Derek Wise

At the beginning of February, James Webb Space Telescope captured its very first images. Now the 18 mirrors have been aligned, bringing the star to a single, in focus point.

Blue Origin is preparing for its fourth human flight, and as previously rumored, SNL star Pete Davidson will take the flight this time around.

On March 9, we learned that in addition to the Starlink terminals SpaceX has been sending to help keep Ukraine online, another Elon Musk company, Tesla, has been fabricating cables and shipping out Tesla Powerwall units to help keep the terminals powered. Now, a video sent to our sister-site Electrek shows how the units can be set up to provide a more mobile power solution.

Upon request, SpaceX quickly took action to help Ukraine stay online during Russia’s invasion. In late February, SpaceX sent the first batch of Starlink user terminals to help keep the country online through infrastructure outages. The terminals have already helped keep the country connected and emergency services online, but Elon Musk’s company is not done helping in ways that governments around the world cannot.

In a new render of DC200, the Crew version of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser Vehicle appears without any external windows. While the lack of external windows isn’t significant for the vehicle while in space, it is particularly notable due to the vehicle’s runway-based landing. Astronauts returning to Earth won’t have any direct view of the runway they are landing on.

During the start of the space race, women were excluded from being Astronauts. The first American woman in space, Sally Ride, wouldn’t fly until 1983, 20 years after the Soviets flew the first woman in space. But even as policies kept women out of the coveted role of Astronaut, Women have always played a vital role in the space program.

SpaceX quickly jumped into action when Ukraine’s vice prime minister asked for help keeping internet connectivity in the country during Russia’s invasion. Now, SpaceX is continuing to assist, pushing updates to improve connectivity options and versatility through continued attacks on the country’s infrastructure.

On Thursday morning, as the sun rose into the sky, SpaceX successfully launched yet another Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit.

SpaceX’s Starlink internet service takes a different approach than most other internet services, one that allows it to operate in remote areas, disconnected from the grid, all around the world. That’s why it has so quickly become a part of aid efforts, be it in Fiji after a volcano eruption, Washington state after wildfires, or Ukraine, in the midst of a Russian invasion.

On February 26, Sierra Space, which just recently began a massive hiring spree, signed an agreement to explore landing its Dream Chaser spaceplane at Oita Airport, in Japan.

The long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope is at its position at L2 and is currently being aligned and calibrated, so the view from each of the 18 mirrors combine to form one clear image. The 18 points of light have been combined, forming a single spot of light that now has to be refined and sharpened through further calibration.

Sierra Space, a space company with extensive experience in space missions that is currently developing its Dream Chaser space plane, is looking to hire 1,000 new employees, nearly doubling its current 1,100 employee workforce.

The launch control center at Kennedy Space Center that first sent mankind to the Moon has now been named after Rocco Petrone, a man instrumental in America’s journey to reach Earth’s celestial neighbor during the Apollo program.

In an update on its website, SpaceX has reaffirmed the company’s commitment to being good stewards of space through safe and sustainable satellite operation. “SpaceX is deeply committed to maintaining a safe orbital environment, protecting human spaceflight, and ensuring the environment is kept sustainable for future missions to Earth orbit and beyond.”

We’ve been following a rocket upper stage that is headed for a crash landing on the Moon for nearly a month now. While the object has been observed from Earth, and its collision time has been estimated at around 7:30 a.m. on March 4, the actual identity of the rocket stage has come into question. Now a spokesperson for China has denied that the object is one of the country’s rocket upper stages.

On Saturday, February 19, Northrop Grumman launched an Antares 230+ rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The rocket carried a Cygnus spacecraft, S.S. Piers Sellers, which has since joined up with the International Space Station.

How on Earth (err.. Mars?) has it been a full year since NASA’s latest Mars rover landed on the surface of Mars!

The rover launched back on July 30, 2020 on an Atlas V 541 rocket and traveled for over 200 days before landing on the surface of the Red Planet.

Just over a week ago we got our very first look at images the James Webb Space Telescope was taking. The images are still far from the quality of scienfic images expected a few months from now, but now the previously messy array of light points has been organized and aligned according to mirror segment location.