Space

Trump mentioned his dinner with the billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post owner during his interview with Kristen Welker for Meet the Press today, according to NBC News.

He’s heard from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post: “We’re having dinner,” he said.

Bezos, who didn’t get along with the President-elect before, recently said he feels “optimistic” about his second term.

The satellite internet company received a Pentagon contract that will give 2,500 Starlink terminals access to Starshield, its secure satellite service for governments, according to Bloomberg. With this contract, Ukraine will have a total of 3,000 terminals connected to Starshield.

Need something more intense than a burning log to help you relax this season? NASA now has its own festive fireplace featuring an eight hour loop of the burning RS-25 engines used for the launch of the Artemis I mission two years ago. The fireplace can be streamed on NASA Plus, or you can watch it on YouTube.

The Starship vehicle successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space before splashing down in the Indian Ocean, writes SpaceX.

Unlike the 5th flight test, this one didn’t include a tower catch for the booster, as “automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt,” and it diverted to the Gulf of Mexico.

The launch is happening in Boca Chica, Texas and is scheduled for 5PM ET. SpaceX’s stream for the launch is live now.

The “Beaver Moon” can be seen across the US tonight. It’s “super” because the full moon will be at its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit.

Bezos, who killed The Washington Post’s endorsement of Harris and also owns a space company with billions in government contracts, was among the first major US tech leaders to chime in this morning. He is certainly aware that one of his biggest rivals in aerospace is run by a close confidant of the president-elect.

Blue Origin leadership has viewed Donald Trump as positive for space. Most of Jeff Bezos’ focus is currently on Blue Origin. “Elon’s real superpower is getting government money,” Bezos has said, according to The Post.

Bezos claims spiking the Post’s Kamala Harris endorsement was a “principled decision.”

Did you know SpaceX’s “latest generation broadband satellites” use AMD chips? The chipmaker just bragged about that in Q3 2024 earnings, and it’s news to me.

AMD’s product page says: “AMD Versal Adaptive SoCs combine application processors, real-time processors, and vector processors with traditional FPGA resources such as programmable logic fabric, DSP resources, and embedded memory.”

Nothing to see here, I’m sure. Jeff Bezos, owner of Blue Origin and The Post, just really strongly felt like there didn’t need to be a presidential endorsement this time around, no reason.

Okay, this one’s weird: Musk has posted a three-minute clip of a game, but the audio is someone telling him how “We were one second away from telling the rocket to abort” — and how the amazing ‘chopstick’ Super Heavy booster catch was close to being a scary crash.

While TechCrunch suggests he “inadvertently” broadcasted this, it’s not a broadcast. Someone clipped it this way.

The Maine Connectivity Authority announced that it will purchase Starlink hardware for around 9,000 homes and businesses in the state without internet. Eligible residents can start applying for subsidized Starlink equipment next month.

I’m working on a full review in a variety of scenarios but I’m shocked it works at all in the outer sleeve of this Peak Design backpack connected to a USB-C power bank. Once it gets satellite lock it holds on to it reasonably well for an average of 54Mbps down and 11Mbps up, despite the dish’s vertical alignment and 110-degree field of view.

I don’t know why you’d do this, but you can!

The “catch” marks SpaceX’s first successful touchdown of Starship’s booster back at its launch site in South Texas.

Starship launched about 25 minutes later than planned, at about 8:25AM ET, as SpaceX needed to clear its range of boats.

You can catch the livestream on SpaceX’s website, its X account, or the X TV app.

The company now expects its fifth Starship flight test to lift off at 8:25AM ET from its launch site in South Texas. SpaceX has a 30-minute window that started at 8AM ET, so it’s cutting it a little close.

The House Oversight Committee will investigate the FCC’s decision to deny the Elon Musk-owned Starlink $885.5 million in federal subsidies through the Rural Digital Opportunity fund in 2022.

Last week, Musk claimed the satellite internet company “would probably have saved lives” in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina if the FCC didn’t “illegally” revoke Starlink’s funding.

Liftoff of its uncrewed NS-27 mission is now scheduled for 12PM ET. Starting 15 minutes before liftoff, you can catch the livestream on Blue Origin’s website.

NS-27 will be the first flight for the company’s new RSS Kármán Line crew capsule, and includes 12 payloads, including LIDAR sensors for its Lunar lander program.

Update: The launch has been cancelled due vehicle issues.

This morning, the European Space Agency launched its Hera mission, which will revisit Didymos, the asteroid system that NASA’s Dart operation punched in 2022.