The countdown to the launch of Artemis 2 has begun. On December 19, NASA’s Exploration Ground System (EGS) team stacked another booster segment. The left aft center booster segment was added to the launch pad. This milestone officially starts the clock for Artemis 2’s launch.

NASA held a press conference yesterday to talk about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and Starliner. In attendance were Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate; Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program; Bill Spetch, operations integrations manager; Emily Nelson, chief flight director at JSC; and Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program element.

NASA held a conference today at 4:00 pm EST to report on the status of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). It recently went into Safe Mode due to an ongoing issue with the Telescope’s gyros. The telescope uses these gyros to maintain its orientation in space.

Back on April 20, SpaceX launched their Starship rocket from Boca Chica, Texas. The test was a major milestone for the program which had previously spent 4 years in development, starting in 2019. The launch used Starship vehicle ‘Ship 24’ and Booster 7 (also known as B7). Together the two vehicles launched into the Texan skies, where issues rapidly started developing. The issues eventually resulted in the vehicle entering an uncontrolled spin, whereafter the vehicle was remotely destroyed over the Gulf of Mexico.

In case you missed it, on March 29, a test article for the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Centaur V experienced an anomaly that resulted in a fireball. This occurring just over a month before the upper stage’s launch, then set for May 4.

In February, Space Explored interviewed five incredible members of NASA and Jacobs who were critical to the Artemis 1 mission, the maiden flight for NASA’s next-generation moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), and Orion spacecraft.

On December 21, NASA reported that the Mars lander InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) missed replying to its second call from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, likely as a result of the power waning.  This led to NASA officially concluding its four-year mission on Mars. There are several elements that led to the lander’s loss of power, leading many to question how the vehicle could have been saved. Followers of the mission have common questions about how the vehicle could’ve been saved. They also ask about the fate of Mars’ other remaining operational vehicles.

Earlier this month, NASA moved the SLS engine section for Artemis 3 into the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This comes as a distinct change from previous SLS core stages like the recently flown Artemis 1 and Artemis 2, which are still being assembled at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana. The biggest questions arising from this change are what NASA’s plan for Artemis 3 is and onwards and what stirred this sudden change.

At 2:42 pm ET (1:42 pm CT), SpaceX performed another static fire of their Super Heavy booster. This test was performed using 11 of the 33 Raptor 2 engines. These static fire tests are intended to test the booster and ground support equipment to prove the system’s readiness for a planned orbital flight test and many future missions supporting Starlink and eventually NASA’s Artemis Missions.

Currently, we’re at L-6 days to the next launch attempt of NASA’s maiden flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) with the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis 1 mission. A critical test flight for the launch systems, however, Florida is yet again under threat from another tropical storm.

Three years after its last flight, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy has returned to flight on this cloudy Florida morning. The primary payload of this launch is the classified USSF-44 satellite, with two other satellites co-manifested. The launch occurred on November 1 at 9:41 a.m. Eastern Time, successfully delivering the satellites to their targeted geosynchronous orbit.

On February 23, 2022, an OSHA Inspection was opened after a SpaceX employee was injured during a test of the Raptor V2 engine. The incident left the employee in a coma for months. Though the incident resulted in a rather disastrous outcome, these hazards are not unknown or unusual for spaceflight testing.