This week SpaceX hoisted up and attached a new crew access arm at the company’s SLC-40 pad. The addition of a second crew tower gives SpaceX the flexibility to launching at either of their East Coast launch sites.
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Last week Astra Space, a space launch and engine company, defaulted on its debt leading to the need to take on a short term funding round in hope it can find more before running out of cash. The company has been struggling for the past year to keep its stock price above the $1.00 mark and get its Rocket 4 developed.
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ABL Space Systems announced Monday that the FAA closed its mishap investigation into the anomaly that took place during its inaugural RS1 launch. The company now has a list of corrective actions to go through before it can attempt to launch its rocket again.
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This week we have four launches from SpaceX and from both coats. Not just that, but two of the launches this week will feature RTLS landings. That means only one thing, non-Starlink launches!
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Elon Musk shared on X, his social media site formally known as Twitter, that Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow. While Musk didn’t state any time period, if this means over the operational history of the product, that would be a big deal for the product’s success.
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In June of 2023 Virgin Galactic began commercial flights of its VSS Unity spaceplane for paying customers. Its ticket holders wait list to fly is over 800 long, with only four available seats, that’s a lot of flying just to get through existing customers and more are on the way. So how many flights has Virgin Galactic performed? Here’s a list of every flight from Virgin Galactic in the year 2023.
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Sierra Space showed off its first flight ready Dream Chaser spaceplane this week before it heads off for launch testing at NASA’s Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio. While there’s still some time before it launches, after years of delays it finally has launch in site.
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Most likely outdated renders of SpaceX’s Starship rocket in its Human Landing System configuration show a much more refined design that could show where the company is heading. Although their authenticity is not 100% confirmed yet.
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The UK Space Agency and Axiom Space have signed a memorandum of understanding to perform a two week spaceflight with an all British crew in the future. No destination or crew have been announced just yet but the UK Space Agency is now working to design the mission around a core of scientific experiments.
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The FAA announced that it has finished its safety review of SpaceX’s Starship rocket. This is another big step in getting an updated launch license for SpaceX to perform Starship’s second launch. However, there is still another step needed before SpaceX can perform that next test.
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The International Space Station is designed to always be crewed by cosmonauts and astronauts. For this reason, women and men have been living and working in space constantly since the first Expedition mission in the year 2000. So how many people are in space right now?
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While we seem to miss rocket launches taking place on Halloween in recent years, the day hasn’t always been bare of space goodies. Back in 2015, a spooky asteroid paid a visit for some intergalactic trick or treat.
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According to a Dutch astronomer, we might have just seen the aftermath of two giant planets colliding in a distant star system. However, other astronomers have other explanation for the observations. Which is true?
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Intuitive Machines announced Friday that it has received its launch window for its IM-1 mission to land on the Moon for NASA’s CLPS program. This could quickly become the first CLPS mission if Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One delays from its currently launch date of Christmas Eve.
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This week Virgin Galactic is returning for its six flight within six months. Galactic 5 will be one of many launches happening this week, two others from China and possibly three from SpaceX.
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After suffering an inflight failure in September, Rocket Lab gave an update where it said it hopes to begin launches again from New Zealand with in Q4 of this year. An investigation is still underway to determine the fault of September’s launch.
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Early Friday morning, Astrobotic’s first lunar lander departed its offices in Pittsburgh for a drive down to Florida to be integrated onto the Atlas V for launch as soon as December. A flight the company has been waiting to do for years.
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Blue Origin Friday unveiled its Mk1 version of its Blue Moon lander that holds a contract with NASA for crewed Artemis missions. Mk1 is capable of delivering three-metric tons of cargo to anywhere on the lunar surface. However, it is only cable of landing cargo and science payloads, and is not reusable.
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In an interview with CNBC, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said that they plan to fly its new Vulcan every other week by the second half of 2025. This is thanks to their new grasp on the commercial launch market that Vulcan is expected to be able to compete with SpaceX on.
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After long delays due to engines and the rocket’s Centaur upper stage, ULA finally has given a launch date for when it thinks it can launch its new Vulcan rocket. In an interview with CNBC, ULA CEO Tory Bruno shared the date and a lot of other company updates we’ll expand upon in future articles.
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One of the big narratives that we’ve been glued to all 2023 has been SpaceX’s Starship being sidelined by regulators. This week we saw another wet dress rehearsal, as that’s all they can do, while a large number of Fish and Wildlife personnel comb land around Starbase for their review.
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One of the more crazy, and extremely exciting, missions NASA is working on for space exploration is the Dragonfly spacecraft. This car-sized drone will explore the alien world of Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, by flying around it instead of driving like its Martian counter-parts. It just received some wind tunnel testing with a half-scale test vehicle.
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After years of waiting for money to upgrade the historic launch site, Russia and Kazakhstan have come to an agreement as to what to do with the place humanity began its journey into space. Sadly, it won’t be seeing any more launches in its future.
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This week is an exciting week if you follow Chinese human spaceflight as we are set for the next crewed rotation launch for China’s Tiangong Space Station. Russia will also see a launch this week and over the weekend, we’ll see a double header from SpaceX.
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