NASA selects Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for a 2028 mission to Mars
NASA selects Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for a 2028 mission to Mars

Relativity Space, the rocket company led by former Google executive Eric Schmidt, was picked to launch NASA’s Aeolus payload to Mars in 2028, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. Under a new public-private partnership, Relativity Space will provide the “spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations” to fly Aeolus to Mars, where the payload will “provide the first […]

As Jio files for India’s biggest-ever IPO, it’s planning a Starlink rival in orbit
As Jio files for India’s biggest-ever IPO, it’s planning a Starlink rival in orbit

At its annual shareholder meeting on Friday, Reliance unveiled two things at once: paperwork for what could be India’s biggest-ever stock-market listing, and a plan to put a Starlink rival into orbit. Jio Platforms, the digital and telecom arm of Mukes…

SpaceX adds Sequoia’s Roelof Botha to its board, days after record $75 billion IPO
SpaceX adds Sequoia’s Roelof Botha to its board, days after record $75 billion IPO

SpaceX has appointed Roelof Botha, the former steward of Sequoia Capital, to its board of directors. The appointment, disclosed in an 8-K filing on 17 June, comes less than a week after the company’s record-breaking $75 billion IPO. Botha will serve as…

NASA picked Eric Schmidt’s Relativity Space to fly to Mars. It has never reached orbit.
NASA picked Eric Schmidt’s Relativity Space to fly to Mars. It has never reached orbit.

NASA is partnering with Relativity Space, the rocket company run by former Google chief Eric Schmidt, to fly a science mission to Mars. Announced on June 17, the mission is called Aeolus, the first flight in Relativity’s new Interplanetary Sciences Pro…

The search for dark matter has been blown wide open
The search for dark matter has been blown wide open

Underneath an Apennine massif, below the Jinping Mountains of Sichuan, and at the bottom of a South Dakota mine, there is a cosmic hunt afoot. Isolated deep beneath these rocky shields, massive detectors filled with liquid xenon aim to make the first direct detections of dark matter, the long-sought invisible substance whose gravity has sculpted…

NASA picks Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for Mars mission, setting up a race with SpaceX

Relativity Space—a rocket maker acquired by former Google executive chair Eric Schmidt last year after stumbling on the path to orbit—might just beat SpaceX to Mars.

Roelof Botha joins SpaceX’s board of directors

The former Sequoia Capital leader is filling an “existing vacancy” on SpaceX’s board, days after the company went public in the largest IPO ever.

SpaceX valuation balloons to $2.6T, briefly passes Amazon

SpaceX’s valuation has increased by $1 trillion since its shares started trading on Friday.

SpaceX makes its $60bn Cursor takeover official, days after its record IPO
SpaceX makes its $60bn Cursor takeover official, days after its record IPO

SpaceX has made it official. In a filing on Tuesday, Elon Musk’s newly public rocket company said it had signed a binding agreement to buy Anysphere, the startup behind the popular AI coding tool Cursor, in an all-stock deal that values the company at …

SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO

The deal is supposed to help SpaceX’s struggling AI division. The company told IPO investors it sees a $26 trillion addressable market in AI.