Category Archives: Ars Technica Features

These days, one would be forgiven for forgetting that SpaceX is, at its core, a rocket company. Consider the company’s mega deals over the last year. SpaceX paid $17 billion—more than it has spent developing every one of its rockets—to EchoStar for wireless spectrum to boost its Starlink network. It revealed plans to launch 1 million orbital data centers. SpaceX merged with xAI in a deal that valued Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm at $250 billion, and it announced plans to become a major computer chip manufacturer. And earlier this month, SpaceX sold an enormous amount of ground-based compute to Continue ReadingThe US space enterprise is desperately waiting for Starship—will it finally deliver?→

As we have been reporting on Ars, NASA’s Artemis II lunar mission has been going rather well so far. Of course, Orion’s big test is yet to come with the fiery reentry through Earth’s atmosphere on Friday. But so far, it’s looking like the rocket and spaceship needed for a lunar landing are getting there for NASA. The biggest remaining piece of the architecture, therefore, is a lunar lander. Known in NASA parlance as the Human Landing System, or HLS, the space agency has contracted with SpaceX for its Starship vehicle and Blue Origin and its Blue Moon lander. Last Continue ReadingNASA’s Moon ship and rocket seem to be working well, so what about the landers?→

NASA’s Artemis II mission, carrying four astronauts on an out-of-this-world journey, flew around the Moon on Monday. The crew members took turns describing the stunning landscape below and captured images of Earth rising behind the Moon, in communications with Mission Control in Houston. What they did not send back in real time, due to a lack of communications bandwidth, was this high-resolution imagery. That changed on Monday night, when Orion established an optical link with ground stations on Earth to send high-resolution images back to the planet. NASA has been uploading them to Johnson Space Center’s Flickr page.Read full article Continue ReadingFinally, Artemis delivers some exceptional, high-quality photos of the Moon→

The data pipeline from NASA’s Artemis II mission opened to full blast a few hours after looping behind the far side of the Moon on Monday night, when the Orion spacecraft established a laser communications link with a receiving station back on Earth. A cache of high-resolution images began streaming down through this connection. NASA released the first batch to the public on Tuesday. Most of the images were taken by the four Artemis II astronauts using handheld Nikon cameras fitted with wide-angle and telephoto lenses. They also had iPhones to capture views out of the windows of their Orion Continue ReadingThe Moon is already on Google Maps—did Artemis II really tell us anything new?→

NASA’s Artemis II mission, carrying four astronauts on an out-of-this-world journey, flew around the Moon on Monday. The crew members took turns describing the stunning landscape below and captured images of Earth rising behind the Moon, in communications with Mission Control in Houston. What they did not send back in real time, due to a lack of communications bandwidth, was this high-resolution imagery. That changed on Monday night, when Orion established an optical link with Continue ReadingFinally, Artemis delivers some exceptional, high-quality photos of the Moon→

As we have been reporting on Ars, NASA’s Artemis II lunar mission has been going rather well so far. Of course, Orion’s big test is yet to come with the fiery reentry through Earth’s atmosphere on Friday. But so far, it’s looking like the rocket and spaceship needed for a lunar landing are getting there for NASA. The biggest remaining piece of the architecture, therefore, is a lunar lander. Known in NASA parlance as the Continue ReadingNASA’s Moon ship and rocket seem to be working well, so what about the landers?→

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—This will be the third time I have observed NASA’s Orion spacecraft take flight. But with this one, for the first time, am I genuinely hopeful about the future of the space agency and its plans to build a station on the surface of the Moon. The two previous flights, in 2014 and 2022, both felt hollow. NASA, an aging bureaucracy, has repeatedly sought to recapture its fading glory while also looking Continue ReadingThis is my third Orion launch, but it feels totally different→

Most elements of a major NASA event this week that laid out spaceflight plans for the coming decade were well received: a Moon base, a focus on less talk and more action, and working with industry to streamline regulations so increased innovation can propel the United States further into space. However, one aspect of this event, named Ignition, has begun to run into serious turbulence. It involves NASA’s attempt to navigate a difficult issue with Continue ReadingNo one is happy with NASA’s new idea for private space stations→

Let’s start with the basics. What, exactly, is an orbital data center? On the ground, data centers are typically large, warehouse-sized facilities filled with racks of storage and servers, and usually some high-speed networking gear to connect everything. A data center can be small or large, but the ones SpaceX is looking to supplant are of the big kind—the ones operated by major industry players like Amazon Web Services and Google, which provide most of Continue ReadingOrbital data centers, part 1: There’s no way this is economically viable, right?→

BROOMFIELD, Colorado—One of NASA’s oldest astronomy missions, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, has been out of action for more than a month as scientists await the arrival of a pioneering robotic rescue mission. The 21-year-old spacecraft is falling out of orbit, and NASA officials believe it’s worth saving—for the right price. Swift is not a flagship astronomy mission like Hubble or Webb, so there’s no talk of sending astronauts or spending hundreds of millions of Continue ReadingA unique NASA satellite is falling out of orbit—this team is trying to rescue it→

Samsung is nothing if not consistent. Just as it has for many years, the company is starting the year with a new generation of Galaxy S phones. Rumors about remixing the lineup did not pan out, so there are still three versions of the phone—the Galaxy S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra. It’s the Ultra, with its whopping $1,300 price tag, that makes up the largest chunk of Samsung flagship sales, even though you can Continue ReadingSamsung Galaxy S26 Ultra review: Private and performant→

Robert Goddard, a Massachusetts-born physicist, launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket on this date 100 years ago. It was not an overly impressive flight. The rocket, fueled by gasoline and liquid oxygen, rose just 41 feet into the air, and the flight lasted 2.5 seconds before it struck ice and snow. Nevertheless, this rocket, named “Nell,” represented a historic achievement that would help launch the modern age of spaceflight. Three decades later, the first objects Continue ReadingA century after the first rocket launch, Ars staffers pick their favorites→

In New Hampshire, just off the western shore of the vacation destination Lake Winnipesaukee, there’s a town called Laconia. With a population somewhere south of 17,000, it’s barely a blip on a map—except on Bike Week, when around 300,000 motorcyclists swarm the place. On the other, quieter weeks of the year, Laconia is best known as the unlikely home of Funspot, the world’s largest arcade. Meanwhile, in Brookfield, Illinois, about 45 minutes west of Chicago Continue ReadingWhich of these two arcades is the “world largest”—and does it matter?→

No one knows exactly when the vehicles we drive will finally wrest the steering wheel from us. But the age of the autonomous automobile isn’t some sudden Big Bang. It’s more of a slow crawl, one that started during the Roosevelt administration. And that’s Theodore, not Franklin. And not in America, but in Spain, by someone you’ve probably never heard of. His name was Leonardo Torres Quevedo, a Spanish engineer born in Santa Cruz, Spain, Continue ReadingThe first cars bold enough to drive themselves→

Intel’s Core Ultra lineup of desktop and laptop processors has been frustrating to review. None of them have been across-the-board awful or totally without redeeming qualities. But Intel has struggled mightily this decade to produce new processors that are straightforward, easy-to-recommend improvements over their predecessors. The company’s 12th- and 13th-generation Core chips offered big boosts to CPU performance over the 11th-generation CPUs, for example, but they also usually came with a significant hit to battery Continue ReadingIntel Panther Lake Core Ultra review: Intel’s best laptop CPU in a very long time→

Life as a startup carmaker is hard—just ask Lucid Motors. When we met the brand and its prototype Lucid Air sedan in 2017, the company planned to put the first cars in customers’ hands within a couple of years. But you know what they say about plans. A lack of funding paused everything until late 2018, when Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund bought itself a stake. A billion dollars meant Lucid could build a factory—at Continue Reading2026 Lucid Air Touring review: This feels like a complete car now→

WASHINGTON, DC—This week, NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, said he has “full confidence” in the space agency’s plans to use the existing heat shield to protect the Orion spacecraft during its upcoming lunar mission. Isaacman made the determination after briefings with senior leaders at the agency and a half-day review of NASA’s findings with outside experts. “We have full confidence in the Orion spacecraft and its heat shield, grounded in rigorous analysis and the work Continue ReadingIs Orion’s heat shield really safe? New NASA chief conducts final review on eve of flight.→

Last year delivered doses of drama and excitement in the space business, with a record number of launches, breathtaking vistas of other worlds, and a multitude of breakthroughs and setbacks. 2026 is shaping up to be another thrilling year in the cosmos. For the first time in more than 54 years, astronauts are training to travel to the vicinity of the Moon, perhaps within the next couple of months. NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other Continue ReadingHere are the launches and landings we’re most excited about in 2026→

‘Tis the season for all kinds of festive titles to start appearing in our to-watch queues. For folks who celebrate Christmas in any form, there are a million different movies and TV specials vying for your attention. There are the beloved favorites that we’ll make the time to revisit year after year, plus the seemingly endless number of new titles arriving on the various streaming services this season. But in all honesty, most of these Continue ReadingDiscworld, Daleks, and Deep 13: A geeky holiday TV and movie watchlist→

On Dec. 21, 2015, SpaceX launched the Orbcomm-2 mission on an upgraded version of its Falcon 9 rocket. That night, just days before Christmas, the company successfully landed the first stage for the first time. The story behind this remarkable achievement is nowhere more fully told than in the book Reentry, authored by Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger and published in 2024. To mark the tenth anniversary, Ars is reprinting a slightly condensed Continue ReadingThe inside story of SpaceX’s historic rocket landing that changed launch forever→