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Arianespace’s Vega rocket is scheduled to fly tonight (Sept. 2) for the first time in more than a year.

The four-stage Vega last launched in July 2019, and that mission did not go well. The 98-foot-tall (30 meters) rocket’s second-stage motor suffered an anomaly, resulting in the loss of the Vega and its payload, the United Arab Emirates’ Falcon Eye 1 Earth-observation satellite.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has been told by Germany’s economy minister that he can have whatever he needs for his new electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Berlin.

Musk and Germany economy minister Peter Altmaier had an hour long meeting in Berlin on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter. “The main topics were Tesla’s billions of euros worth of investment in Germany,” the source said.

The duo, who first met six years ago, also spoke about Musk’s projects in areas like space flight and autonomous driving.

Demo-2 will be the first crewed mission in SpaceX’s history, as well as the first launch of NASA astronauts from the U.S. since 2011, sending NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station.

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WASHINGTON — SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company is making “good progress” on its next-generation Starship launch vehicle despite delays in the schedule of test flights of the vehicle.

In an interview broadcast during the Humans to Mars Summit by the advocacy group Explore Mars Aug. 31, Musk emphasized the progress the company has made not on test flights of the vehicle but instead development of production facilities for Starship at Boca Chica, Texas.

“We’re making good progress. The thing that we’re really making progress on with Starship is the production system,” he said, referring to the growing campus at Boca Chica. “A year ago there was almost nothing there and now we’ve got quite a lot of production capability.”

Elon musk’s spacex vs jeff bezos’s blue origin: which space project will dominate the cosmos?

Starship SN6 is aiming to conduct a 150-meter hop test on Sunday, just a few weeks after SN5 completed the first Starship prototype launch. SN6’s test will be a near-mirror of SN5’s short flight, with both prototypes aiming to refine SpaceX’s launch and landing operations. Meanwhile, additional Starships continue to evolve, along with preparations for the Super Heavy booster, which – according to Chief Designer Elon Musk – could conduct an initial test hop by October.

SN5 and SN6:

Continue reading “Starship SN6 prepares for hop — Super Heavy is coming” »

A new image shows what Venus would look like if it had water on its surface, similar to the Earth.

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Ride the Space Shuttle’s SRB’s from launch to landing in the Atlantic Ocean: