16 November 2024; New York, New York, USA; President-elect Donald Trump speaks with Elon Musk (right) during UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory
Brad Penner | USA Today Sports Via Reuters Con
President-elect Donald Trump will attend the launch of the SpaceX rocket Starship on Tuesday with company CEO Elon Musk.
Trump’s planned presence at the launch marks his increasingly close relationship with the mega-billionaire Musk, whose political action committee heavily favored Republicans in recent elections.
Trump has tapped Musk to co-lead DOGE — a department for government efficiency — with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Since Trump’s election victory, Musk has been a near-constant presence on Trump’s side at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, which has rankled some Trump team insiders. NBC previously reported..
Tuesday’s launch at SpaceX’s Starbase site in Boca Chica will be the sixth launch for Starship, the largest rocket to date. The rocket is scheduled to lift off at approximately 5:00 PM ET.
SpaceX designed Starship to be a reusable, flying cargo and new vehicle for extraterrestrials.
The company won a multibillion-dollar contract from the federal government to use the Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis Moon program.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also plans to attend Tuesday’s commencement, NBC News has learned. Cruz is the incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over space-related issues.
SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft is set to launch atop its powerful Superheavy rocket on November 16, 2024 at the company’s Boca Chica launch pad, near Brownsville, Texas, US.
The captain Reuters
SpaceX has received $19 billion from the federal government since 2008 and is poised to take in several billion more each year in the coming years, according to FedScout research on federal spending and core contracts.
The Environmental Protection Agency previously found that SpaceX had violated the Clean Water Act by discharging hot, industrial wastewater without a permit at its launch facility during pre-Starship launches.
Research A report published Monday in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America indicates that the SpaceX starship launch “exceeds the maximum noise level, which creates the acceleration of sound, making it A densely populated residential community near the South Texas launch site is at risk of property damage”. For a report on data from The New York Times.
SpaceX and Musk had been vocally critical of the Federal Aviation Administration before Trump’s election, urging the regulator to speed up its license review for Starship flights.
In September, Musk threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach.”
Representatives for SpaceX and Musk, who is also Tesla’s CEO, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNBC on Tuesday.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
