Zac Hall

The countdown to Mars kicked off earlier this year on July 30 when NASA’s Perseverance rover blasted off on a ULA Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA’s newest Martian rover will arrive in less than two months on February 18 to begin its search for signs of ancient life on the Red Planet.

SpaceX is rapidly sending batches of internet satellites to orbit as the company builds its Starlink broadband service. With over 900 operational satellites already in space, Starlink internet service reached public beta in October. Service is expected to reach many more markets over the next year, and a massive FCC investment will certainly help speed up the rollout.

After a few weeks of trial and error, NASA says it has completed the wet dress rehearsal test step for the core stage of Space Launch System, the agency’s rocket to the Moon and beyond. This is the final step before NASA and Boeing engineers fire the core stage in place for eight minutes to collect data.

Saturday evening was an eventful one for the International Space Station. Over the weekend, the ISS robotics team completed the “cold” installation of the Bishop Airlock, the first commercially funded airlock to reach the space station. The Nanoracks-built airlock arrived in the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule as part of the recent CRS-21 resupply mission.

There’s a great space debate happening over how U.S. policy toward China should be handled when the Biden administration takes office next month. Should NASA work in cooperation with China’s space agency if the other nation is willing, or should China’s progress in space be viewed as competition?

Lockheed Martin has announced plans to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne in a deal worth $4.4 billion. Lockheed expects the acquisition to close in the second half of 2021. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for NASA’s Orion spacecraft to send astronauts to the Moon. Aerojet Rocketdyne provides the RS-25 and RL-10 engines on NASA’s Space Launch System.

Space Explored’s Zac Hall and Seth Kurkowski unpack the last week in launches from SpaceX’s SXM-7 mission to Astra’s first rocket reaching space, the latest status update on Space Launch System and the Artemis I mission around the Moon, Canada’s plans to send the first Canadian astronaut to the Moon, Space Force naming its members and gaining its first astronaut, three Crew-3 astronauts being named, updates on Amazon’s Project Kuiper and Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket, and much more.

Subscribe

• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Overcast

Earlier this month it was reported that NASA’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon had a dead backup channel on a Power and Data Unit communication card. The Verge shared an internal document that showed multiple approaches to address the failed redundant channel, and the option to fully restore it was estimated to take up to a year. NASA has now issued a decision on how it will move forward with the Orion spacecraft ahead of its first uncrewed mission around the Moon.

Amazon is one step closer to setting the stage for its planned Project Kuiper satellite internet service. The e-commerce giant revealed the design of the terminal antenna customers will use to connect the space-based internet service to their homes this week. Measuring 12-inches in diameter, Amazon touts an overall smaller terminal than legacy internet satellite antennas.

The Starliner team is gearing up to conduct the next uncrewed orbital flight test for the astronaut-carrying spacecraft, and Boeing has revealed a thoughtful mission patch that symbolizes how personal the mission is for everyone involved.

Astra has worked all year to send its rocket to space, and the small satellite launch company finally pulled it off on Tuesday. Astra’s Rocket 3.2 vehicle lifted off from Astra Spaceport at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska, and passed the Karman line for the first time.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch is a big name in space. Koch completed the first all-female spacewalk with Jessica Meir in 2019, and she’s one of nine female astronauts who could be the first woman to walk on the Moon. As SURFER explores in their final issue, Christina Koch is also an experienced Texas surfer — a sport she says isn’t too unlike spacewalking.

Virgin Galactic has ambitious plans to open the edge of space to passengers on its suborbital spaceplane called SpaceShipTwo Unity. Opening the window to space is no simple task, however, and Virgin Galactic is at the mercy of testing and iterating to reach its goal.

NASA is preparing to send the first woman and next man to the Moon in this decade with the Artemis program. Our return to the Moon won’t be like the Apollo program, however, as NASA wants to return in a sustainable fashion: lunar orbit station called gateway, Moon base called Artemis Base Camp, and international partnerships.

The agency briefly paused a critical step in testing the core stage of its new Space Launch System rocket at Stennis Space Center this week. NASA now says it will resume what’s called the wet dress rehearsal test next week. Launching NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and sending the Orion spacecraft around the Moon next year on the Artemis I mission is key to pushing forward with the Artemis program.

The team at the space center in South Mississippi briefly suspended fueling the rocket core stage on Monday after liquid oxygen temperature readings outside of the expected range were detected. Officials described the issue as operational and not caused by the rocket core stage. Now the team believes it has readjusted its fueling procedure to hit the target LOX delivery temperature.

Here’s the latest from NASA’s Artemis blog:

December 11, 2020: SpaceX is targeting 12:55 p.m. ET for the SXM-7 mission. Live stream added below. Scratch that. Upper level wind speeds caused a scrub. Next attempt on Sunday, December 13.

SpaceX is targeting Friday, December 11, for its upcoming SXM-7 mission for SiriusXM. The mission will fly on a flight proven first stage booster that has previously launched and landed six times.

Morgan Stanley published a research note this week following the first high-altitude test flight of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle. The investment firm describes the test flight of SpaceX’s Starship serial number 8 prototype rocket as “a major leap forward in the U.S. space program” for at least three reasons:

Zac Hall and Seth Kurkowski unpack major space events of the week. SpaceX conducted its first high-altitude test flight with Starship, NASA named the initial cadre of astronauts who could go to the Moon, and much more.

Subscribe

• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Overcast

Tune in live on Friday at 9 a.m. PT/12 p.m. ET!

Update: December 10, 2020: Livestream for tonight’s launch is now available. Liftoff is scheduled for 8:09 p.m. EST.

United Launch Alliance has released a new target date for the NROL-44 mission using its massive Delta IV Heavy rocket. The classified mission for the U.S. National Reconnoissance Office Laboratory was originally set for August 26, but multiple failures to launch for various reasons took the launch off the calendar.

SpaceX just completed its highly anticipated, high-altitude flight test with a prototype version of its Starship rocket. Starship serial number 8 successfully launched, readjusted its position for slowing speed, and again adjusted position for landing. The actual landing itself was a total explosion heard from miles away, but that was expected.

SpaceX describes the test flight while teasing the next to come:

On Wednesday, December 9, Starship serial number 8 (SN8) lifted off from our Cameron County launch pad and successfully ascended, transitioned propellant, and performed its landing flip maneuver with precise flap control to reach its landing point. Low pressure in the fuel header tank during the landing burn led to high touchdown velocity resulting in a hard (and exciting!) landing. Re-watch SN8’s flight here.

Thank you to all the locals supporting our efforts in Cameron County and beyond. Congratulations to the entire Starship and SpaceX teams on today’s test! Serial number 9 (SN9) is up next – Mars, here we come!