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Seth Kurkowski

SethKurk

Managing Editor at Space Explored

Seth Kurkowski covers launches and general space news for Space Explored. He has been following launches from Florida since 2018.

Seth’s first launch was SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Demo in February of 2018 and has been hooked on them ever since.

He also helped start Space Coast Launch Ambassadors, an outreach group advocating for space exploration while helping the general public enjoy rocket launches from the Space Coast.

Seth co-hosts the Space Explored weekly podcast as well as the Rapid Unscheduled Discussions podcast both of which you can listen to here on SpaceExplored.com

Email tips, pitches, typos, and feedback to kurk@spaceexplored.com.

Follow: Twitter @SethKurk + Instagram @sethkurk.

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This Week in Launch: Super Thursday? Rocket Lab, SpaceX, Russia, and China prepare for launches on the same day

On Thursday of this week we have a total of four planned launches from around the world from the biggest players in the space launch market. They include Rocket Lab’s first LC-2 mission in 2024, a crew rotation to the ISS by Russia, and a cargo resupply mission to the ISS by SpaceX.

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SpaceX lights itself the biggest birthday candle with an overall successful Starship launch

SpaceX completed its third Starship test flight early Thursday morning which ended as an almost 100% successful missions, meeting almost all of its goals. While the booster was lost prior to ocean splashdown, the more important part, the second stage, reached space and conducted several in-space tests.

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The story of Odysseus: America’s first lunar landing since Apollo

Over the last few weeks we’ve been following the travels of Intuitive Machine‘s IM-1 mission. The first of its kind lander made several firsts, the biggest being bringing the commercial market to the lunar surface for the first time. While the mission has ended for now, there’s a lot to talk about good old Odysseus.

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Starship expanding to Cape Canaveral as SpaceX test IFT-3 rocket

Over the last week there has been a lot going on around SpaceX‘s biggest and baddest rocket in development. While the action has returned down in Starbase for pre-IFT-3 flight tests, action might come in the future to the Space Force side of Florida’s Space Coast, according to the Department of the Air Force.

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This Week in Launch: Another week of more SpaceX and Chinese launches

After a few weeks of featuring at least one big name launch that makes writing these articles easy, we’re back to more standard communication satellites. Two launches from SpaceX are on the schedule with a third possible over the weekend. China, not to be left out is also scheduled for a Long March 5 with an unknown payload on top.

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Varda Space finally gets approval to return its first mission from space

This week Varda Space received the nations first ever Part 450 reentry license from the FAA, green lighting its W-1 mission for touchdown in the Utah desert. After eight months in space the Varda Space built capsule and Rocket Lab built spacecraft bus will finally get its chance to return its crystal experiment to Earth.

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spacex crew-6 dragon on pad

List of all SpaceX crewed flights to space

Since 2020, SpaceX has been the leader in launching crews to space for NASA. However, NASA’s bet on turning its Commercial Crew Program winners into commercial options has paid off with several missions in the books or planned that are for entirely private customers. Here’s a list of every crewed flight from SpaceX and who flew on it.

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For one last time a Space Shuttle has been lifted into launch position

Monday evening Space Shuttle Endeavour was lifted and installed onto its final resting spot which it should be rather familiar with. For the first time since the Space Shuttle’s retirement a full Shuttle stack has been assembled in launch position. However, this one won’t be rolling out to any launch pad any time soon.

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