As of Friday, Viasat asked the Federal Communications Commission to pause the April 27 license modification that would allow SpaceX to continue its plans of building out its broadband constellation. The existing constellation already tops more than 1,600 satellites.

On May 15 SpaceX surpassed its 1,584 permitted satellites in 550-kilometer orbits that fell under a previous license by launching 52 additional satellites. And on May 26 they are scheduled to launch 60 more.

Viasat’s arguments to stop or slow the expansion of Starlink depends solely on being able to convince a federal appeals court that the FCC was ‘legally obligated’ to assess the megaconstellation’s environmental impacts prior to approving SpaceX’s previous request to double the number of satellites it originally intended to operate from 550 kilometers.

Originally, the FCC approved a 4,409-satellite constellation that included 2,825 satellites in orbit ranging from 1,100-1,300 kilometers, and 1,584 satellites at 550 kilometers. Then on April 27 SpaceX requested a license modification to move the higher orbiting satellites in to the 550-kilometer set. And also making an adjustment to the number of satellites in the constellation from 4,409 to 4,408.

The company claims the modification will improve any signal lag, or latency, between space and the ground that would ultimately improve the quality of video calls, gaming, and any other activities on the network.

The FCC awarded SpaceX $890 million from the first phase of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) in December. RDOF’s mission is to bring broadband services to homes and businesses being unserved in the United States. A key qualifying factor to receive funding is low latency.

Stopping Starlink

Since January, roughly 700 additional satellites have launched totaling more than 1,600 Starlink satellites currently in orbit. And a Falcon 9 was scheduled to launch on May 26 from Cape Canaveral, Florida which would be the 13th Starlink launch in 2021.

Until federal courts can review the legality of the license modification, Viasat has asked the FCC to pause any more launches.

Viasat, based out of Carlsbad, California, provides broadband services as well, via geostationary orbit (GEO). The company petitioned the FCC to thoroughly review the environmental impacts prior to awarding license modifications as per the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA currently exempts satellite systems, but Viasat claims this did not happen despite the megaconstellation bringing a new list of considerations forward for regulators.

Some astronomers are worried about how the constellation’s reflectivity could affect ground-based telescope observations and these concerns led to a request for an environmental assessment.

By approving the license modification, the FCC greatly rejected these requests and urged SpaceX to work closely with astronomers to attempt to mitigate the brightness of the satellites. The FCC listed several reasons for rejecting the requests and ultimately not performing environmental assessments. They questioned whether or not light pollution is covered through NEPA, and noted that the Federal Aviation Administration performs its own environmental reviews as part of the licensing process to launch.

According to a May 21 filing to the FCC, Viasat claims that NEPA is required to at least consider the environmental harms prior to granting SpaceX’s application. Harms considered include orbital debris, light pollution, and the overall effects of disintegrating satellites on the atmosphere.

“We believe the FCC failed to conduct a legally required environmental review under NEPA and did not honor the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to a science-based approach to protecting the atmosphere, the Earth’s climate, space and the well-being of U.S. citizens before authorizing the launch of thousands of new Starlink satellites into low-earth orbit,” John Janka, Viasat’s chief officer for global government and regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement.

“As such, we have asked the Commission to stay its order until the federal courts review its legality.”

If the FCC does not comply and approve the stay by June 1, Viasat is prepared and fully intends to head to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in an effort to seek a stay and review of the modification order.

SpaceX declined responding to comment requests.

Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine joined Viasat’s board of directors this past April.

Bridenstine previously stated in an interview that the threat of the megaconstellations safety in space, and the overall space access environment were ‘issues on his radar’.

Currently in development for Viasat is a three-satellite Viasat-3 broadband constellation in geostationary orbit (GEO) with intentions to expand its operations globally, and will provide three terabits per second of output.

With a targeted launch slated for early next year, the first Viasat-3 satellite is set to serve the Americas.

After speaking with bitcoin miners, the Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX CEO tweeted late Monday that the North American miners said they are “committed to publish current and planned renewable usage.”

He went on to add that these same miners will ask their global rivals to do the same – a development he claimed “potentially promising.”

Hitting an all-time high just last month of $60,000, bitcoin (XBT) has found some sort of balance in recent days at $37,000 after dropping.

In the past few weeks, prices for other top crypto like ethereum, binance coin, cardano, XRP, and even dogecoin – the meme coin Musk has previously tweeted about and even called a “hustle” during his appearance on “Saturday Night Live” have also plummeted.

Other factors throwing a wrench in crypto movement can be attributed to a new crackdown in China, a location where many miners operate, and new guidance from the US Treasury Department on how to properly tax bitcoin.

Even so, Musk’s commentary drives shares for several top bitcoin mining companies. Mining companies own the facilities that house high-end hardware that is used to solve complex mathematical puzzles which generate new bitcoin.

Riot Blockchain (RIOT), Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA), and Hive Blockchain (HVBTF) all jumped on Monday more than 10%, then dropped back a bit on Tuesday morning.

CEO of software firm MicroStrategy (MSTR) Michael Saylor, who owns a rather large portion of bitcoin, and has continued to purchase more since prices have dropped, tweeted in a series that he ‘helped arrange the meeting between Musk and the bitcoin miners.’

Saylor went into specifics and named Riot, Hive, and Marathon, along with five others, and made note that they “have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency and accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide.”

MicroStrategy shares bumped up 5% on Monday, while the stocks have reflected the movement of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – similar to Tesla and other bitcoin miners lately.

MicroStrategy is one of many high-profile companies whose stocks have been affected in the past year. Though being up nearly 20% this year, it has tanked nearly 65% after its former 52-week high.

The majority of companies working on a self-driving system are relying on the use of lidar sensors.

Lidar, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is the method for determining ranges by targeting an object with a laser and then measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver.

Tesla has decided to tackle a different approach and is betting on 100% pure computer vision using deliberately placed cameras.

In previous claims, CEO Elon Musk has said that ‘lidar technology has been overblown’ and has described it as a ‘distraction to achieving full self-driving capability.’

And after being spotted out and about, a Tesla test vehicle utilizing Luminar lidar sensors has begun to confuse people on the direction of the vehicle.

Spotted in Palm Beach, Florida. A @Tesla Model Y with #LiDAR and CA Manufacturing (MFG) Plates. Can anyone offer details/insights? pic.twitter.com/5Uh4WU0U41

— Grayson Brulte (@gbrulte) May 20, 2021

Presumably so, this confusion led to rumors and speculation that Tesla could be considering a change of tune when it comes to the use of lidar sensors. This spin even led to Luminar’s share price to climb the ladder earlier this week.

Though the buzz is new, the testing is not. Tesla has been known to use lidar sensors in its test vehicles all the way back to 2016.

And though Tesla still has no plan or aspiration to bring the sensors to production vehicles, the company instead uses them for ground-truthing.

A comment from the automaker stated:

The claim that Tesla may be planning to use LiDAR as part of its self-driving hardware suite is fundamentally untrue. We regularly test our own technologies against other sensors to calibrate our camera, sonar and radar system.

And still there remains no evidence that the tune has changed over the past few years.

In fact, the reality has driven Elon Musk to double down on the computer vision approach and the automaker does not want to even rely on radar – at all.

The next update for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta program will rely solely on cameras.

The current idea is that the only ‘known’ system that is capable of driving at this time is the human brain, which relies solely on input from human eyes – which are the closest things to cameras.

With cameras positioned all around the vehicle, retrieving a multitude of views, Tesla is able to achieve greater vision than humans. The problem now becomes only solving computer vision, and the automaker firmly believes it is solving that problem as the days pass.

On Thursday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX revealed in filings to the Federal Communications Commission new plans for the next steps in testing its massive Starship rocket in a launch that would see its return just off the coast of Hawaii.

Over the last year SpaceX has conducted numerous test flights for the prototype Starship rocket, but this plan is different in that it will be the company’s first attempt to reach orbit with Starship.

In 2019, Musk unveiled a version of the rocket that Starship prototypes continue to resemble. Standing at 160 feet tall or about the size of a 16-story building, and built of stainless steel. The initial launch of the rocket takes place on a “Super Heavy” – which makes up the bottom half of the rocket and stands at about 230 feet. Together totaling nearly 400 feet tall when stacked for launch mode.

According to the FCC filings, the Starship rocket will stack a Super Heavy booster at SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas development facility. The booster will separate and partially return “and land in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 20 miles from the shore.”

“The Orbital Starship will continue flying between the Florida Straits. It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100km (~62 miles) off the northwest coast of Kauai in a soft ocean landing,” SpaceX wrote in the filing.

The FCC, U.S. Air Force, NASA, and the FAA are all working in coordination with SpaceX for the launch, and the flight is scheduled to last just over 90 minutes in total. The timing for the flight is yet to be announced, but Musk said a few months ago that SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to launch the rocket into orbit by July.

Almost a year ago Musk told the SpaceX team that the progress on Starship needed to improve, “dramatically and immediately,” saying it was at the top of the company’s priority list. The program has moved at rapid speeds since then, with production, testing, and flights all steady in progress. SpaceX had its first successful landing and recovery of Starship prototype SN15 just last week, reaching the fifth highest altitude test flight, and the first prototype to finish a test without exploding.

The goal for the company’s Starship is to launch cargo, and even people, on missions to Mars and the moon.

Last month, NASA awarded SpaceX a roughly $3 billion contract to build a lunar variant of the Starship with plans to carry astronauts to the moon for the tentative Artemis missions. And as Musk’s team moves steadfast on the development of Starship, NASA ultimately suspended the work on the HLS program after Leidos’ Dynetics and Bezos’ Blue Origin each protested the contract award from NASA.

As Musk has tweeted for months, the cryptocurrency markets haven’t stopped moving. It seems his talk about dogecoin, a meme coin that began as a joke, has now seen giant growth and is scratching the surface of practical use.

Unfortunately for bitcoin lovers, Musk tweeted and announced that Tesla (TSLA.O) would discontinue the acceptance of the coin as payment as a result of ‘environmental concerns’. This lingering news could be a slight clue as to why bitcoin saw a drop.

“Toppy markets (are) looking for an excuse to breathe,” said Ben Sebley of crypto firm BCB Group. “Long money doesn’t care about Elon’s tweets. Fast money trades around that stuff now.”

According to CoinGecko, dogecoin saw a jump of nearly 25% after Musk’s latest tweet. Sitting at $0.52 most recently, with its record hit being last week at $0.73.

“Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising,” Musk wrote on Thursday. He called it a “hustle” last week, knocking its price.

Mark Humphery-Jenner, associate professor of finance at the University of New South Wales, says it remains unclear if Musk is referring to efficiency in terms of energy, ease of use, or overall suitability as a currency.

Data center provider TRG reports that dogecoin consumes 0.12 kilowatt hours of electricity per transaction compared to bitcoin’s 707.

CoinMarketCap released that dogecoin surged to the fourth-largest cryptocurrency just this year with a total value of $68 billion. The token which was initiated as a joke, features a Shibu Inu pup. With an unlimited supply, there are only a few major companies that will accept the coin as a form of payment.

On the flipside of the coin, bitcoin’s gains for this year can be attributed partly to the growing mainstream adoption of its use for official payment. And the supply is rather limited.

“Dogecoin remains a lesson in greater fool theory,” said David Kimberley, analyst at investing app Freetrade, which posits that buying overpriced assets can be profitable, so long as there is a “greater fool” to buy them.

Currently, Musk uses the idle capacity of his rockets to launch waves of up to sixty satellites at one time. This process allows him to have 1,321 satellites in orbit at a significantly lower cost than what is typically associated with these types of operations. Though 12,000 have already been approved, there are roughly 30,000 licenses in current debates.

The satellites are positioned in orbit about sixty times closer to Earth than conventional satellites. And the closer proximity changes the usual approach to satellite communication, and allows it to offer internet access that is drastically faster in speed and relay, with the needed speed to still play competitive video games. With a closer position to the Earth, they are easier to see at night with the naked eye, regardless of the efforts made by the company to reduce the satellites’ luminosity. And can be effectively useful for activities that were otherwise outrageously expensive – until now.

Much like most of Musk’s projects, this is a classic case of leveraging the economies of scale that can be achieved at a later stage in growth. Thanks to SpaceX’s increasingly recycled rocket launches, the satellites can be launched with the potential of cost sharing. On the other hand, the anticipation of drastically reducing the size from the original “UFO on a stick” to the current models capable of being installed to vehicles that meet certain size requirements. The pricing model aligns with these parameters, with an initial connection equipment charge of $499, and a $99 fee each month for service. For users who may not have another option, this is an obvious choice. But the idea is to reduce its cost as scaling allows, which in turn makes it possible to be as competitive, if not more, than the many telecommunications companies in business today throughout the globe.

The U.S. military has taken interest in this concept and went as far as considering the use of  Starlink’s constellation of satellites for a new alternative to the current GPS system.

A common misconception is that design changes and/or implementing new economies of scale doesn’t work, and that the rules in place of an industry or business cannot be changed. But if you think you knew everything there is to know about satellites and scaling, then you sorely underestimated Musk and his portfolio.

CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, admits he has never said a single word to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. Musk previously tweeted in December that in the ‘darkest days of the Model 3 program’ he attempted to reach Cook to discuss the possibilities of Apple acquiring Tesla but “he refused to take the meeting”.

Strange, if true.

– Tesla already uses iron-phosphate for medium range cars made in our Shanghai factory.

– A monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020

When Cook appeared on the Podcast Sway, hosted by Kara Swisher, he finally responded to Musk’s comments. But prior to that, he remained silent.

“Last year, Elon Musk said he offered to sell Tesla to Apple for 1/10 its value. And he said you wouldn’t even take a meeting with him,” Swisher said.

To which Cook replied: “You know, I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead, but keeping the lead for such a long period of time in the EV space. So I have great appreciation for them.”

Cook also decided to share a little about Apple’s future in autonomous vehicles.

“In terms of the work that we’re doing there, obviously, I’m going to be a little coy on that,” he said. “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view. If you sort of step back, the car, in a lot of ways, is a robot. An autonomous car is a robot. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does. We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not.”

After Tesla revealed that it manufactured just over 180,000 electric vehicles and delivered nearly 185,000 the first quarter of the year, the shares have jumped.

“We are encouraged by the strong reception of the Model Y in China and are quickly progressing to full production capacity. The new Model S and Model X have also been exceptionally well received, with the new equipment installed and tested in Q1 and we are in the early stages of ramping production,” the company said in a statement.

Tesla $TSLA receives ‘Outperform’ rating after ‘dropping the mic’ with Q1 numbershttps://t.co/LPA3xewT5H by @ResidentSponge

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 5, 2021

On Monday, Tesla was on track to surge again and hit its highest value in over a month after pre-market trading finished and its market value jumped nearly 8 per cent, adding roughly $50 billion.

“Tesla is executing impeccably. I am not surprised by the strong deliveries,” said Roth Capital Partners analyst Craig Irwin, adding that the stock is “egregiously overvalued.”

“EVs are an exciting place to be, and Tesla is the leader.”

And although details are yet to be revealed, last week US President Joe Biden announced $174 billion in spending on electric vehicle incentives and charging stations.

Also setting new record highs on Monday were the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average indexes. Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.13 per cent, to a record high 33,527.19, the S&P 500 jumped 1.44 per cent to a record 4,077.91, and Nasdaq Composite added 1.67 per cent, to 13,705.59.

A survey on Monday from the Institute for Supply Management showcased activity in the US services industry reaching its highest level on record just last month. After a jobs report was released last Friday showing 916,000 jobs added to the US economy last month, Reuters reported. This set of data reached an increase in investor sentiment.

On Monday, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that SpaceX is working on an antenna that connects vehicles like semi-trucks and RVs to its satellite internet network.

Musk provided clarification and explained that the antenna will not be used for “connecting Tesla cars to Starlink,” and added that the user “terminal is much too big.”

“This is for aircraft, ships, large trucks and RVs,” Musk said.

SpaceX wants to connect more than just homes to its Starlink satellite internet:

The company submitted an FCC request to begin installing and operating terminals on “moving vehicles” – from cars and trucks to ships and jets. https://t.co/ekXLqjP1fy

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) March 8, 2021

CNBC had reported that SpaceX sought after authorization from the Federal Communications Commission to begin deploying antennas for its Starlink service on “moving vehicles” – and Musk responded.

Starlink is SpaceX’s capital-intensive project, designed to build an interconnected internet network made up of thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation. And is designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere around the globe.

David Goldman, SpaceX director of satellite policy, wrote in a letter to the FCC on Friday that “the volume of traffic flowing over the world’s networks has exploded,” and added “no longer are users willing to forego connectivity while on the move.”

“This application would serve the public interest by authorizing a new class of ground-based components for SpaceX’s satellite system that will expand the range of broadband capabilities available to moving vehicles throughout the United States and to moving vessels and aircraft worldwide,” Goldman wrote.

Last year the space company requested authorization from the FCC to conduct experimental testing with private jets and its maritime fleet of vessels. The new request placed on Friday is for a more broad “blanket license” of operations. SpaceX made it a point that the FCC’s rules “do not require applicants to submit a maximum number of user terminals to be deployed,” and SpaceX did not specify the number of terminals it plans to build/use.

“You might notice the pattern that’s on the parachute here,” said Allen Chen, the entry, descent, and landing lead for the rover, Monday. “Distinct patterns are useful in helping us determine the clocking orientation of the parachute. Also the contrasting sectors can be useful in tracking different portions of the parachute as it inflates.”

“In addition to enabling incredible science, we hope our efforts and our engineering can inspire others. Sometimes we leave messages in our work for others to find for that purpose. So we invite you all to give it a shot and show your work.”

And in no time, space fans took up Chen on his challenge and began their decoding tactics to unravel the message.

It looks like the internet has cracked the code in something like 6 hours! Oh internet is there anything you can’t do? For those who just want to know: #Mars2020 #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/yTJCEnbuLY

— Adam Steltzner (@steltzner) February 23, 2021

Though the message may not be what you one was yearning for. The cryptic message included the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory motto, “Dare mighty things,” in addition to the GPS coordinates for JPL in Pasadena, California.

Using binary code, the messages were included on the parachute with white and orange gores, or pieces of triangular fabric. The band surrounding the parachute provides the GPS coordinates for JPL’s location. While the inner portion of the parachute provides “Dare mighty things,” with each word moving outward on the expanding rings.

The motto’s root comes from a Theodore Roosevelt quote: “Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure – than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory but defeat.”

The mission is managed by a team at JPL, which is also where the rover was constructed. The mastermind behind the binary code parachute concept was the rover’s systems engineer, Ian Clark.

The brain child of Ian Clark- who has done anything the project asked him to do, whether it was lead, develop, and execute a supersonic parachute test program, prove the cleanliness of the sampling system, or support EDL operations. All around sharp and selfless dude. #Mars2020 https://t.co/xJ09Qx8ezt

— Allen Chen (@icancallubetty) February 23, 2021

Though the cryptic message was inspiring and playful for space fans, it is not the first of its kind for the Perseverance rover. And the mission team suggested that as more images return from the rover in the future, more will be revealed.

Nearly 11 million people participated in the “Send Your Name to Mars” campaign, and the rover carries silicon chips containing those names. Perseverance also pays a tribute to the health care workers who battled the pandemic on the front line, by adding a metal tribute plate, as well as 155 student essays who entered a contest to name the rover.

Located on the rover’s deck, is a symbol-laden calibration target for Mastercam-Z, or a pair of zoomable cameras. The color swatches provided on the calibration target help adjust the camera’s settings, and in between the swatches symbols of a man and a woman, a dinosaur, a fern, DNA and cyanobacteria (one of Earth’s earliest forms of life), a rocket traveling from Earth to Mars, and a model of the inner solar system. At the bottom of the target includes the phrase, “Two worlds, one beginning,” alluding to this idea that Earth and Mars were co-created from the same dust that swirled around the sun some billions of years ago.

The SHERLOC instrument, Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, carries its own set of hidden gems. The bottom row of the instrument contains spacesuit materials to evaluate how they react over time to the radiation of the Martian atmosphere. And one piece specifically is polycarbonate, that can be used for a helmet visor, which doubles as a geocaching target, and has 221B Baker Street etched into the sample, the address of the renowned fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. The top row, to be used to fine tune the settings of the instrument, contains a piece of Martian meteorite.

Perseverance is not the only rover collecting Easter eggs. Curiosity, which began its exploration on the Martian surface in August 2012, left zigzagging patterns from the tread of its aluminum wheels. Embedded into the tread are tiny stamp-like dots. And as the rover roams the surface and leaves its tracks, the stamp-like dots leave “JPL” into the surface of the planet, which acts as Morse code for the JPL mission teams.

These plans have been discussed previously, and have manifested into SpaceX purchasing two rigs that are currently being retrofitted for use with Starship. The rigs are nicknamed Phoibos and Deimos, after the moons of Mars, and located in the Gulf of Mexico near SpaceX’s Brownsville, Texas development site.

Musk made a statement on his twitter account on Wednesday and claims one of the two rigs could be, at least, partially operating by the end of the year. Musk is known for his highly optimistic timelines, and the vast majority of them as of late have been relatively accurate.

One of them may be in limited operation by end of year

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 24, 2021

And by “limited operation”, it remains unclear what in specific that will entail. He is not saying SpaceX will be actively launching by the end of the year. But potentially that they are floating as scheduled, or simply able to host a Starship prototype. He added that there are increased plans to station launchpads for Starship in various places throughout the globe, and is not limited to just the Golf. These bold plans fall in line with his previously shared plan via CG concept videos when Starship debuted, where he outlined ideas of launch and landing facilities stationed in bodies of water closer to urban destinations.