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The Federal Aviation Administration is being sued by wildlife and environmental groups over SpaceX's launch of its giant rocket from Texas CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Wildlife and environmental groups sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday over SpaceX’s launch last month of its giant rocket from Texas. SpaceX’s Starship soared 24 miles (39 kilometers) high before exploding over the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. The rocket’s self-destruct system caused the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) rocket to blow up, as it spun out of control just minutes into the test flight. An attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs, said the groups are suing over what they consider to be the FAA’s failure to fully consider the environmental impacts of the Starship program near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. They asked the court to throw out the five-year license the FAA granted to SpaceX. The FAA declined comment, noting it doesn't comment on ongoing litigation. Th...

A key SpaceX Starship Super Heavy rocket launch test now is likely to take place later this month rather than sometime this week, the space company's CEO Elon Musk said on Monday. SpaceX envisions Starship as a fully reusable transportation system to carry astronauts and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond. The rocket is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX's Starbase facilities at Boca Chica in South Texas in the first launch of the company's fully stacked 394-foot (120-meter) tall Starship rocket system. Fully stacked means all its parts are assembled, with the upper stage sitting atop the booster. "Starship launch trending towards near the end of third week of April," Musk wrote on Twitter a day after stating that it was ready for launch and "awaiting regulatory approval." A planning notice posted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on April 4 said the launch 's primary expected date was for Monday, but listed backup dates...

We live in an era of renewed space exploration, where multiple agencies are planning to send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years. This will be followed in the next decade with crewed missions to Mars by NASA and China, who may be joined by other nations before long. These and other missions that will take astronauts beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Earth-Moon system require new technologies, ranging from life support and radiation shielding to power and propulsion. And when it comes to the latter, Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) is a top contender! NASA and the Soviet space program spent decades researching nuclear propulsion during the Space Race. A few years ago, NASA reignited its nuclear program for the purpose of developing bimodal nuclear propulsion – a two-part system consisting of an NTP and NEP element – that could enable transits to Mars in 100 days. As part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for 2023, NASA selec...