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SpaceX’s latest test flight ends with Starship loss

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SpaceX’s mega rocket blasted off on another test flight overnight and made it farther than two previous attempts, but the spacecraft was lost as it descended back to Earth.

 

The company said it lost contact with the spacecraft as it neared its goal, a splashdown in the Indian Ocean, about an hour after liftoff from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border.

This third test achieved multiple milestones before likely breaking apart. The first two flights last year lasted mere minutes before blowing up over the Gulf of Mexico.

The Starship vehicle — which includes the upper Starship spacecraft and a rocket booster known as the Super Heavy — took off from SpaceX’s private Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 8.25am on Thursday (12.25am Friday AEDT).

Contact lost

An hour after lift off, SpaceX commentators said contact had been lost with the spacecraft.

“The ship has been lost. So no splashdown today,” said SpaceX’s Dan Huot.

“But again, it’s incredible to see how much further we got this time around.”

Earlier during the flight, which took place exactly 22 years after the rocket company was founded, SpaceX’s Elon Musk had congratulated his team.

“SpaceX has come a long way,” Musk said via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, which he now owns.

 

SpaceX also never intended to recover Starship after this flight test. The spacecraft was expected to make a hard landing. And the Starship spacecraft made it much further into flight than during two previous tests in 2023.

The company routinely frames failures during these early test flights as normal. The goal of these flight tests is to gather crucial data so that engineers can go back and tinker with Starship, improving it for future missions.

SpaceX considers the Starship system crucial to its founding mission: to carry humans to Mars for the first time.

Take off

And critically, NASA has chosen Starship – the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built – as the landing vehicle that will ferry its astronauts to the lunar surface on the Artemis III mission slated to take off as soon as September 2026.

“Congrats to SpaceX on a successful test flight! Starship has soared into the heavens. Together, we are making great strides through Artemis to return humanity to the Moon— then look onward to Mars,” wrote NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on X.

The Super Heavy booster — the first stage, or bottommost part, of the launch vehicle roared to life and soared out over the Gulf of Mexico.

Ahron Young is an award winning journalist who has covered major news events around the world. Ahron is the Managing Editor and Founder of TICKER NEWS.

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Tesla is slashing prices to stay competitive

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Tesla cut the U.S. prices of its Model Y, Model X and Model S vehicles by $2,000 each, days after the first-quarter deliveries of the world’s most valuable automaker missed market expectations.

Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle (EV) maker lowered the prices for its Model Y base variant to $42,990, while the long-range and performance variants are now priced at $47,990 and $51,490, respectively, according to its website.

The basic version of the Model S now costs $72,990 and its plaid variant $87,990. The Model X base variant now costs $77,990 and its plaid variant is priced at $92,900.
Tesla North America also said in a post on X said it would end its referral program benefits in all markets after April 30.

Referral program allows buyers to get extra incentives through referrals from existing customers, a strategy long used by traditional automakers to boost sales.

Musk has postponed a planned trip to India where he was to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and announce plans to enter the South Asian market, Reuters reported on Saturday.
On Monday Reuters reported, citing an internal memo, that the EV maker was laying off more than 10% of its global workforce.
Earlier this month Reuters reported the EV maker had canceled a long-promised inexpensive car, expected to cost $25,000, that investors had been counting on to drive mass-market growth.
The EV maker reported this month that its global vehicle deliveries in the first quarter fell for the first time in nearly four years, as price cuts failed to stir demand.

Tesla is to report first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.

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TikTok launches Instagram competitor ‘Notes’

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TikTok Notes has launched in Australia & Canada as a formidable competitor to Instagram, offering a unique platform for content creation, text and sharing.

“TikTok Notes is a lifestyle platform that offers informative photo-text content about people’s lives, where you can see individuals sharing their travel tips and daily recipes,” reads the official App Store description.

Take note

The app allows users to create content by combining short videos with text-based notes, closely resembling that of Meta’s Instagram.

Whether it’s sharing a quick tutorial, a personal anecdote, or a thought-provoking message, TikTok Notes is positioned to be a formidable social media platform.

Currently, the app is only available for download and “limited testing” in Australia and Canada.

As it gains momentum, the platform is poised to contest Instagram’s established reign in the social media landscape.

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Ramifications of a TikTok ban to impact Open Internet

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The United States’ longstanding advocacy for an open internet faces a critical juncture as Congress considers legislation targeting TikTok.

The proposed measures, including a forced sale or outright ban of TikTok, have sparked concerns among digital rights advocates and global observers about the implications for internet freedom and international norms.

For decades, the U.S. has championed the concept of an unregulated internet, advocating for the free flow of digital data across borders.

However, the move against TikTok, a platform with 170 million U.S. users, has raised questions about the consistency of America’s stance on internet governance.

Read more – Big tech to handover misinformation data

Critics fear that actions against TikTok could set a precedent for other countries to justify their own internet censorship measures.

Russian blogger Aleksandr Gorbunov warned that Russia could use the U.S. decision to justify further restrictions on platforms like YouTube.

Similarly, Indian lawyer Mishi Choudhary expressed concerns that a U.S. ban on TikTok would embolden the Indian government to impose additional crackdowns on internet freedoms.

Moreover, the proposed legislation could complicate U.S. efforts to advocate for an internet governed by international organizations rather than individual countries.

China, in particular, has promoted a vision of internet sovereignty, advocating for greater national control over online content.

A TikTok ban could undermine America’s credibility in urging other countries to embrace a more open internet governed by global standards.

 

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