On January 15, 2025, Falcon 9 successfully deployed Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 and ispace’s RESILIENCE lunar landers on a trajectory to the Moon from pad 39A in Florida.
For most of our missions, we plan a controlled deorbit of the Falcon second stage so it safely reenters over the ocean. For higher energy missions like those to a lunar transfer orbit, nearly all performance on the vehicle is devoted to successfully placing the payload in the intended orbit, and a controlled disposal maneuver is not always possible.
We actively work to be as responsible as possible with hardware left in space to ensure space safety, including for more complex missions. In this case, over time, solar activity and gravity led the second stage toward the Moon. Impacts like this are rare, but they can happen with objects in these types of orbits, and we worked with NASA on the optimal disposal solution.
Our focus remains on advancing reliable access to space while working toward even more sustainable operations with Starship in the future. As a fully reusable vehicle, Starship is designed to eliminate expendable upper stages entirely, reducing hardware left in orbit and enabling even more missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
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No pixels
No graphics card
No lines of code
This is Tennis for Two, created in 1958 at Brookhaven National Laboratory by physicist William Higinbotham
To play, you held a custom aluminum box, twisted a knob to dial in your trajectory angle, and slammed a button to hit the ball
Inside? An analog computer, vacuum tubes, and clicking electromechanical relays calculating gravity and bounce physics in real time
The entire $200B modern gaming industry started as a glowing dot bouncing across an oscilloscope screen
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There is more than meets the eye in this photo…
The ring around the central galaxy cluster is evidence of dark matter, the invisible glue holding the universe together. Dark matter doesn’t emit, reflect, or absorb light, but it has gravity like ordinary matter. 🧵
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When the ultimate payload plan involves portals… and gravity has other ideas 😂
Gravity is optional in here. The new Mercedes-Maybach GLS — a cosmos entirely your own.
New design elements, additional comfort features, and extended acoustic enhancements further elevate the interior experience. Every journey is intended to be more relaxed, more comfortable, and more immersive, creating a sense of calm and wellbeing for every occupant.
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China on Wednesday successfully launched a Gravity-1 Y4 carrier rocket from waters off the coast of Shanghai, sending 9 satellites into preset orbits. This marks the third mission of the Gravity-1 carrier rocket.
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The geopolitical and economic centres of gravity are shifting. In this new era, India views Southeast Europe not as a region on the margins but as a dynamic theatre of growth and innovation.
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Gravity got exposed again 😂
Mars in motion! ⏩
While on its way to explore a mysterious, metal-rich asteroid, our Psyche spacecraft sped by Mars for a gravity assist to pick up speed and adjust its trajectory. As it approached the planet, it captured this series of high-res snaps.
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JD Vance reveals the problem with building a colony on Mars & space travel
JD: "One of the things I've talked with Elon about—and Elon is obviously a super smart dude—is that I've never heard a super satisfying answer to this. One of the things that worries me is that I want humans to be a multiplanetary species. I want us to go to Mars and set up a colony. I love humanity, and I want it to continue.
The problem with space travel that I have, and again, I've not heard a satisfactory solution to it, is that when we're outside of the Earth's gravity, our genes—our actual DNA—seems to not function as well when it's not in Earth-style gravity. Which makes sense, right? We developed in these conditions with this gravity.
Whenever you have somebody who goes to the International Space Station for three months or six months, they come back and they are totally jacked up because, literally, the cells in their body are starting to discombobulate in response to a low-gravity environment. We have to figure out a solution to that problem. That, to me, is sort of the most interesting part of space travel, of going to Mars or setting up a colony on another planet. If you set up a colony on Mars, and it takes you two years to get there and two years to get back, in that time, you've gone from a functioning, healthy adult to dead if you're in space for four years. That part of space travel is very fascinating to me, and I don't know that I've heard any satisfactory solution to it yet."
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