Elon Musk
Elon Musk says he's still waiting for a call from Boeing to fix the jumbo jet maker's overheating Dreamliner battery problem. For the past few months, Boeing's 787 fleet has been grounded in the United States following a lithium-ion battery that caught fire in flight. The National Transportation Safety Board was unable to determine the cause of the fire, but the Tesla and SpaceX CEO says the problem is clear to him, and he's willing to "do the fix" for Boeing. Read More
SpaceX considering a new commercial spaceport in Texas
SpaceX founder and all-around renaissance man Elon Musk told the packed crowd at his keynote at the South By Southwest Interactive (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, that he didn't make the trip to the Lone Star state just for them. Musk said he's also in the state capitol to chat with lawmakers about the possibility of opening a new commercial launch facility in the state. Read More
At a teleconference today (Mar.1) at 3:00 PM EST (2000 GMT), SpaceX and NASA confirmed that the malfunction of three of the four thruster pods of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft has been corrected. Though the cause of the failure remains unknown, a note received during the conference from Dragon mission control stated that all four pods are working nominally with two of the pods preparing to come online this afternoon. Read More
SpaceX's Grasshopper VTVL takes a 40 meter hop
The SpaceX Grasshopper vertical takeoff vertical landing (VTVL) testbed has successfully flown to a height of 40 meters (131 ft), hovered for a bit and subsequently landed in a picture perfect test on December 17, 2012. The Grasshopper had previously taken two hops less than 6 m (20 ft) in height, but the latest test was the first that saw it reach an altitude taller than the rocket itself, which is a modified Falcon 9 orbital launch vehicle. The flight lasted 29 seconds from launch to landing, and carried a 1.8 m (6 ft) cowboy dummy to give an indication of scale. Read More
Taking to the stage at this year's Economist Innovation Awards, Elon Musk of SpaceX let slip a few more choice details about his "Hyperloop" high-speed transportation system that would see commuters travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco in a mere 30 minutes, describing the concept for the first time as a cross between Concorde and railgun. Read More
