Yusaku Maezawa, a key investor in SpaceX’s next-generation rocket system, called Starship, plans to sell a 30% stake in his online fashion-retail company, Zozo, to Yahoo Japan.

As part of the $3.7 billion tender offer, Maezawa will resign as CEO of Zozo, receive about $2.3 billion in cash, and maintain a 6% stake in the company he founded, according to Forbes.

Maezawa spoke about the deal during an emotional two-hour-long press conference on Thursday. Although he raised misgivings about how he managed the company in recent years, saying he regretted mistakes that hurt the company’s bottom line, Forbes reported that he rationalized his departure in another and far more personal way: a need to prepare for his 2023 flight around the moon inside Starship.

The spacecraft can reach a top speed of 436 mph during an emergency.

A SpaceX rocket that may be the first to launch astronauts from the Space Coast has been built and test-fired in Texas.

That new rocket is now on its way to Central Florida.

A new AFSPC study posits a possible future — named after ancient Chinese warlord Zhang He — where China dominates space even as human presence vastly expands to the Moon and beyond.

Just months after closing out the 15-year-long Opportunity rover mission on Mars, Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres is taking advantage of a new opportunity: the post of chief scientist at Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.

Today Blue Origin confirmed that Squyres, 63, will be joining the company, which is headquartered in Kent, Wash.

Squyres has been involved in NASA space missions including Voyager’s trip past the solar system’s giant planets and Magellan’s voyage to Venus. But his main claim to fame is his stint as principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers.

Work on Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch complex – LC-36 – is well underway. Recent aerial imagery of Cape Canaveral from NOAA shows how far Blue has come on the launch complex. Meanwhile, the company is also working on an engine factory in Alabama, and a first stage refurbishment facility near Kennedy Space Center.

LC-36 – from Atlas-Centaur to New Glenn

LC-36 was originally constructed to launch the Atlas-Centaur – with its revolutionary liquid hydrogen-powered upper stage. The complex hosted its first launch on May 18, 1962. Due to the Atlas-Centaur’s increasing flight rate – and low reliability early on – a second pad – LC-36B – was built near the existing LC-36A.