Boeing‘s Starliner is a human-grade space capsule designed to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Boeing began work on the capsule in 2014, when it signed a $4.2 billion contract with NASA under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

NASA also selected SpaceX for the job, giving Elon Musk’s company $2.6 billion to develop its Crew Dragon capsule.

“The entirety of the Commercial Crew Program was very much a new venture,” said Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space. “Prior to that, NASA relied on a lot of its own engineering talent to get humans to the space station.”

Henry said the program allowed NASA to offload “some of those responsibilities to the private sector.”

“There was some reticence in Congress towards this type of approach,” he said. “It was only because Boeing threw its hat in the ring that Congress and by extension, NASA, were confident enough to actually go forward with this program.”

In the decade since, Boeing has struggled to deliver on the six missions it’s contracted to fly with NASA.

Of the nearly $5 billion Boeing has received to develop Starliner to date, the company has spent $1.5 billion to cover delay overruns. Boeing recently launched its last test, a milestone crewed mission, which it needs to complete before NASA can certify Starliner to begin operational missions.

SpaceX, meanwhile, has completed over a dozen crewed missions to space, launching both NASA astronauts and private citizens since 2020.

Watch the video to learn more about the obstacles that Boeing has faced with its Starliner project and what the future may hold for its long-awaited capsule.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has to testify in a probe by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concerning his 2022 acquisition of Twitter, a federal judge ordered Saturday.

As CNBC previously reported, the SEC is investigating whether Musk or anyone else committed securities fraud in 2022 as the billionaire began buying stock in Twitter and building a stake ahead of his leveraged buyout of the social media company.

Musk closed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022 in a deal worth roughly $44 billion and has since rebranded it X.

In the order dated Feb. 10, 2024, federal magistrate judge Laurel Beeler wrote that although Musk and his legal team argued the SEC’s subpoena in this matter amounted to harassment of the billionaire, the federal financial regulator was “within its authority” and its subpoena was “definite, and seeks relevant information” to its investigation.

The federal financial regulator and Musk now have one week to set a date and location for his testimony.

Musk and his attorney Alex Spiro didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment “beyond the public filings for this matter.”

Musk has repeatedly sought to challenge if not strip authority from federal regulatory agencies.

For example, he has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to undo a settlement agreement that he and Tesla struck with the SEC previously. The settlement required Musk to have a “Twitter sitter” approve his tweets about his electric vehicle business before he posts them. Musk’s attorneys have argued that the agreement set an unconstitutional condition on Musk and amounts to a violation of his free speech rights.

In another example, Musk-led defense contractor SpaceX sued the National Labor Relations Board after the federal agency filed a complaint against the company alleging the rocket maker illegally fired employees who signed an open letter critical of Musk. The letter said, among other things, that Musk’s “behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us.” 

SpaceX filed its lawsuit against the NLRB in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville. Attorneys for SpaceX argued in their suit that the very structure of the federal labor board violates the U.S. Constitution. Their suit resembles one brought by a former employee of Starbucks against the NLRB, and seeks to prevent the NLRB’s earlier complaint against SpaceX from moving forward.

Read the full order to compel compliance here.

The US military is raising the stakes – and expanding the field – in the high-profile competition for Space Force mission contracts.

The Space Force plans to purchase more rocket launches from companies in the coming years than previously expected, giving more companies a chance to secure billions in potential contracts.

“This is a huge deal,” Doug Pentecost, deputy program executive officer at the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command, told reporters during a briefing this week.

Earlier this year, the Space Force began the process of purchasing five years’ worth of launches, under a lucrative program known as National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase III.

The United States sees increasing momentum to improve its military capabilities in space, spurring the need to nearly triple the number of third-stage launches it has purchased in second-stage in 2020.

“It just amazes me,” said Pentecost. “We only estimated 36 missions for Phase 2. For Phase 3, we estimate 90 missions.”

In February, the Space Force outlined a “mutual fund” strategy to purchase launches from the companies. NSSL divided Stage 3 into two groups. Track 1 is the new approach, with lower requirements and a more flexible bidding process that allows companies to compete as rockets debut over the coming years. Path 2 represents the current approach, in which the Space Force plans to select a select number of companies for missions that meet the most demanding requirements.

Pentecost said the Space Force hosted an industry day in February to review details of the program and 22 companies attended. Since then, Space Force has made a number of tweaks to Phase 3. It has added more missions, introduced a price cap, expanded Path 2, and established an annual schedule of missions.

The government weighs bids according to a company’s “gross estimated price” to launch. This is broken down into “launch service,” which means the cost of building and launching a missile, and “launch service support,” which covers special requirements the military might have for a launch. The maximum launch service subsidy amount is $100 million per year, per company.

“We’ve implemented some cost constraints so we don’t get inflated. We don’t want to [a situation where] Everyone gets a mission—you get a mission, you get a mission, you get a mission—because there’s no real competition after that,” Pentecostals said.

“We believe all of our partners in the industry want to be the first man, so we think that will provide competitive pricing to keep our costs down,” he added.

While track 1 is expected to attract the most bids and award 30 missions, track 2 is the big show.

With Lane 2, the Space Force awards the most valuable contracts to launch national security satellites at the highest stakes.

“These are billion dollars [satellite] “The payload going into unique orbits,” said Pentecost.

Not only has Lynn 2 seen an increase in the number of missions available for grabs — it’s currently estimated at 58 launches, up from 39 in February — but Space Force also made the decision to expand the slots available for final prizes to three companies, rather than limiting them to two.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing And Lockheed MartinThey were supposed to be the main contenders for Lane 2, but now there’s an open door for another company like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Space Force will allocate 60% and 40% of the 51 missions to the two largest bidders, respectively, and the remaining seven launches will go to the third-place bidder.

Regardless of where a company ranks, it must demonstrate that it can meet all of Track 2’s requirements, which include having launch sites on both the East Coast and West Coast, and the ability to reach nine high-accuracy “reference” orbits, many of which are much farther from Earth than the LEO requirements of Track 1.

Asked by CNBC how many companies are developing missiles that can meet these requirements by the launch deadline, a Space Force spokesperson declined to specify, saying the Army is “tracking several” that are “expanding their launch capabilities into most of these orbits.”

“Hopefully, not only will ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin compete for that, there are others who have interest in the past.” Chad Mellon, chief of procurement and integration at Space Systems Command, said during the briefing.

Space Force presents an annual festival for the month of October. 1 Deadline for assignment of tasks to companies that have won a contract.

Pentecost clarified that the first missions will end in October 2025, but the aforementioned contracts do not guarantee assignments, which protects the Space Force from delays that companies may experience in developing and flying missiles.

“You could have won the contract already, and you had this great plan about how you were going to fly [fiscal year] 2027. But since you haven’t flown yet, and I have a satellite that needs to fly in a couple of years, we’re not going to give you that task—we’re going to pass it on to the other person,” Pentecostal said.

Space Force aims to finish its solicitation for bidders by September and then submit all proposals by December, with contracts awarded in October 2024.

The main driver for this push, Space Force officials said, is “capacity assurance,” since there are “a lot of other companies” trying to buy satellite launches and the Space Force needs to close their orders.

“We wanted to make sure that we basically hedged against the scarcity of launches that could happen because if there is absolutely too much demand and everyone is [buying]”The prices can be very high,” Mellon said.

But despite that fear, Pentecost said that 2026 “looks like the sweet spot” when a number of the companies’ rockets will be developed and ready to fly. And the companies that stay on the right track will have the upper hand in the third phase of the NSSL.

“If you fly before then, or if your schedule shows you will fly before then, you will have significant strengths, which will put you in a better position to win the best provider or second best in this competition,” said Pentecost.

Manufacturer of spacecraft engines and builder of small rockets Astra It intends to conduct a reverse stock split of 1 to 15, the company disclosed in a securities filing on Monday.

The request said Astra was also seeking to raise up to $65 million through an “on-the-market” placement of ordinary shares.

Astra shares were little changed in after-hours trading, closing at 40 cents a share. The company went public in July 2021 through a SPAC deal, at a valuation of nearly $2 billion, before the stock began to crash after launch failures and development setbacks.

The reverse stock split is expected to take place on or before October 2, Astra’s filing said, after its board of directors approved the plan on July 6. The company previously scheduled a reverse split as part of its plan to avoid delisting by the Nasdaq.

A reverse split does not affect the fundamentals of the company, as it does not dilute the value of the stock nor change the valuation of the company, but it will raise the share price through the combination of shares. A reverse split can be seen as a sign that a company is in distress and is trying to “artificially” increase its share price, or it can be seen as a way for a viable company with crumbling shares to continue its operations on a public stock exchange. Functionally, the reverse split, often done as 1 for 10, means that a stock worth, say, $3 will become $30 a share.

Two Colorado space companies laid off employees this past week as they try to adapt to the new normal of a tight funding environment.

The layoffs came at Ursa Major, which makes rocket engines, and Orbit Fab, a startup that aims to provide refueling services to spacecraft.

A person familiar with Big Bear told CNBC that the company has laid off 27 percent of its workforce, or about 80 people. A spokesperson for Big Bear confirmed to CNBC that the company has been restructured, but declined to specify the number of layoffs. In a statement, Ursa Major said the job cuts “realign our workforce to better meet the national security needs of our customers.”

“We want to recognize the contributions of every current and former Big Dipper professional. Their efforts and accomplishments cannot be overstated, and we deeply appreciate the advances in space and hypersonic propulsion that they helped make possible,” said Ursa Major.

In LinkedIn posts, multiple former Ursa Major employees wrote that Wednesday was a “tough day” at the company, with “top-notch people” being let go as part of the “big layoff.”

Orbit Fab Chief Commercial Officer Adam Harris said in a statement to CNBC that 10 people were let go this week and the company will have about 50 employees after the restructuring. It recently hired a new COO and plans to hire a chief engineer and others in the coming months.

“Our advanced strategy will enable Orbit Fab to better meet the critical and growing demand for space-based refueling infrastructure for commercial and government markets and missions,” said Harris.

After years of record funding levels in the space sector, the first quarter of 2023 marked the lowest investment period in the industry since 2015, according to Space Capital.

Ursa Major last raised money in October, with a $150 million round at a $550 million valuation, according to PitchBook. Based in Berthoud, Colorado and founded in 2015, the company had about 300 employees before the layoffs. The Big Dipper series of rocket engines has won orders from customers including the Air Force Research Laboratory, Stratolaunch and Astra.

Orbit Fab raised funds recently, with a $29 million round in April at a $113 million valuation, according to Pitchbook. Based in Lafayette, Colorado and founded in 2018, Orbit Fab aims to offer spacecraft refueling services as soon as 2025 after launching demonstration flights in 2019 and 2021. It won early contracts by Space Force and the UK Space Agency.

TechCrunch first reported the layoffs at Ursa Major.

shares plans fell after the satellite imagery and data analytics company cut its annual revenue guidance after announcing first-quarter results on Thursday.

The company lowered its guidance for current fiscal year 2024 revenue to a range of $225 million to $235 million, down from its previous forecast of $248 million to $268 million. Planet also said it expects broader losses on an adjusted EBITDA basis, adding to its outlook. to a range of $58 million to $67 million from a range of $37 million to $47 million.

Shares of Planet were down 25% at midday trading Friday, from their previous close of $4.90. The stock is on track for its lowest one-day drop since it went public in December 2021, erasing year-to-date gains.

Despite the lower guidance, Planet co-founder and CEO Will Marshall said in a statement that the company “continues to see strong demand for our data solutions, driven by global events and a growing awareness of our capabilities.”

Plan’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Ashley Johnson, emphasized the “challenging macro environment,” and said the company remains “focused on the path to profitability.” She added that the company’s balance sheet is “strong” at $375 million in cash and cash equivalents and has no debt.

For the first quarter, Planet reported revenue of $52.7 million, up 31% from $40.1 million in the year-ago period, but virtually flat from the prior quarter.

The company’s first-quarter net loss was $34.4 million, or 13 cents per share. That shrank 22% from its net loss of $44.4 million, or 17 cents per share, in the prior year.

Planet’s customer base increased to 903, up from 882 at the end of the fourth quarter. Its customer base is divided into three segments by revenue: 44% defense and intelligence, 29% commercial, and 27% civilian government.

The company follows the agenda for the fiscal year that ends on the 3rd of January. 31.

The Prime Minister of Mongolia Luvsannamsray Oyun-Erdene and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday discussed possible expansion and investment in the Asian country in a virtual meeting.

“They discussed the possibility of welcoming Tesla to Mongolia for its electric vehicle battery factory, taking advantage of the country’s wide availability of copper and rare earth elements, which are key components of electric car batteries,” said a statement issued on behalf of Mongolian government.

The East Asian country is rich in minerals and boasts large deposits of copper, gold and coal.

“The Government of Mongolia is committed to cooperating with international organizations to support the development of new technologies and increase investment in the country,” the statement said.

A statement from the Mongolian government’s cabinet secretariat added that the country’s prime minister emphasized his support for the use of electric cars and urged Mongolian citizens to use such vehicles.

Musk and Oyun-Erdene also talked about bringing Starlink — a satellite communications terminals and service provider run by Musk-founded SpaceX — to Mongolia. Starlink was registered as a company in Mongolia in 2022 and is expected to launch regionally this year.

Musk’s meeting with the Mongolian leader comes after the tech giant last week met Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang and other senior officials in China, as Beijing looks to portray a friendly business environment for foreign companies amid tensions with the US

Tesla’s CEO praised China’s technological progress and visited the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai.

Boeing is further delaying the first crewed launch of its Starliner spacecraft after discovering additional problems with the capsule, the company said along with NASA on Thursday.

The Starliner crew flight test was last scheduled for July 21 and was supposed to carry a pair of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. Boeing discovered two new problems with the Starliner: one affecting the safety of its parachute systems and another involving a specific tape that was found to be flammable.

“We have decided to suspend preparations for the CFT mission to correct these issues,” Boeing vice president and Starliner manager Mark Nappi said during a news conference.

Nappi noted that the discussion about delaying the launch went to “the highest levels of Boeing,” with CEO Dave Calhoun involved.

The delay is the latest in a series of disruptions to the Starliner’s first crewed flight. The July schedule was itself a delay from the previous April target. A new flight target is expected, NASA and Boeing said Thursday.

The company is developing its Starliner spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, having won nearly $5 billion in contracts to build the capsule. Boeing’s program competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is poised to complete all six of its originally contracted NASA missions before Boeing takes off for the first time.

Boeing was once considered an equal with SpaceX in the race to launch NASA astronauts, but has fallen behind due to development setbacks.

As a result of these delays and the fixed-cost nature of its contract with NASA, Boeing has accumulated $833 million in losses over two years on the Starliner program.

Nappi on Thursday stressed that Boeing is “still committed” to completing work on the capsule and flying it for NASA.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to join the Federal Aviation Administration as a defendant to face a lawsuit brought by environmental groups in the wake of the company’s first test flight on Starship, the world’s largest rocket, which ended in a mid-flight explosion last month.

In a motion filed Friday in court, SpaceX asked federal judge Carl Nichols to allow the company to join the Federal Aviation Administration as a defendant against environmental and cultural heritage nonprofit groups that sued the aviation regulator earlier this month.

The plaintiffs “do not oppose” the company’s involvement in the filings. “It’s a standard applicant to be expected to intervene in a case where his or her statement is contested,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity and chief counsel for the plaintiffs.

The groups suing the FAA have alleged that the agency should have conducted a more in-depth environmental study on the potential impacts of SpaceX activity before allowing the company to launch the world’s largest rocket, the Starship, from its Starbase facility, a spaceport on the Gulf Coast. near Brownsville, Texas.

The groups also claimed that the “mitigation measures” the agency is asking SpaceX have not been enough to avoid “significant negative impacts” for endangered species, their habitats and tribes in the region whose land and wildlife are sacred.

SpaceX’s filing on Friday lays out the potential consequences for the company if environmentalists win the lawsuit, noting the implications for their business and finances — as well as saying there would be harm to the “great national interest” and potential scientific benefits of the Starship.

“If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the FAA’s decision could be set aside, and the issuance of further licenses for the Starship/Super Heavy program could be significantly delayed, causing severe harm to SpaceX’s business,” the company wrote.

The lawsuit seeks the FAA to make an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) — a lengthy and sweeping action that will likely sideline SpaceX’s Starship operation in Texas for years.

The company too He wrote in the motion that “the FAA does not adequately represent SpaceX’s interests” in the lawsuit, given that it is a government agency. She noted that the FAA “has a direct and material economic interest in the outcome of this case that the government does not share.”

The FAA said in a statement to CNBC that it “does not comment on ongoing litigation cases.”

SpaceX’s chief financial officer, Brett Johnson, filed a declaration along with the motion detailing the company’s potential damages if it lost the lawsuit. In the statement, Johnson wrote that “SpaceX has invested more than $3 billion in development” of the Starbase facility and the Starship system since July 2014.

This year alone, the company expects to spend about $2 billion developing Starship, according to comments CEO Musk made after the first fully-stacked launch attempt last month.

Johnson also highlighted the batch of contracts that SpaceX is building for future spacecraft missions.

SpaceX currently has a major NASA contract worth up to $4.2 billion to use the rocket to land astronauts on the moon. In addition, the company has signed commercial contracts for clients—including three separate missions for wealthy individuals Jared Isaacman, Yusaku Maezawa, and Dennis Tito—for the Starship that Johnson writes is “worth hundreds of millions of dollars at this time.”

Starship is also critical to the future of Starlink’s satellite Internet business, which has more than 1.5 million customers. Johnson noted that “SpaceX has invested billions of dollars in Starlink” so far.

Musk has previously highlighted the interdependence between these two companies, with Johnson also stressing that SpaceX needs a flying Starship in order to launch the second generation, or “V2,” of Starlink satellites.

“Without Starship… not only would SpaceX be hurt financially by not being able to launch v2 satellites, but hundreds of thousands of people… would be waiting until the Starlink constellation was upgraded and could serve them,” Johnson wrote.

Finally, Johnson noted that losing the lawsuit would cause the company to “significantly reduce” investment in its Starbase facility, which could harm its interests, as well as local employees and communities.

Starship’s dramatic and explosive first launch saw the company achieve several milestones for a nearly 400-foot rocket, which flew for more than three minutes. But it also lost multiple engines during launch, caused massive damage to terrestrial infrastructure and ultimately failed to reach space after the rocket began to fall apart and was deliberately destroyed in the air.

SpaceX is working to clear up damage to the launch site, which dug a hole in the ground and smashed debris into the tower, nearby tanks, and other ground equipment. The launch also created a plume of dust and sand, with particles reported as far as six miles from the launch pad.

The test flight also ignited a 3.5-acre fire on state park land.

Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida School of Research, studies particle samples. He believes SpaceX dodged a bullet at launch, telling CNBC that the amount of “concrete flying” could destroy the rocket on the launch pad.

“It could have been a lot worse than it was. I think they made a mistake by taking a risk and firing [concrete] On the surface, try doing it this way once. But it was a 70% success rate. They removed the tower, tested the first stage, got a lot of good data, found a staging issue, and hopefully they’ll be able to fix that and get a better result on the next test,” Metzger said.

Metzger did not assess the environmental impacts of the launch pad debris, and rocket blasts, on the endangered species that live in and migrate through the area. The Texas regional office of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and independent researchers are among those studying the environmental effects of the spacecraft’s test flight and explosion.

The SpaceX move has also provided the reason why Starship is ultimately useful to scientific endeavors. The company wrote that the missile’s unprecedented capabilities “will allow scientists to focus on previously impossible science tasks and pursue the fastest, easiest way to move their missions from idea to execution.”

“For example, with its large capacity, the Starship can put large telescopes and heavy science experiments into orbit, and carry cargo, people and even colonies on other moons and planets,” SpaceX wrote.

Read the company’s filing to establish itself as a defendant along with the FAA:

Correction: The spacecraft’s test flight caused a 3.5-acre fire on state park land. An earlier version misclassified Earth.

Virgo galaxy It is targeting as early as May 25 the launch of its next space flight, which marks its first flight in nearly two years since aviation founder Sir Richard Branson and the last planned step before commercial service begins.

Called Expedition 25, it marks the company’s fifth spaceflight to date, as it lifts off from Spaceport America in New Mexico. It’s the Final Evaluation flight, with six Virgin Galactic employees on board for a short trip to the edge of space.

The update comes after a longer-than-expected refurbishment of the company’s spacecraft: Two months after Branson’s flight, and after an FAA investigation into a mishap during his flight, the company halted operations for what was supposed to be “eight to” 10 months”—but it ended up taking nearly from 16 months instead.

Virgin Galactic shares rose as much as 5% in early trading Wednesday after the announcement, before giving up the gains to trade for little change on the day. The company reported first-quarter results earlier this month that revealed mounting losses as it funds the development and expansion of its spacecraft fleet.

In-house pilots Mike Masucci and CJ Sturko will fly the VSS Unity spacecraft, while Jamil Janjua and Nicola Bissell will fly the VMS Eve. In the cabin will be Senior Astronaut Beth Moses, as well as Astronaut Instructor Luke Mace, Chief Engineering Officer Christopher Hoy, and Director of Internal Communications Jamila Gilbert.

Virgin Galactic’s approach to space tourism is to fly up to about 40,000 feet, launch the spacecraft and fire its engine to go over 80 kilometers (or about 262,000 feet) — an altitude that the US recognizes as the frontier of space.

Known as suborbital, this type of spaceflight takes passengers a few minutes of weightlessness, unlike the longer, more difficult and more expensive orbital flights conducted by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. After flying his own craft in 2021, Branson told CNBC he hopes to fly with SpaceX.

Based on the results and data gathered from Unity 25, the company is aiming to carry out its first commercial mission in “late June.”