SpaceX and Elon Musk are once again being called on to rescue spacefarers - this time, the Chinese crew of Shenzhou-20, delayed on China's Tiangong space station after suspected space debris damage. The three-person crew including Chen Dong, Chen Zhongui, and Wang Jie, arrived in April and were supposed to return in November after a handover with the Shenzhou-21 crew. That return has been postponed while engineers assess potential damage from what reports describe as "a tiny piece of space debris."
The space agency's decision to reopen the contract for the Artemis mission moon lander renews competition between SpaceX, which had previously won the award, and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's space startup. But it also sets off a competition between Texas and Washington, the two companies' respective home states. Politicians have long fought over American space spending, as Fast Company has previously explained. But it's not clear where they stand, at least for now.
Rockets roar. Photographer Andrew McCarthy captured the moment that a SpaceX Starship roared into space from its launchpad in Texas. Photographing the fiery plumes of the 33 Raptor engines that power the Starship Super Heavy booster proved a technical feat but also required luck. "We can study wind patterns, look at past launches, but ultimately, each one will behave slightly differently due to the chaos of the event," McCarthy says.
We are in a race against China so we need the best companies to operate at a speed that gets us to the Moon FIRST," Duffy wrote. "SpaceX has the contract to build the HLS which will get U.S. astronauts there on Artemis III. But, competition and innovation are the keys to our dominance in space so [NASA] is opening up HLS production to Blue Origin and other great American companies.
Duffy also cites "maybe others" getting involved. This refers to a third option. In recent weeks, officials from traditional space companies have been telling Duffy and the chief of staff at the Department of Transportation, Pete Meachum, that they can build an Apollo Lunar Module-like lander within 30 months. Amit Kshatriya, NASA's associate administrator, favors this government-led approach, sources said.
Because after another turbulent morning of closely following the rough-and-tumble contest to become the next NASA administrator, I sure could use one. What has happened now? Why, it was only SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who is NASA's most important contractor, referring to the interim head of the space agency, Sean Duffy, as "Sean Dummy," and suggesting he was trying to kill NASA. Musk later added, "The person responsible for America's space program can't have a 2 digit IQ."
As could be seen in the video shared by SpaceX, Starship's Super Heavy booster, which is nearly 400 feet tall, smoothly returned to Earth and hovered above the Gulf of America for a few seconds before it went for its soft water landing. The booster's picture-perfect maneuver before splashing down all but capped a near-flawless mission for Starship, which is about to enter its V3 era with Flight 12.
"Absolutely, there are people I don't like," she told interviewer and TV writer Brad Falchuk, "and I would like to put them on one of Musk's spaceships and send them all off to the planet he's sure he's going to discover."
The news comes after ProPublica previously reported in March that SpaceX allows Chinese investors to buy a stake in the company - as long as funds are "routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy hubs." The reporting suggested that SpaceX was trying to avoid scrutiny of its ties to China. Case in point, the company canceled a 2021 deal worth $50 million with a Chinese firm when plans became public, according to ProPublica 's reporting.
Elon Musk once stated that no one ever changed the world working just 40 hours a week. This was something that is openly known among his companies. They have the potential to change the world, but they require a lot of hours. SpaceX's working environment was recently criticized by Chris Kemp, the chief executive officer of Astra. During some remarks at the Berkeley Space Symposium 2025 earlier this month, Kemp shared some sharp remarks about the Elon Musk-led private space enterprise.
SpaceX just fired off one of the biggest shots yet in the spectrum wars, agreeing to pay $17 billion to take over a massive chunk of wireless airwaves from EchoStar for Starlink's Direct-to-Cell services. The deal is the most aggressive signal yet that SpaceX wants to rule the satellite-to-phone market. The significance of the sale, which sees SpaceX paying a mix of $8.5 billion in cash and $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock, centers around a finite resource: spectrum.
Tesla's integration of Grok into its vehicles demonstrates the tangible benefits of collaboration with xAI. As Tesla pivots toward AI-driven technologies, including Full Self-Driving and robotics, a strategic investment in xAI would secure access to advanced AI capabilities, enhance product innovation, and drive shareholder value. The board, which often suggests investors vote against shareholder proposals, is neutral on this one.
As SpaceX's Starship vehicle gathered all of the attention this week, the company's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket continued to hit some impressive milestones. Both occurred during relatively anonymous launches of the company's Starlink satellites but are nonetheless notable because they underscore the value of first-stage reuse, which SpaceX has pioneered over the past decade. The first milestone occurred on Wednesday morning with the launch of the Starlink 10-56 mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The rocket launched on time, at 2330 UTC on August 26 (1830 CDT, local time in Texas). One of the Super Heavy Booster engines failed during the ascent, but as SpaceX's enthusiastic commentator noted, it did not affect the mission. After separation, the booster made a controlled splashdown into the Gulf of Mexico and demonstrated a hover above the water with only two engines running before eventually reaching the surface and exploding as expected.
