TechCrunch Space: New year, new milestones
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. a happy new year! And…surprise!: This will be the last version of TechCrunch Space for the foreseeable future. I know, it’s the problem. But fear not: We’ll continue to report on space startups, so I hope you stay tuned.
And there will definitely be a a lot to cover. This month looks set to be a big one indeed, as Blue Origin prepares to launch its towering New Glenn rocket for the first time, and SpaceX plans to demonstrate payload deployment using Starship, for the first time as well. It’s going to be a big year.
Do you want to contact Advice? Send a note to the TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com. For more secure connections, Click here to contact uswhich includes SecureDrop directions And links to encrypted messaging applications.
Nearly a quarter of a century after its founding, Jeff Bezos founded… Blue original It is preparing to launch an orbital rocket for the first time — and finally enter the competitive launch industry currently dominated by SpaceX.
I’m super hyped for this launch. Air traffic alert A post last week suggested that Blue Origin might conduct the launch no later than January 6, but that timing was ultimately not determined and nothing has been confirmed by Blue Origin. Regardless, hopefully this is the start of a huge year for Blue Origin’s first-ever orbital rocket.
We’re revisiting the scoop that editor Julie Port and I published earlier in 2024, showing that SpaceX offered some good trades to select insiders authorized to buy secondary shares in the company. The story, based on internal SpaceX documents, provides an interesting insight into the company’s major investors.
This week in space history
This week we’ll go back in history to the 17th century, when Galileo Galilei first made observations of Jupiter’s four moons.
Why does this matter? When Galileo correctly guessed that the objects he was observing were moons orbiting a planet, it gave the Italian astronomer powerful proof that Copernicus was right: that the universe did not revolve around the Earth, but around the Sun. Here’s a nice little write-up From NASA about Galileo’s many discoveries of our solar system.
