Lifeboat Foundation

A few weeks back we brought word that Reddit users [derekcz] and [Xerbot] had managed to receive the 2232.5 MHz telemetry downlink from a Falcon 9 upper stage and pull out some interesting plain-text strings. With further software fiddling, the vehicle’s video streams were decoded, resulting in some absolutely breathtaking shots of the rocket and its payload from low Earth orbit.

Unfortunately, it looks like those heady days are now over, as [derekcz] reports the downlink from the latest Falcon 9 mission was nothing but intelligible noise. Since the hardware and software haven’t changed on his side, the only logical conclusion is that SpaceX wasn’t too happy about radio amateurs listening in on their rocket and decided to employ some form of encryption.

Continue reading “Fun While It Lasted, Falcon 9 Telemetry Now Encrypted” »

Elon Musk has given us his findings to why the SpaceX Starship SN 11 exploded above the landing pad.
I explore fixes from a system safety standpoint. See what I recommend.

You can support Galactic Gregs by supporting the sister channel Green Gregs by clicking the links below:
See the Special Deals at My Patriot Supply (great space mission food): www.PrepWithGreg.com.
For gardening in your space habitat (or on Earth) Galactic Gregs has teamed up with True Leaf Market to bring you a great selection of seed for your planting. Check it out: http://www.pntrac.com/t/TUJGRklGSkJGTU1IS0hCRkpIRk1K

Circa 2019

SpaceX’s Mars ships won’t be ferrying just the super rich to and from the Red Planet, if everything goes according to Elon Musk’s plan.

The price of a seat aboard SpaceX’s Starship interplanetary vehicle will eventually drop enough to be accessible to a large chunk of the industrialized world’s population, the billionaire entrepreneur predicted over the weekend.

Elon Musk is going to pay $100 million towards a prize to come up with the best carbon capture technology. (Or so he tweets. Details are scarce so far.)

The maverick tech CEO’s promise is not particularly notable for its generosity. With a net worth of over $200 billion, $100 million is 0.05% of Musk’s wealth.

But still, the richest person in the world’s tweet brings attention to an often-overlooked technology that has been around since the 1970s but has mostly been relegated to niche corners of the energy community.

SpaceX’s new Starlink satellite internet service is being touted as a rural internet game changer. WSJ spent time with a few beta testers in a very remote area of Washington state to see if it’s truly the solution to the global broadband gap. Photo Illustration: Laura Kammermann.

In the future, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving suite are expected to handle challenging circumstances on the road with ease. These involve inner-city driving, which includes factors like pedestrians walking about, motorcyclists driving around cars, and other potential edge cases. When Autopilot is able to handle these cases confidently, the company could roll out ambitious projects such as Elon Musk’s Robotaxi Network.

Tesla’s FSD Beta, at least based on videos of the system in action, seems to be designed for maximum safety. Members of the first batch of testers for the FSD Beta have shared clips of the advanced driver-assist system handling even challenging inner-city streets in places such as San Francisco with caution. But even these difficult roads pale in comparison to the traffic situation in other parts of the world.

In Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, for example, traffic tends to be very challenging, to the point where even experienced human drivers could experience anxiety when navigating through inner-city roads. The same is true for other countries like India or the Philippines, where road rules are loosely followed. In places such as these, Autopilot still has some ways to go, as seen in a recently shared video from a Tesla Model X owner.

WASHINGTON — As SpaceX gears up for another test flight of a Starship prototype, the Federal Aviation Administration is facing new scrutiny from Congress for how it handled SpaceX’s violation of its launch license on an earlier test flight.

SpaceX had planned to launch its SN11 Starship vehicle March 29 from its Boca Chica, Texas, test site. That flight will be similar to those of previous Starship prototypes, going to an altitude of 10 kilometers before landing on a nearby pad.

However, SpaceX called off the March 29 launch attempt because an FAA inspector could not arrive to observe the flight during a five-hour window. “FAA inspector unable to reach Starbase in time for launch today,” tweeted Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, using the proposed new name for the Boca Chica site. “Postponed to no earlier than tomorrow.”

Meet Philippe Croizon, a French quadruple amputee who is set to become the first disabled person to visit outer space on Elon Musk’s space mission.

Musk’s tweet offering guidance on timing for an anticipated increase in Tesla’s market cap has since been deleted, but screenshots were widely shared on Twitter.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has clashed with Musk and Tesla over the CEO’s unfettered use of Twitter before.

In the third quarter of 2018, Musk faced securities fraud charges from the SEC after he tweeted to his tens of millions of followers then that he was planning to take Tesla private at $420 a share, and had secured funding to do so. Tesla’s stock price jumped more than 6 percent that day.