The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted SpaceX regulatory approval to significantly increase the number of Starship rocket launches from its Texas facility, marking a major step forward in the company's efforts to develop its next-generation Mars rocket.
The decision, announced Tuesday, allows Elon Musk’s company to raise its annual launch rate from five to 25 Starship missions from the Starbase site in Boca Chica, Texas. The FAA’s approval also covers booster landings in the Gulf of Mexico and other international waters, even accounting for the environmental impact of potential rocket failures or explosions.
The ruling concludes a multi-year environmental review by the FAA, which determined that the expanded operations would not result in significant harm to the surrounding habitat, coastline, or public safety.
Starship, designed to be fully reusable, is central to SpaceX’s ambitions for long-range space travel, including future crew and cargo missions to the Moon and Mars. The expanded launch allowance will provide the company with a greater testing cadence as it continues development and begins commercial missions under contracts with NASA and other partners.
The FAA’s approval is a critical regulatory milestone for SpaceX as it accelerates Starship development amid growing demand for large-scale orbital transportation and deep-space infrastructure.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become the world’s richest individual, with a net worth of US$749 billion, after the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated $139 billion in stock options that were voided last year, according to Forbes’ billionaires index.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has launched NASA’s twin ESCAPADE satellites to Mars on Sunday, marking the second flight of its New Glenn rocket, a mission seen as a crucial test of the company’s reusability ambitions and a fresh challenge to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
NASA has announced that it will reopen bidding for its flagship U.S. moon landing contract, citing mounting delays in Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship lunar lander project.
SpaceX launched its 11th Starship from Texas on 13 October, landing in the Indian Ocean ahead of testing an upgraded version for future moon and Mars missions.
Thailand and Cambodia both reported fresh clashes on Wednesday, as the two sides prepared to hold military talks aimed at easing tensions along their shared border.
A majority of Russians expect the war in Ukraine to end in 2026, state pollster VTsIOM said on Wednesday, in a sign that the Kremlin could be testing public reaction to a possible peace settlement as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensify.
Military representatives from Cambodia and Thailand met in Chanthaburi province on Wednesday ahead of formal ceasefire talks at the 3rd special GBC meeting scheduled for 27th December.
Libya’s chief of staff, Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, has died in a plane crash shortly after departing Türkiye’s capital, Ankara, the prime minister of Libya’s UN-recognised government has said.
Afghanistan and Iran have signed an implementation plan to strengthen regulation of food, medicine, and health products based on a 2023 cooperation agreement.
China’s core artificial intelligence (AI) industry is projected to surpass 1.2 trillion yuan in 2025 (about $170 billion), up from more than 900 billion yuan in 2024, according to a new industry assessment.
Time Magazine has chosen the creators behind artificial intelligence as its 2025 Person of the Year, highlighting the technology’s sweeping impact on global business, politics and daily life.
Children are forming new patterns of trust and attachment with artificial intelligence (AI) companions, entering a world where digital partners shape their play, their confidence and the conversations they no longer share with adults.
The International Robot Exhibition (IREX) opened in Tokyo on 3 December, bringing together visitors to explore robotics applications for industry, healthcare, logistics, and everyday life.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including prominent Republican China hawk Tom Cotton, introduced the SAFE CHIPS Act on Thursday, aiming to prevent the Trump administration from easing restrictions on China’s access to advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips for a period of 2.5 years.
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