Hello and welcome back to Max Q. I’m writing to you from Florida, where NASA canceled Monday’s launch attempt of the Artemis I mission. In this release:
- NASA’s Artemis I launch is scrubbed
- T-Mobile and SpaceX’s New Partnership
- News from Astrobotic, Violet Labs and more
Besides… TechCrunch Disrupt finally returns – live and in person – to San Francisco on October 18-20. We are excited to share the full agenda, you will hear from groundbreaking leaders such as: Serena Williams (Serena Ventures), Mark Lore (Wonder Group), Ami Gan (Onlyfans), Johanna Faries (Call of Duty), Chris Dixon (a16z ), and much more! In addition to hearing from these leaders, you can discuss your how-to in the TechCrunch+ stage and watch roundtables and breakout sessions. Whatever you do, start planning your schedule now so you don’t miss a lick of all this startup goodness. Register before September 16 and save $1,100.
After much fanfare, including a number of celebrity appearances and the arrival of Vice President Kamala Harris, NASA said it was scrubbing the first-ever launch attempt of the mega-moon rocket due to technical difficulties.
The mission was scrubbed at T-40 minutes after the engineers were unable to fix an engine breather problem. “The engine bleed could not be fixed,” said NASA communications officer Derrol Nail. NASA has another launch possibility on September 2, but Nail suggested that “we’ll have to wait to see what comes out of the data” if a launch can be attempted on that date.
The two-hour launch window was supposed to open at 8:33 a.m. ET, but at 8:35 a.m., NASA officially called off the mission. The first problem to emerge was what appeared to be a crack in the thermal shielding material of the rocket’s core stage, although this was later identified as a crack in the foam, not the actual tank. Engineers also identified a bleed in a liquid hydrogen line intended to cool the four engines at the bottom of the rocket’s core stage.
Image Credits: Gregg Newton / Getty Images
T-Mobile and SpaceX have announced that Starlink satellites launched next year will be able to connect directly to the carrier’s phones via existing cellular links. The companies hope to enable global roaming wherever satellite coverage exists, and the service may be added to existing T-Mobile plans for free.
SpaceX’s Elon Musk and T-Mobile’s Mike Sievert announced the “technology alliance” at the space company’s Starbase in Texas.
“It’s a lot like putting a cell tower in the sky, only a lot more difficult,” Sievert says. “Your phone doesn’t really know it’s connecting for space. It will think it’s connected to a cell tower because that phone uses industry standard communication protocols and already has the spectrum built in, like the vast majority of phones in circulation today.”
Image Credits: T-Mobile
Imagine building some of the most advanced hardware-powered technologies in the world: spacecraft, drones or autonomous vehicles. Then imagine not being able to easily share your data across teams, using clunky user interfaces, and relying on one person manually entering data into an Excel spreadsheet to complete your project.
“You’d be shocked at how archaic the tools are,” said Lucy Hoag, co-founder of Violet Labs. To solve this problem, Violet Labs is developing a cloud-based platform that can act as a single source of truth, collect the data from all tools and make it easily accessible to teams. The idea has resonated with investors: The startup just closed a $4 million seed round to accelerate product development, with Hoag and Caitlin hitting the market later this year.
Image Credits: Violet Labs (Opens in a new window)
More news from TC and beyond
- Astrobotic will send its CubeRover platform to the moon under a new prize from NASA. The company will use CubeRover to test technologies to survive the lunar night and communicate over greater distances on the lunar surface.
- Atlas Space Activitiesa company that provides ML-driven software to help satellite operators connect to ground stations, has raised $26 million Series B to grow its platform.
- Blue Origins the next mission will launch on August 31 from the company’s West Texas location. There are 36 charges on the manifest.
- Boeing’s first manned Starliner mission could take place as early as February 2023, NASA said. It will be an eight-day mission to the International Space Station.
- HawkEye 360 signed a two-year research and development collaboration agreement with the US military to develop radio frequency detection data that could provide tactical support to the military.
- NASA awarded $19.4 million worth Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics and Lockheed Martin to build prototypes of solar panels and conduct environmental tests for the moon.
- NASA launching the Lunar Trailblazer mission two years ahead of schedule, to mid-2023. The spacecraft will fly as a secondary payload on Intuitive Machines’ second lunar lander mission.
- Orbex, a launch company based in the United Kingdom, will hire 50 employees over the next six months. The blitz will “support the company’s latest push” toward its first orbital launch attempt, Orbex said in a statement.
- Sierra Space said the private space station Orbital Reef, which the company is designing in partnership with Blue Origin, is moving forward to the design stage with NASA after completing a major assessment.
- SpaceX will use both Falcon 9 and Starship missiles to complete its Starlink constellation, the company told the US Federal Communications Commission.
- The SpaceX spaceship which will land on the moon for an unmanned demo mission may just be a “skeleton” of the rocket that will carry people for the Artemis III launch in 2025.
Max Q is brought to you by me, Aria Alamalhodaeic. If you enjoy reading Max Q, consider forwarding it to a friend.
0 Comments