Energy

SpaceX just test-fired a rocket stage at 9,240 tons of thrust — more than Saturn V produced at liftoff. The V3 architecture targets 200 tons to orbit, vs 35 on the current version. Flight 12 targets May.

VIPER is dead, NASA has no funded replacement for its polar lunar rover, and Zeno Power is building the only radioisotope power system designed for the dark without a NASA contract. PRISM in February 2026 and a 2027 hardware target are on a collision course.

The 2028 orbital reactor target collides with a fuel bottleneck: the US has one HALEU producer at 900 kg per year, Russia is cut off by 2028, and new domestic capacity does not arrive until 2031.

The US is building satellites that interpret sensor data and coordinate responses without waiting for ground control. Nobody has written the rules for what happens when they do.

Graphene-MXene nanofluid in a passive heat pipe dropped a solar panel temperature by 24C and boosted output by 15%, at a cost that keeps electricity competitive. Perovskites, tandem junctions, heterojunctions — three competing solar cell designs. The next unlock might not be in the cell at all, b...

Amazon paid 10.8B to 11.57B for Globalstar depending on valuation basis. The real acquisition is federally licensed L-band spectrum — the prerequisite for any direct-to-device satellite network in the US. Amazon had everything except the spectrum. Until now.

Congress keeps rescuing NASA science from budget cliffs. Each time the rescue gets harder — and the institution a little more frayed. The FY2027 proposal would cut the Science Mission Directorate by 47%, nearly identical to what Congress rejected last year.

Radiative cooling physics caps orbital compute at roughly 10 kilowatts per spacecraft before thermal management becomes unsolvable. Phantom Space is betting it can build a vertically integrated business around that ceiling.

Amazon has 241 satellites in orbit and an FCC milestone due this summer that requires 1,616. The new antenna it unveiled today is not the bottleneck.

Night lights data shows Europe dimmed as it got more energy-efficient, not less. The signal is real. The independent analysts tracking it say the 2024 flaring record is also real.

The Space Force is paying Gravitics $60M to build a floating armory in orbit. The problem: the same platform that wins wars by deploying vehicles fast also becomes the first thing an adversary blows up.