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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — A lot more moondust could be kicked up soon with three lunar landers headed simultaneously on missions for the first time in history.

The latest, Athena from Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is targeting a 7:17 p.m. launch Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A. It would join two commercial efforts already in transit, in a striking demonstration of the space industry’s current vigor.

“There’s no time in history that we’ve had three landers, lunar landers in space, traveling to the moon,” said Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus. “We’ve ignited in the United States, the commercial sector, the innovation that’s coming out. We have different types of landers, different types of propulsion experiments, engineering demonstrations, all kinds of things are happening here to advance our understanding of how to fly to the moon, how to land softly on the moon, how to work on the moon.”

The two other landers — Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and Japanese company ispace’s Hakuto-R lander Resilience — shared a ride to space from KSC in January, but both had slower trajectories. Still Blue Ghost could be the first arrival, as early as Sunday. read more

CAPE CANAVERAL — Scientists have finally given the all-clear to Earth from a newly discovered asteroid.

After two months of observations, scientists have almost fully ruled out any threat from the asteroid 2024 YR4, NASA and the European Space Agency said Tuesday.

At one point, the odds of a strike in 2032 were as high as about 3% and topped the world’s asteroid-risk lists.

ESA has since lowered the odds to 0.001%. NASA has it down to 0.0017% — meaning the asteroid will safely pass Earth in 2032 and there’s no threat of impact for the next century.

Paul Chodas, who heads NASA’s Center for Near Earth Objects Studies, said there is no chance the odds will rise at this point and that an impact in 2032 has been ruled out.

“That’s the outcome we expected all along, although we couldn’t be 100% sure that it would happen,” he said in an email.

But there’s still a 1.7% chance that asteroid could hit the moon on Dec. 22, 2032, according to NASA. Chodas expects the odds of a moon strike will also fade. read more

Stalled lawsuits. Halted supervision and oversight. Suspended workforce. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in the midst of a complete overhaul that could cripple its ability to act as the consumer finance watchdog it was designed to be.

By Jeff Ostrowski, Bankrate.com

Slashed rates. Discounts on future purchases. Speedy delivery.

No, these are not the promises of an auto dealer or eager e-retailer start-up. They’re coming from mortgage lenders.

The incentives reflect the harsh reality of the residence-financing scene. Since 2021, mortgage rates have more than doubled. The predictable result: American consumers — especially homebuyers — have sharply reduced their appetite for borrowing. Mortgage originations plunged by 57% from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the fourth quarter of 2022, ATTOM Data Solutions reports. As mortgage rates have remained stubbornly high, borrowers remain reluctant – in the third quarter of 2024, Americans took half as many mortgages as they did in the same period in 2021, ATTOM says.

The drop in applications puts lenders in a tough position — and, like any seller in a slow market, they’ve responded by dangling deals to get homebuyers to look past the run-up in rates. One big lender even has initiated a rewards program echoing those used by retailers, airlines and credit cards. read more

The U.S. Small Business Administration will pull regional offices out of cities with immigrant-friendly policies like Denver, one of several changes new SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler detailed in a “Day One” memo on Monday.

“To better serve Main Streets across America, especially in rural areas, SBA will relocate regional offices currently based in sanctuary cities to less costly, more accessible locations in communities that comply with federal immigration law,” the memo states.

Denver is home to the SBA’s Region VIII, which covers Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, North Dakota and South Dakota. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has been an early and vocal opponent of the administration’s immigration policies, making a relocation likely.

The Colorado District Office, established in 1953, is in the federally-owned U.S. Customs House at 721 19th St. That makes the impact of a departure on the city’s oversupplied office market more limited compared to the departure of a federal tenant in leased space. read more