TechCrunch Space: Nothing to see here!

Hello, and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. There was absolutely no news last week because nothing happened.

Just kidding.

Defying all early polling, Donald Trump swept the election and will soon be sworn in for his second term in office. From a space policy perspective, things are already starting to look interesting. That’s mostly due to the prominent role SpaceX CEO Elon Musk played in the run-up to the election, and the role he could play in the next administration.

There’s already been some great reporting from The New York Times on their relationship; I’ll point to this story, which describes how Musk joined a call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and this one, in which sources say that Musk wanted Trump to hire SpaceX employees to top government positions, including at the Department of Defense.

If Musk manages to secure even a fraction of the influence that he has talked about in recent weeks — like heading a Department of Government Efficiency — we could see the head of the biggest space company, the biggest electric vehicle manufacturer, and one of the largest social media platforms gain as-of-yet-unheard of influence.

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Senior reporter Rebecca Bellan and I dove into what Trump’s presidency might mean for Elon Musk. Bellan covers all things transportation, so she took a close look at the prospects for Tesla, and I threw in my two cents about the implications for space policy. We tried very, very hard not to speculate too much — at this point, it’s too easy to drift into fantasy, and there are too many unknowns — but there’s still plenty of info to go on.

Speaking of SpaceX, the company is gearing up to launch its sixth integrated flight test of Starship on November 18. Many of the test objectives are the same as the fifth test, which saw the Super Heavy booster return to the launch site for the first time ever, but SpaceX did say it will be testing some hardware and software upgrades.

With Musk having the ear of the next sitting president, Mars is on everyone’s minds in a new way. It’s entirely possible that SpaceX could indeed launch an uncrewed Starship to Mars when the next Earth-Mars transit window opens in 2026. But this week, we’re looking back at a very small spacecraft that made history as the first human-made object to orbit the red planet: Mariner 9, which entered Mars’ orbit on November 13, 1971.

When the probe arrived, a massive dust storm was obscuring most of the planet’s features. That calmed down, and Mariner 9 was able to take a number of incredible images over its 10 months orbiting the planet. Much of what it saw completely shocked scientists.