Darrell Etherington
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The Latest from Darrell Etherington
SpaceX wins NASA contract to develop human landing system for returning to the moon
The winner of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) contract award is SpaceX, which bid $2.9 billion for the privilege of developing the means by which NASA astronauts will return to the lunar surfa
Blue Origin launches and lands New Shepard rocket in key prep flight for human passengers
Blue Origin has launched its New Shepard rocket for the second time this year, and the 15th time overall. The mission profile saw the reusable spacecraft fly to suborbital space, and then return for a
Astranis raises $250M at a $1.4B valuation for smaller, cheaper geostationary communications satellites
Space startup Astranis has raised a $250 million Series C round to provide it with a capital injection to help scale manufacturing of its unique MicroGEO satellites — geostationary communications sa
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to deliver an Astrobotic lander and NASA water-hunting rover to the moon in 2023
SpaceX is set to send a payload to the moon in 2023, using its larger (and infrequently used) Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. The mission will fly a lander built by space startup Astrobotic, which itself
Blue Origin will run an ‘astronaut rehearsal’ during a launch this week to prep for human spaceflight
Blue Origin is making progress toward its goal of flying human astronauts aboard its spacecraft, with a plan to run an “astronaut rehearsal” during a launch it has planned for Wednesday, A
Apple said to be developing Apple TV/HomePod combo and iPad-like smart speaker display
Apple is reportedly working on a couple of new options for a renewed entry into the smart home, including a mash-up of the Apple TV with a HomePod speaker, and an integrated camera for video chat, acc
How one founder identified a huge healthcare gap and acquired the skills necessary to address it
Our new podcast Found is now available, and the first episode features guest Iman Abuzeid, co-founder and CEO of Incredible Health. Abuzeid’s story of founding and building Incredible Health, a
Scale CEO Alex Wang and Accel’s Dan Levine explain why sometimes unconventional VC deals are best
Few companies have done better than Scale at spotting a need in the AI gold rush early on and filling that gap. The startup rightly identified that one of the tasks most important to building effectiv
Watch a monkey equipped with Elon Musk’s Neuralink device play Pong with its brain
Elon Musk’s Neuralink, one of his many companies and the only one currently focused on mind control (that we’re aware of), has released a new blog post and video detailing some of its rece
Introducing Found, a new podcast from TechCrunch
Here at TechCrunch, we spend most of our time talking to founders. Investors probably come a close second, but it’s definitely founders at the top of the list. That comes through in our articles
Rocket Lab to recover the booster from its next Electron launch as it pursues reusability
Rocket Lab is preparing for its next launch, currently set to take place in May from its launch facility in New Zealand. The payload for the flight are two satellites to join BlackSky’s Earth ob
Setting up a management board for success with Dave Easton
Generation Investment Management partner Dave Easton talks about how to build a board as a founder, and specifically how to build a board you can live with.
Twitter said to have held acquisition talks with Clubhouse on potential $4B deal
Twitter held talks with Clubhouse around a potential acquisition of the live drop-in audio networking platform, with a deal value somewhere around $4 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg. Tec
SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites, now at 300 launched in just over one month
SpaceX has launched another batch of Starlink satellites, keeping up its rapid pace of launches for the broadband constellation it’s deploying in low Earth orbit. This now makes 300 Starlink sat
How to kick the 10 worst startup habits with Fuel Capital’s Leah Solivan
Fuel Capital General Partner Leah Solivan joined us at TechCrunch Early Stage 2021 to talk about how to avoid early mistakes in building your startup.
Sonos delivers a near-perfect portable speaker with the new Sonos Roam
Sonos has a new speaker that starts shipping later this month, and it’s a significant departure from the company’s usual offerings in a number of ways. The all-new Sonos Roam is a compact,
Apple Maps adds COVID-19 travel guidance for over 300 airports worldwide
Apple has updated its native Maps app with more helpful information designed to assist with travel while mitigating the spread of COVID-19. Apple Maps on iPhone, iPad and Mac will now show COVID-19 he
Volkswagen really is becoming ‘Voltswagen’ in the US [UPDATE: Bad April Fool’s joke from VW]
UPDATE: Per the Wall Street Journal, this is actually not happening and was instead an April Fool’s joke gone wrong. VW USA still has not responded to requests for comment, but VW Europe told th
SpaceX is outfitting its Dragon spacecraft with an observation dome for space tourists
SpaceX is set to make a change to its Crew Dragon spacecraft for its forthcoming history-making all-civilian launch, currently set for September 15. That Dragon will replace its International Space St
SpaceX flies 11th Starship prototype, but loses the spacecraft during the landing
SpaceX conducted yet another high-altitude test flight of its Starship prototype spacecraft on Tuesday, the fourth of these so far. Like all the flight testing and construction of Starship prototypes,