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Tag: SpaceX

  • NASA and SpaceX send four astronauts from four different nations

    NASA and SpaceX send four astronauts from four different nations

    Four astronauts from different countries and space agencies went into space on a SpaceX rocket. They are heading to the International Space Station for a mission that will last more than six months.

    The team is traveling inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance spaceship on a mission called Crew-7. The spaceship was sent into space using a rocket called SpaceX Falcon 9. It was launched from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:27 a. mOn Saturday, at ET time.

    The space mission has four astronauts. The mission commander is Jasmin Moghbeli from NASA. Andreas Mogensen is from the European Space Agency. Satoshi Furukawa is from JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Konstantin Borisov is a Russian cosmonaut representing Roscosmos.

    After the Crew Dragon capsule was in space, it separated from the Falcon 9 rocket and started to travel on its own in space. The spacecraft will spend more than 24 hours moving carefully towards the space station, which is circling about 220 nautical miles (420 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth.

    Moghbeli told SpaceX mission control that space travel is hard, but they make it seem easy.

    “We’re a group that works together towards the same goal,” she said. Cheer for Crew-7. Fun ride

    The crew will arrive at the space station at approximately 8:39 in the morning. On Sunday at 8 PM.

    After getting on the spaceship, Moghbeli, Mogensen, Furukawa, and Borisov will meet the seven astronauts who are already in space.

    The Crew-7 astronauts will be taking charge from the SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts, who have been on the space station for a few months. They will spend approximately five days in this transition.

    This mission is the eighth time NASA and SpaceX are working together to take astronauts to the space station. This program has been going on since SpaceX’s first mission with crew in 2020.

    The Crew-7 astronauts are the most diverse group of SpaceX crew members so far.

    “We are very proud and I personally feel honored to be part of this amazing team. When you look at our four patches, you’ll see a different country’s flag on each one,” Moghbeli said during a news conference after the crew arrived in Florida on Sunday. The leader of the mission was talking about the flag patches on the left shoulder of the astronauts’ suits. We believe this shows what we can achieve when we collaborate and work together as a team. And we believe that this is the true purpose of the International Space Station.

    The team also collaborated to create its official mission patch. It shows a picture of a dragon sitting on top of the Earth.

    “We wanted the design to show that everything we do on this mission is aimed at helping our planet and the people on it,” Moghbeli explained. She said that the red, white, and blue stripes on the dragon’s tail symbolize the colors of the flags of the four countries participating in the Crew-7 mission.

    During their time on the space station, which is predicted to be around 190 days, the Crew-7 astronauts will carefully go through a list of experiments. The study will look into the possibility of bacteria and fungi spread from space missions involving humans. The team will check if it is possible to remove the tiny living things from the vents in the space station and release them into space where there is no air.

    The ESA has another project that will study how sleeping in space is different from sleeping on Earth. They will analyze the brain waves of astronauts while they fall asleep. Another test will examine how biofilms form in wastewater on the space station. This could help us find improved methods for recycling water for drinking and hygiene while in space. Yes, the space travelers on the station have been using reused sweat and urine to drink and clean themselves for a long time.

    Commander Moghbeli was born in Germany, near Frankfurt. Her parents are from Iran. However, she considers Baldwin, New York, on Long Island as her hometown.

    She completed high school and then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study aerospace engineering. After that, she earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

    Moghbeli has experience in the military, where she worked as a pilot for the Marine Corps. She completed over 150 missions in combat and flew for a total of 2,000 hours.

    In 2017, she was chosen to join NASA’s group of astronauts. The Crew-7 mission is her first time going into space.

    Moghbeli said during a news conference on July 25 that she had always wanted to do this for a very long time. I am really thrilled to be able to see our amazing planet again. Everyone I have spoken to who has flown before has said that it gave them a different and transformative way of looking at things.

    Borisov became the third astronaut from Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, to travel in a spacecraft made in the United States. This happened because NASA and Roscosmos made an agreement to swap seats in 2022.

    Sharing rides to the space station has been a tradition for NASA and Roscosmos. After NASA stopped their space shuttle program in 2011, Roscosmos was the only transportation provider for a long time. This new partnership between rideshare companies was a big concern for NASA last year because there were growing problems between the United States and Russia due to the war in Ukraine.

    NASA has consistently stated that conflicts on Earth have not impacted the ongoing teamwork between countries in space.

    Borisov, just like Moghbeli, is going on his first trip to space.

    I’m really, really happy and thrilled. “I feel very proud to be a member of the international team,” he said on Sunday. Experienced astronauts and cosmonauts say that when you go to the ISS and look at the planet, you can see that there are no boundaries. And honestly, I want to express that strong sensation and intense sentiment.

    Currently, only SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz can transport astronauts to and from the space station. However, NASA plans to have another company that can do this soon. Boeing’s Starliner is going to start operating soon, like SpaceX, with the help of NASA’s commercial crew program. It was delayed for many years.

    Mogensen is the pilot of the Crew-7 mission. He is from Copenhagen and attended Copenhagen International School for his bachelor’s degree. Later, he studied aeronautical engineering at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom and got his master’s degree. He also got a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

    Before he got chosen to be trained as an astronaut by ESA in 2009, he worked as a researcher at the Surrey Space Centre in the UK. His work involved studying how spacecraft can navigate and be controlled when landing on the moon.

    This is his second trip to space. He went to the space station before on a 10-day Russian Soyuz mission in 2015.

    Mogensen said at a news conference on Sunday that it is difficult to explain how amazing the International Space Station is. I didn’t understand it until we were about to dock on my first space mission. Then, when I looked out the windows, I saw huge solar panels floating in space beside me.

    “I came to understand how amazing and one-of-a-kind the laboratory that we, as humans, have created in space close to Earth is, in the last 20 to 25 years. ”

    Furukawa is one of the few astronauts in the Crew-7 team who has been to space before. He was born in Kanagawa, Japan, which is not too far from Tokyo. He went to school to become a doctor and studied a lot to learn about medicine. After that, he worked in a hospital as a surgeon.

    In 1999, he was chosen to be a JAXA astronaut. In 2011, he went on his first mission to the space station, where he stayed for 165 days. He got there by going on NASA’s last space shuttle mission, STS-135.

    Furukawa said he is excited about living in the space station’s zero gravity and doing scientific studies. He wants to research things that could help make new medicine and learn how humans can explore the moon in the future.

    After arriving at the space station, the Crew-7 astronauts will say goodbye to the SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts. The Crew-6 astronauts will go back home on their spacecraft, called Crew Dragon Endeavour, in the next few days.

    In the middle of September, the team on the space station will welcome three new members. One is an astronaut from NASA named Loral O’Hara, and the other two are cosmonauts named Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub. They will all be traveling to the space station in a Russian capsule called Soyuz MS-24.

  • SpaceX returns from space station with former NASA astronaut and paying customers

    SpaceX returns from space station with former NASA astronaut and paying customers

    Tuesday marked the end of the crew’s historic week-long journey when a SpaceX capsule carrying a decorated former NASA astronaut and three paying customers returned from the International Space Station.

    Tuesday morning, the Crew Dragon spacecraft blasted off from the space station. The crew spent over 12 hours in orbit as the capsule made its way back towards Earth. At 11:04 p.m. ET, the Crew Dragon and its passengers safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico outside Panama City, Florida, following a fiery reentry.

    This mission, dubbed Axiom Mission 2, or AX-2, launched from Florida on May 21.AX-2 was put together by the Houston-based company Axiom Space and marked the second all-private mission to the orbiting outpost, meaning solely commercial companies, rather than a government agency, have been leading the mission.

    This mission was also a milestone in the history of spaceflight as stem cell researcher Rayyanah Barnawi became the first woman from Saudi Arabia to travel to space.

    The AX-2 mission is one in a lineup of commercial missions designed to spur private sector participation in spaceflight — particularly in low-Earth orbit, where the International Space Station orbits.

    Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, 63, led the AX-2 crew. Whitson, now an Axiom Space employee, also became the first woman to command a private spaceflight.

    “I’m really excited about returning to space, but even more excited about welcoming three new astronauts,” Whitson said in a May 21 statement from the Crew Dragon spacecraft after launch.

    One of the three paying customers joining Whitson was John Shoffner, an American who made his fortune in the international telecom business and founded the hardware company Dura-Line Corp.

    Saudi Arabia also paid to fly two of its citizens: Barnawi and Ali AlQarni, a fighter pilot in the Royal Saudi Air Force.

    “I am very honored and happy to be representing all the dreams and all the hopes of all the people in Saudi Arabia and all the women back home,” Barnawi told reporters at a May 16 news conference.

    During the mission, Barnawi led stem cell research suited for the microgravity environment aboard the space station. Theorbiting laboratory has long been a key venue for various scientific experiments, as the lack of gravity can give researchers a better fundamental understanding of the topic at hand. Barnawi and AlQarni also engaged in outreach projects, including testing out a kite in microgravity and capturing video for viewers back home.

    The AX-2 crew spent about eight days working alongside astronauts representing NASA, Russia’s Roscomos space agency and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency aboard the space station, though they operated on different schedules. The AX-2 crew worked through a lineup of more than 20 investigations and science projects — including stem cell and other biomedical research.

    This mission marked Whitson’s first return to space since 2017. Her extensive prior experience on the station made her a US record holder in 2017 for the most cumulative days logged in space, and she ranks eighth on the all-time list, according to NASA.

    Whitson has flown on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft as well as NASA’s space shuttle, but she said preparing for this mission was “obviously different” because it involved training to operate SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which has only been flying astronauts since 2020.

    “That’s been one of the biggest challenges for me is learning this particular spacecraft,” she said. “But I’ve really enjoyed it.”

    Barnawi and AlQarni are only the second and third Saudi nationals to travel to space. The first was Prince Sultan bin Salman, who spent about a week on a NASA space shuttle mission in 1985.

    Saudi Arabia has faced a barrage of criticism from the Biden administration and Congress over its human rights record, though the ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia remain strong.

    AlQarni said in a news conference earlier in May that he believes Arabs’ participation in spaceflight is a “great opportunity” that can inspire the region.

    The mission will “hold a big message. … We are holding hands, we are working together for the betterment of humanity and just trying to innovate,” he said during a mid-May news briefing.

    This mission isn’t the first time individuals have paid their way to space. A company called Space Adventures brokered several such missions to the space station in the early 2000s, booking rides for wealthy thrill seekers on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

    Axiom brought that business model to the United States, partnering with SpaceX to establish a framework for getting an array of customers to the space station. The company’s first foray, Axiom Mission 1, or AX-1, launched in April 2022 and marked the first time private citizens traveled to the space station from US soil.

    Axiom’s goal is to make these missions routine, offering more opportunities for people who are not professional astronauts to experience spaceflight. During a prelaunch news conference, Derek Hassmann, chief of mission integration and operations at Axiom Space, said his company expects to see more customers sponsored by governments, similar to the AX-2 passengers from Saudi Arabia.

    “Government astronauts are indeed a key piece of our business plan,” he said. “Early in the program … it wasn’t clear to us what the balance would be between private individuals and government astronauts since nothing like this had ever been done before. But it’s become clear to us that the government … market is key, and we’re pursuing that actively.”

    Axiom leadership envisions private spaceflight will continue even after the space station is retired, which NASA anticipates will happen in late 2030. Axiom is one of several US companies gunning to create a new, privately owned space station. It’s an effort supported by NASA, which aims to bolster private sector participation closer to home so the agency can focus on investing in deep-space exploration.

  • SpaceX launches the massive Starship rocket engines in a crucial test

    SpaceX launches the massive Starship rocket engines in a crucial test

    The starship’s engines may have produced the most thrust ever by a single space rocket during the test.

    The engines on the most powerful rocket ever built, which is intended to eventually transport astronauts to the Moon and Mars, have successfully completed a test-firing by SpaceX.

    At SpaceX’s Texas base, the 33 Raptor engines on the Starship’s first-stage booster underwent a static fire test on Thursday that appeared to break the previous record for the most thrust ever generated by a single space rocket.

    Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, claimed that one engine was shut off just before the test began, and another engine shut itself off.

    “So 31 engines fired overall,” Musk said in a tweet. “But still enough engines to reach orbit!”

    SpaceX said the test lasted its “full duration”.

    Giant sheets of orange flames erupted from the base of the rocket and clouds of smoke billowed into the air during the test-firing, which lasted several seconds.

    NASA is counting on Starship to ferry astronauts to the surface of the Moon in a few years, linking up with its Orion capsule in lunar orbit. Further down the road, Musk wants to use the mammoth Starships to send people to Mars.

    The 69-metre (230 ft) Super Heavy booster was anchored to the ground during the test-firing on Thursday to prevent it from lifting off.

    Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said at a conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday that if the test was successful, the first orbital launch may take place within the next month or so. That launch, a test mission, would involve lifting off from Texas and landing off the coast of Hawaii.

    “It’s really the final ground test that we can do before we light ’em up and go,” Shotwell said.

    NASA has picked the Starship capsule to ferry its astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis 3 mission, set for 2025 at the earliest.

    When mated to its upper-stage Starship spacecraft, the entire vehicle will stand taller than the Statue of Liberty at 120 metres (394 ft) high, forming the centrepiece of Musk’s ambitions to eventually colonise Mars. But plans call for it to first play a leading role in NASA’s renewed human exploration of the Moon.

    Spaceflight enthusiasts lauded the engine test, describing it as “a big win” for SpaceX.

    SpaceX foresees eventually putting a Starship into orbit and then refuelling it with another Starship so it can continue a journey to Mars or beyond.

    Other super heavy rockets under development include Blue Origin’s New Glenn, China’s Long March 9 and Russia’s Yenisei.

    Blue Origin, the private space company founded by US tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, was awarded its first interplanetary NASA contract on Thursday to launch a mission next year to study the magnetic field around Mars, NASA said.

    Plans call for Blue Origin’s recently developed New Glenn heavy-lift rocket to blast off with NASA’s dual-spacecraft ESCAPADE mission in late 2024 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the agency said.

    New Glenn, with a reusable first stage designed to be flown on at least 25 missions, is named for pioneering NASA astronaut John Glenn, who became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.

    Blue Origin has flown previous NASA missions with its smaller, suborbital New Shepard rocket, which can carry research payloads on short, microgravity trips to the edge of space and back.

  • CNN, NYT, and WaPo journalists are blocked by Elon Musk on Twitter without explanation

    It appears that Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk made a significant effort to exert one-sided authority over the platform on Thursday evening when he abruptly banned the accounts of several prominent journalists from leading news organisations.

    The accounts of Donie O’Sullivan of CNN, Ryan Mac of The New York Times, Drew Harwell of The Washington Post, and other journalists who have aggressively covered Musk in recent weeks have all been abruptly and permanently suspended. Additionally blocked was the account of progressive, independent journalist Aaron Rupar.

    Neither Musk nor Twitter responded to a request for comment Thursday evening, and the platform did not explain precisely why the journalists were exiled from the platform.

    Musk falsely claimed that the journalists had violated his new “doxxing” policy by sharing his live location, amounting to what he described as “assassination coordinates.” CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan did not share the billionaire’s live location.

    The Mastodon Android app's sign-in page is displayed here on a smartphone screen.

    A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the Twitter alternative that’s on 🔥

    Shortly before his suspension, O’Sullivan reported on Twitter that the social media company had suspended the account of an emerging competitive social media service, Mastodon, which has allowed the continued posting of @ElonJet, an account that posts the updated location of Musk’s private jet.

    Other reporters suspended Thursday had recently written about the account.

    Doxxing refers to the practice of sharing someone’s home address or other personal information online. The banned account had instead used publicly available flight data, which remain online and accessible, to track Musk’s jet.

    The bans raise a number of questions about the future of the platform, which has been referred to as a digital town square. It also called into serious question Musk’s supposed commitment to free speech.

    Musk has repeatedly said he would like to permit all legal speech on the platform. In April, on the same day he announced he would purchase Twitter, he had tweeted: “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”

    A CNN spokesperson said the company has asked Twitter for an explanation, and it would “reevaluate our relationship based on that response.”

    “The impulsive and unjustified suspension of a number of reporters, including CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is concerning but not surprising. Twitter’s increasing instability and volatility should be of incredible concern for everyone who uses Twitter,” the spokesperson said.

    Twitter corporate headquarters building is seen in downtown San Francisco, California, U.S. November 18, 2022.

    Former employees suing Twitter over layoffs score an early victory

    A New York Times spokesperson called the mass bans “questionable and unfortunate,” adding: “Neither The Times nor Ryan have received any explanation about why this occurred. We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action.”

    “Elon says he is a free speech champion and he is banning journalists for exercising free speech,” Harwell told CNN on Thursday. “I think that calls into question his commitment.”

    Rupar, too, said he had heard “nothing” from Twitter about the suspension.

    Several organizations condemned Twitter’s decision, with the head of the American Civil Liberties Union saying: “It’s impossible to square Twitter’s free speech aspirations with the purging of critical journalists’ accounts.”

    The president of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) said in a statement it was “concerned” about the suspensions, and that the move “affects all journalists.”

    Flight tracking controversy

    The @ElonJet account, which had amassed more than 500,000 followers, was permanently suspended Wednesday after Twitter introduced a set of new policies banning accounts that track people’s live locations. Musk also blocked any account linking to such information. Previously, there were no location sharing-related restrictions on Twitter.

    The changes came after Musk reinstated previous Twitter rule-breakers and stopped enforcing the platform’s policies prohibiting Covid-19 misinformation.

    SpaceX founder Elon Musk addresses the media during a press conference announcing new developments of the Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft, at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California on October 10, 2019.

    Twitter suspends account that tracked Musk’s private jet, despite billionaire’s ‘free speech’ pledge

    “I do think this is very important for the potential chilling impact this can have for freelance journalists, independent journalists around the world, particularly those who cover Elon Musk’s other companies, like Tesla and SpaceX,” O’Sullivan told CNN Thursday after his account was suspended.

    As the furor over the account suspensions unfolded, some Twitter users reported the platform had begun intervening when they attempted to post links to their own profiles on alternative social networks, including Mastodon.

    Those reports were confirmed Thursday evening by a CNN reporter who was blocked from sharing a Mastodon profile URL and was given an automated error message that said Twitter or its partners had identified the site as “potentially harmful.”

  • SpaceX moon flight to include DJ, YouTuber and K-pop rapper

    A commercial DJ, K-pop rapper, and a space YouTuber are to go on a trip around the Moon, after they were picked by a Japanese billionaire for a private SpaceX flight.

    Businessman Yusaku Maezawa revealed his crew on Friday after a global search for creative individuals last year.

    American DJ Steve Aoki and Korean star TOP are the most high-profile picks.

    The flight, scheduled for next year, could be the first lunar journey by humans since 1972.

    The proposed fly-by would see a spacecraft circle the moon, coming within 200km (124 miles) of the surface. The trip would take eight days from launch to return.

    However, US regulators are yet to give permission for the Starship rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company that the crew is supposed to travel on.

    The ship has not even been approved for an orbital journey around the Earth and has been grounded for the past 18 months in Texas, after it completed a test launch in May 2021.

    But Mr Maezawa made no mention of this delay in his video announcing the crew for the mission he’s dubbed dearMoon.

    The opening scene shows Mr Maezawa in a Japanese garden looking up at the moon. It then cuts to show the first crew member – DJ Aoki – at one of his shows.

    “I can’t miss this opportunity. My soul is begging for this,” the Billboard-charting artist says in the video.

    The next passenger revealed is Youtuber Tim Dodd – also known as the Everyday Astronaut- who has 1.4 million followers online for his educational videos on spaceflight and astrophysics.

    In his own video released on Friday the vlogger said he couldn’t believe he’d been selected. He added that SpaceX’s announcement in 2017 that it would send a civilian to the moon was “ironically, or poetically… actually what got me started making videos on Youtube.”

    The other announced dearMoon mission members are:

    • TOP (Choi Seung hyun), a K-pop rapper and former lead of boyband Big Bang (South Korea)
    • Dancer and choreographer Yemi A.D (Czech Republic)
    • Photographer Rhiannon Adam (Ireland)
    • Wildlife photographer Karim Iliya (UK)
    • Filmmaker Brendan Hall (US)
    • Actor Dev Joshi (India)

    US Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Japanese dancer Miyu were named as back-ups.

    “I hope each and every one will recognise the responsibility that comes with leaving the Earth, travelling to the moon and back,” Mr Maezawa said.

    “They will gain a lot from this experience and I hope they will use that to contribute to the planet, to humanity.”

    Mr Maezawa, who made his fortune in online fashion retailer Zozo, has become prominently involved in commercial space travel. Last year he went to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket for 12 days.

    In 2018, he was named as the first private passenger due to be flown around the moon by SpaceX and said he would sponsor the cost of eight other passengers on board.

    The price Mr Maezawa agreed to pay for his ticket to space has not been disclosed, but according to Mr Musk it was “a lot of money”.

    In 2020, he also launched a documentary search for a new girlfriend to join him on his moon voyage, before cancelling due to “mixed feelings”.

     

  • Musk intends to establish a ‘content moderation council’ for Twitter

    Before the council meets, no major decisions or account reinstatement will be made, according to the outspoken billionaire businessman.

    Elon Musk has announced his intention to form a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints” at Twitter in his first policy actions since taking over the social media company on Friday while emphasising that no changes to the platform’s moderation policies have been implemented thus far.

    “No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes,” the outspoken billionaire businessman said amid concerns that former US President Donald Trump’s account might be reinstated.

    “To be super clear, we have not yet made any changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies,” he added in a later tweet.

    Twitter formally became the private property of Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, on Friday, steering the platform down an uncertain path under the stewardship of one of its most vocal critics.

    Scrutiny quickly turned to how the platform will operate under a self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist who some users fear will turn Twitter into a global stage for hate speech and disinformation.

    Musk’s sealing of the on-again, off-again $44bn deal ended a months-long soap opera of corporate chicanery, involving insults, threats, and lawsuits.

    “The bird is free,” tweeted the billionaire Tesla founder and space pioneer in reference to the company’s logo. “Let the good times roll.”

    The deal drew contrasting reactions, with former US president Donald Trump cheering the change of leadership on a platform that had banned him, while activists warned of a surge in harassment and misinformation.

    European politicians were quick to signal to Musk that the continent had regulations for social media companies.

    “In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules,” tweeted Thierry Breton, the EU internal market commissioner.

    Musk had promised to dial back content moderation and was expected to clear the way for Trump to return to the platform.

    The then-president was blocked over concerns he would ignite more violence like the 2021 deadly attack on the US Capitol to overturn his election loss.

    Taking to his own Truth Social platform, Trump said he was “very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands” – but gave no commitment to rejoin if allowed.

    Far-right users were quick to rejoice at Musk’s ownership, posting comments such as “masks don’t work” and other taunts, under the belief that moderation rules would now be relaxed.

    ‘A huge responsibility’

    Yale University philosophy professor Jason Stanley, who has characterised Trump’s rise as a sign of mounting fascism in the United States, said he would alter his approach to posting.

    “For the moment I am staying on Twitter. But I am going to try to be much more careful about what I say now that Elon Musk is in charge. Cascading hate speech targeting can destroy your week,” he said.

    Right-wing political commentator Ben Shapiro said he gained 40,000 Twitter followers on Friday, while the actor Mark Hamill, a liberal, said he had lost almost 6,000 followers over the last three days.

    Musk reportedly fired Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal and other senior officials – though the company did not reply to a request for comment and Agrawal still listed himself as CEO on his Twitter profile.

    But Ned Segal, Twitter’s chief financial officer since 2017, announced his departure.

    “At its best, (Twitter) democratizes communication and knowledge, ensuring accountability and equal distribution of info,” Segal said. “It’s a huge responsibility for everyone that shares in the work. I wish them strength, wisdom, and foresight.”

    Musk, who is using a combination of his own money, funds from wealthy investors, and bank loans to finance the deal, has conceded he is overpaying for a company that has regularly posted eye-watering losses.

    How to monetize?

    Twitter says it has 238 million daily users – dwarfed by the likes of Facebook’s nearly two billion – and has not been able to monetise in the same way as its rivals.

    However, it holds an outsized influence on public debate because it is the favoured platform for many companies, politicians, journalists and other public figures.

    Though he has promised that Twitter will not become a “free-for-all hellscape,” Musk reportedly plans deep staff cuts that would gut teams that oversee content.

    Despite Musk posting a letter to advertisers saying he wants Twitter to be a forum where rival viewpoints can be debated in a “healthy manner”, US auto giant General Motors said on Friday it has “temporarily paused” paid ads on the platform.

    “We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,” said a GM spokesman.

    Media watchdog Media Matters for America sounded the alarm over the future of a Musk-led Twitter, particularly the effect on imminent US midterm elections.

    The platform “is now on a glide path to becoming a supercharged engine of radicalization” and a “fever swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories, partisan chicanery, and operationalized harassment,” the organisation’s head Angelo Carusone said.

     

     

     

  • Kyiv claims it will find a way to keep Starlink operational in Ukraine

    Kyiv will find a solution to keep the Starlink internet service operational in Ukraine, according to presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.

    Elon Musk previously stated that his rocket firm, SpaceX, could not continue to sponsor Starlink in Ukraine indefinitely.

    “Let’s be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. The business has the right to its own strategies.

    “Ukraine will find a solution to keep #Starlink working. We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter.

  • Satellite services in Ukraine: Musk says SpaceX can no longer pay for critical 

    Elon Musk, the controversial tech billionaire, has stated that his SpaceX company will no longer provide essential satellite services to Ukraine unless the US military contributes tens of millions of dollars every month, according to CNN.

    SpaceX requested that the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military usage of Starlink.

    SpaceX claims this would cost more than $120m (£106m) for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400m (£355m) for the next 12 months.

    “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote in the letter.

    SpaceX has so far donated 20,000 Starlink satellite units to Ukraine since February.

    The satellites have been a vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military since they arrived.

    They allow Ukraine to fight and stay connected even as mobile phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.

    Reports of the letter come a day after Mr Musk denied reports he has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    The denial follows a Twitter poll he shared earlier this month where he invited his 107.7 million followers to vote on a suggested “Ukraine-Russia Peace plan”, which included permanently ceding Crimea to Russia.

    He said new referendums could be held under UN supervision to determine the fate of Russian-controlled territory, and that Ukraine agree to neutrality.

    This drew sharp criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who proposed his own Twitter poll: “Which @elonmusk do you like more? One who supports Ukraine (or) one who supports Russia.”

    Following reports of SpaceX’s letter to the Pentagon, Kyiv Post correspondent Jason Jay Smart pointed out that it comes days after Ukrainian diplomat Andrij Melynk had tweeted Mr Musk telling him to “f*** off” in response to his Twitter poll.

    Mr Musk replied to Mr Smart’s tweet: “We’re just following his recommendation.”

    He said new referendums could be held under UN supervision to determine the fate of Russian-controlled territory, and that Ukraine agree to neutrality.

    This drew sharp criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who proposed his own Twitter poll: “Which @elonmusk do you like more? One who supports Ukraine (or) one who supports Russia.”

    Following reports of SpaceX’s letter to the Pentagon, Kyiv Post correspondent Jason Jay Smart pointed out that it comes days after Ukrainian diplomat Andrij Melynk had tweeted Mr Musk telling him to “f*** off” in response to his Twitter poll.

    Mr Musk replied to Mr Smart’s tweet: “We’re just following his recommendation.”

     

  • Twitter shares surge 22% after Musk proposes to buy company at original price

    Billionaire Elon Musk has agreed to follow through with a deal to buy Twitter at the original price, the company disclosed Tuesday, causing Twitter shares to skyrocket and possibly ending a seven-month legal saga just two weeks before the world’s wealthiest man and the social media company were set to meet in court.

    KEY FACTS

    Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, or $44 billion, matching the terms he agreed to in April before he later attempted to back off the deal, according to a letter dated Monday and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    The brief 177-word note said Musk is willing to move forward with the deal provided there is an immediate stay on Twitter’s lawsuit to push the purchase through ahead of the five-day trial in Delaware slated to begin October 17.

    Twitter shares rose 12.7% to $47.93 after Bloomberg reported on the letter, but trading was halted shortly after 12 p.m. ET due to pending news.

    The stock later surged to $52.02—just below Musk’s agreed-upon purchase price—after trading resumed shortly before the market close, a 22.3% daily rise that brought the share price to its highest level since last November.

    The company’s intends to “close the transaction at $54.20 per share,” Twitter spokesperson Brenden Lee wrote to Forbes, in a statement mirroring the company’s prior comments on Musk’s hesitation.

    KEY BACKGROUND

    Twitter accepted Musk’s unsolicited takeover bid on April 25, three weeks after the billionaire disclosed he purchased a 9.2% stake in the company. Musk, a vocal opponent of the platform’s content moderation policy, quickly began to express cold feet and said he had concerns about the number of fake and spam accounts on the site or bots. He formally requested out of the deal on July 8, arguing Twitter has lowballed the number of bot accounts in its public filings.

    Twitter sued Musk four days later and argued his reasons for backing out of the deal were invalid. The company pushed a state court in Delaware to force Musk to buy Twitter along the originally agreed-upon terms, setting the stage for a high-stakes trial later this month. As the trial date drew nearer, more revelations about both Twitter and Musk emerged.

    Musk’s lawyers suggested last month his case was bolstered by a whistleblower complaint from Twitter’s former head of security, who alleged the company knowingly misled regulators and investors about the number of bots on the site. And last week, hundreds of Musk’s texts with celebrities like Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, controversial podcaster Joe Rogan, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fl.) were disclosed as part of the suit.

    FORBES VALUATION

    We estimate Musk to be worth $236 billion, the largest fortune in the world by more than $80 billion, largely due to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.

    TANGENT

    Tesla shares fell about 5% in the hour after the report, paring gains earlier in the day, before recovering to a 2.4% gain on the day. Shares of the electric vehicle maker dropped about 20% in April amid a more modest broad market decline.

    CRUCIAL QUOTE

    “This is a clear sign that Musk recognized heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning vs. Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44 billion deal was going to be completed one way or another,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients Tuesday.