outline exactly how it plans to ferry crews to and from the orbiting lab using the Dragon spacecraft and its Falcon 9 rocket under SpaceX's Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract with the space agency.

After a lot of publicity and one aborted launch attempt, SpaceX tried to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone barge this morning. 'Tried' very much being the key word.

Last week, SpaceX tried to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone barge and failed. Now Elon Musk has posted footage of the crash landing on Twitter. It isn't pretty.

SpaceX's quest for rocket reusability is on the right track, having pinpointed the problems that led to the destruction of a used Falcon9 rocket last week.

Despite the 80s hard rock soundtrack—or maybe because of it—SpaceX's new 3D animation showing their future Falcon Heavy in action, complete with the landing of three of its stages back on Earth, is freaking cool. I can't wait for Elon Musk's bandits to solve all problems and see this happening in real time.

SpaceX plans to convert a launch pad into a landing pad for the reusable rocket boosters it is developing to power its Falcon family of rockets.

SpaceX aims to bring the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown on an unmanned "spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean after the booster sends Dragon on its way toward the orbiting lab Monday April 13th.

SpaceX once again successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket with supplies for the International Space Station. The booster that launched the payload was then supposed to return, landing on a platform (at sea). Well, that didn’t go so well. The booster crashed on landing. Landing a rocket in this manner is clearly a difficult task. ( Here is my previous explanation.) Maneuvering a tall rocket using the main thrusters would be like balancing a vertical broom on your hand and then...

NASA has formally certified SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket to launch all but the space agency’s most costly robotic science missions, beginning with a a U.S.-French oceanography satellite set for liftoff from California in July.

NASA has announced that the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft was successfully released from the International Space Station's robotic arm this morning at 7:04am ET, by Expedition 43 robotic arm operator Scott Kelly.

The US Air Force has certified the private company SpaceX to launch military and spy satellites. A joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing has had a monopoly on those launches since 2006. Founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, SpaceX has already won contracts with NASA to ferry cargo and crews to the International Space Station. The approval from the US military followed two years of intensive reviews by the US Air Force.

A mission by an unmanned SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket ends in failure after it exploded after lift-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.