In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at SpaceX’s five launch week, liberating scientists from lab-borne tedium with AI, how exercise is good for your brain and more. You can sign up to get The Prototype in your inbox here.
SpaceX / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
It’s been a big week for SpaceX. On Sunday morning, the company successfully launched its Starship spacecraft from Texas into space and recovered it in the Indian Ocean an hour later. The company also successfully “caught” the spacecraft's super heavy rocket booster with two massive mechanical arms as it returned to the landing pad..
Then on Monday, SpaceX launched NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft from one of its Falcon Heavy rockets. The ship is making its way towards Jupiter’s moon Europa (in defiance of the warning humanity got in the movie 2010), where it will arrive in 2030. There it will explore the planet in detail from Jupiter’s orbit, with particular attention paid to whether there is life in the ocean beneath its icy surface.
On Tuesday, SpaceX launched two more Falcon 9 rockets, one from California and one from Florida, which collectively brought 43 of itsStarlink internet satellites into orbit. The first marked the company’s 100th launch of 2024. As of this writing, SpaceX plans to launch another Falcon 9 from Florida Friday evening–that’s five launches of three different classes of rocket in less than a week.
There’s still more to go. In January, SpaceX said that its launch goal for this year was 148. It’s not........