Leaked SpaceX documents show company forbids employees to sell stock if it deems they’ve misbehaved 'An act of dishonesty against the company' is among the violations citedSpaceX requires employees to agree to some unusual terms related to their stock awards, which have a chilling effect on staff, according to sources and internal documents viewed by TechCrunch.
Employees pay taxes on their sharesLike most tech companies, SpaceX includes stock options and restricted stock units (RSUs) as part of its compensation package to attract top talent.
Unlike stock in public companies, stock in private companies cannot be sold without the company’s permission.
Yet no employee at startups and private companies are entitled to sell their stock.
Like other private companies, its stock is split into preferred and common stock.
SpaceX is continuing to make progress on the development of Starship, the largest rocket ever built, with the third test flight Thursday accomplishing considerably more than the previous two tests.
The 400-foot-tall Starship rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in southeastern Texas at 8:25 a.m. local time.
Although SpaceX has been developing Starship for years, this is only the third time the company has attempted an orbital mission.
The hot-staging technique was performed for the first time, ever, during the second Starship test flight last November.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk congratulated the team on X, saying, “Starship reached orbital velocity!”Starship reached orbital velocity!
SpaceX will attempt to send the massive Starship rocket to orbit for the third time early Thursday morning after U.S. regulators gave the green light for launch.
The first took place last April, and ended with both the upper stage (which is also called Starship) and the Super Heavy booster exploding mid-air.
Anytime an anomaly occurs during a rocket launch, the Federal Aviation Administration steps in to oversee a company-run investigation.
The investigation into the second Starship launch closed last month, so the only thing left was for the regulator to issue a launch license for the test flight.
Due to the in-space engine burn, the company is also targeting a new flight trajectory, with the upper stage splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
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This week in space historyI don’t mean to be impolite, but this week in space history we’re revisiting…URANUS.
That’s right: On March 13, 1781, a German-born, British astronomer named Sir William Herschel noticed a faint object through his telescope.
He initially thought it might be a comet, but later correctly identified it as our solar system’s seventh planet.
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space.
You also can send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com.
This week in space historyI don’t mean to be impolite, but this week in space history we’re revisiting…URANUS.
That’s right: On March 13, 1781, a German-born, British astronomer named Sir William Herschel noticed a faint object through his telescope.
He initially thought it might be a comet, but later correctly identified it as our solar system’s seventh planet.
SpaceX is aiming to launch its massive Starship rocket for the third time as soon as March 14, the company confirmed in a social media post Wednesday.
SpaceX is still awaiting regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for the launch, without which Starship will remain grounded.
SpaceX conducted the first Starship orbital flight test last April; there was a seven-month gap between it and the second test, which took place last November.
Both ended with mid-air explosions of the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage (which is also called Starship).
Meanwhile, the Starship upper stage will continue its ascent to orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration has concluded its review of SpaceX’s investigation of the second Starship launch in November, with the regulator saying Monday that it accepted the “root causes and 17 corrective actions” identified by the company.
While this means the investigation is now closed, SpaceX must implement all the corrective actions and apply for a modified launch license before it can fly Starship again.
When any rocket launch encounters catastrophic issues during flight, the FAA opens what’s known as a “mishap investigation” — that’s what’s happened here.
After the first test, the FAA directed SpaceX to complete 63 corrective actions.
“More Starships are ready to fly, putting flight hardware in a flight environment to learn as quickly as possible.
For the second week in a row, we have lunar lander news to report on.
Story of the weekHow could the story of the week be anything other than SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon), the Japanese lunar lander that touched down on the moon on Friday?
But even with the issue, the mission achieved a huge portion of its goal, which was to demonstrate a soft lunar landing using optical navigation technology.
Launch highlightsWe saw our first crewed mission this year – but even more notably, it was a completely private mission (as in not a NASA astronaut mission).
Axiom Space launched its third mission with launch partner SpaceX on Thursday, with the crew successfully docking with the International Space Station at 5:42 AM EST on Saturday, January 20.
Axiom Space is gearing up to launch its third fully private astronaut mission to the International Space Station.
Per NASA rules, all private missions to the ISS must be led by a former NASA astronaut.
Houston-based Axiom’s first private mission launched in April 2022 and the second followed in May 2023.
But Axiom is not stopping at private astronaut missions — as if that wasn’t ambitious enough.
Instead, the company aims to eventually attach commercial modules to the ISS, that Axiom owns and operates, which would detach by the end of the decade to become a free-flying Axiom Space Station.
NASA is pushing back the next two Artemis missions to the moon — including the first crewed lunar mission in over fifty years — by around twelve months in order to give commercial partners more time to develop their technology.
The date of the fourth Artemis mission remains unchanged on September 2028.
That’s because SpaceX must also develop in-orbit refueling capabilities, as the architecture involves Starship refueling in space before picking up the astronauts.
After delivering astronauts to the moon, the Starship HLS must then launch from the surface before docking with Orion.
NASA officials also outlined a handful of issues they discovered after the demonstration launch of SLS in late 2022.
