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SpaceX plans to fire up all 33 engines powering its massive Starship launch system ahead of its first orbital launch, a key milestone in the company’s efforts to reach the moon and Mars. The so-called static fire is scheduled for Thursday, Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, said Wednesday at an industry conference in Washington. That would pave the way for the rocket’s orbital launch within “the next month or so,” she said.

The announcement comes about two weeks after the company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, filled the rocket and booster with propellant in a “wet dress rehearsal.”

These timelines are not assured. A year ago, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk gathered members of the press in Boca Chica, Texas, to show off a Starship prototype on a launchpad. He said it would be ready to launch in a “couple of months.”

Starship is SpaceX’s next-generation launch vehicle, designed to carry cargo and eventually people to deep-space destinations.

SpaceX also holds a contract with NASA to develop Starship as a lunar landing system that can take NASA astronauts to and from the surface of the moon.

The company plans for Starship to be a spacecraft that it can assemble quickly.

“Falcon was never built to be producible and launch quickly,” Shotwell said, referring to the Falcon 9 workhorse rocket. “We have designed Starship to be producible and launch quickly. So if we can do 100 flights of Falcon this year, I’d love to be able to do 100 flights of Starship next year.”

Unintended Uses

Shotwell also discussed SpaceX’s internet-from-space initiative, Starlink, which she said had a cash-flow positive quarter last year.

“They’re paying for their own launches and they will still make money,” she said in response to questions from reporters.

Last year, SpaceX and Musk provided Starlink terminals to the Ukrainian government after Russia’s invasion of the country.

Shotwell said that Starlink ended up being used in unintended ways, which the company has since tried to stop.

“It was never intended to be weaponized,” she said. Ukrainians “leveraged it in ways that were unintentional.”

We thought “humanitarian, keep the banks going, hospitals, keep families connected,” she said. “I think comms for the military is fine. We know the military is using them for comms and that’s OK. But our intent was never to have them use it for offensive purposes.”

Some Ukrainian military units had used Starlink to connect their combat drones, the Times of London reported last March.

SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon in September asking for the agency to pay for Ukraine’s Starlink service, CNN first reported.

SpaceX is still funding the service. “We stopped interacting with the Pentagon on the existing capability. They are not paying for it.”

As far as stopping certain uses of Starlink, “there are things that we can do and have done,” Shotwell said.

© 2023 Bloomberg L.P.


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Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Reopens with SpaceX Rocket, Mars Habitat and More

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Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Reopens with SpaceX Rocket, Mars Habitat and More

Hundreds waited at the ready outside the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum on Monday (July 28), when “the doors opened for access to five featured and newly renovated galleries that capture the history, contemporary status, and futuristic vision of aviation and space exploration. These refurbished spaces showcase a mix of historic and high-tech artifacts such as John Glenn’s “Friendship 7” capsule, pieces of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and a 3D-printed Mars habitat. Visitors were among the first to experience a sweeping display of innovation, housed within the museum’s revitalised main building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Smithsonian’s $900M Overhaul Brings Futuristic Space Exhibits and Aviation History to Life

As per a Smithsonian statement, the reimagined exhibits are part of a $900 million full-building transformation launched in 2018, scheduled for completion by July 2026—the museum’s 50th anniversary. This phase marks the second group of reopened galleries since the start of 2022. After a three-year closure, the north entrance opened for the first time, leading visitors through a newly wing-shaped vestibule and into “Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall”, now with improved lighting, digital screens, and iconic artefacts.

Next to it, a new “Futures in Space” gallery showcases domestic exhibitions from private space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and Axiom Space. Rather than a chronological or program-based layout, the gallery explores philosophical and practical questions about space: Who decides who goes? Why do we venture out? What will we do once we arrive? The immersive layout blends historical items, contemporary designs, and even pop culture references.

The museum has reopened galleries such as “Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight”, “World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation”, and “Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery”, and the upgraded Lockheed Martin IMAX Theatre, praised as educational and inspirational.

Despite free entry, the Smithsonian Museum reopened to more than 6,000 guests, who must pick up timed-entry passes in order to better manage crowd flow.

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NASA’s Solar Observatory Sees Two Eclipses in One Day

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NASA’s Solar Observatory Sees Two Eclipses in One Day

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has witnessed and recorded an unprecedented phenomenon of two solar eclipses in one day on July 25, 2025. These two eclipses took place only hours apart that day, and were photographed by SDO instruments pointed up and away from the Sun in geosynchronous orbit. First, around 2:45 UTC, the Moon passed between SDO and the Sun. Then, starting at about 6:30 UTC, Earth itself eclipsed the Sun from SDO’s point of view, with the Sun disappearing behind our planet shortly before 8:00 UTC. Since launching in 2010, SDO has continuously monitored the Sun’s activity, from solar flares to magnetic fields, helping forecasters predict space weather.

Moon Transit

According to NASA, SDO orbits Earth in a high geosynchronous orbit, so it has an almost constant view of the Sun. On July 25, this vantage point captured a partial solar eclipse as the Moon passed between the spacecraft and the Sun. NASA’s mission team had predicted this “lunar transit” would cover about 62% of the solar disk. Indeed, the Moon’s silhouette moved slowly across the Sun (around 2:45–3:35 UTC), blocking roughly two-thirds of the bright disk at maximum. The observatory’s ultraviolet telescope (AIA) recorded the event, revealing the Sun’s lower atmosphere and coronal loops around the sharply defined lunar edge. This transit was the deepest lunar eclipse SDO saw in 2025.

Earth’s Eclipse from Space

Hours later, on the same day, Earth itself passed between SDO and the Sun. Beginning around 6:30 UTC on July 25, our planet fully blocked the observatory’s view of the solar disk. This occurred during SDO’s regular eclipse season (a roughly three-week period twice each year when Earth’s orbit crosses the satellite’s line of sight). The total eclipse lasted until shortly before 8:00 UTC. In SDO’s images, Earth’s shadow has a fuzzy edge because our atmosphere scatters sunlight, in contrast to the Moon’s crisp eclipse.

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NISAR Launches July 30: A NASA-ISRO Satellite to Track Earth’s Changes

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NISAR Launches July 30: A NASA-ISRO Satellite to Track Earth’s Changes

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite, a joint Earth science mission, is now set for launch from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The pickup-truck-sized spacecraft was encapsulated in the nose cone of an Indian Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and is scheduled to lift off on Wednesday, July 30 at 8:10 a.m. EDT (5:40 p.m. IST). Once in orbit, its dual-frequency radars will circle Earth 14 times a day, scanning nearly all of the planet’s land and ice surfaces every 12 days. It will provide data to help scientists monitor soil moisture and vegetation, and better assess hazards like landslides and floods.

International Collaboration and Launch Readiness

According to the official website, NISAR reflects a significant NASA–ISRO partnership. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) built the long-wavelength L-band radar, and India’s Space Applications Centre built the shorter-wavelength S-band radar. This dual-frequency design makes NISAR the first Earth satellite to carry two radar systems, underscoring the mission’s unique collaboration.

The spacecraft is now integrated into its launch vehicle at India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. On July 28 NASA announced NISAR had been encapsulated in the payload fairing of an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle on the pad. The GSLV is scheduled to lift off at 8:10 a.m. EDT (5:40 p.m. IST) on Wednesday, July 30.

Advanced Dual-Frequency Radar

NISAR carries a novel dual-frequency radar system. The satellite’s instruments operate at L-band (25 cm) and S-band (10 cm) wavelengths. The longer L-band waves can penetrate forests and soil to sense moisture and land motion, while the shorter S-band waves pick up fine surface details like vegetation moisture and roughness. This combination lets NISAR detect both large-scale and fine-scale changes.

From orbit, NISAR will circle Earth 14 times per day, scanning nearly all land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. Its data will track changes like the advance or retreat of polar ice sheets and slow ground shifts from earthquakes, and will also aid agriculture and disaster planning by helping monitor crops and prepare for floods and hurricanes.

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