Seth Kurkowski

During Wednesday’s meeting of the National Space Council (NSpC), the Department of Defense officially came out against the use of anti-satellite (ASAT) tests.

This week Seth and Derek discuss Elon Musk’s email to SpaceX employees asking for help fixing Raptor development issues back in Hawthorne. They also talk about how this email shows the importance of Starship to the survival of Starlink. Finally, they wrap up with the first National Space Council meeting of President Biden’s term and Neutron’s announcement.

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On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris chaired her first meeting of the National Space Council (NSpC) of the new administration. Before this meeting, we were unsure how Biden’s NSpC would work, but it’s clear now it will continue the work President Trump forged – but now also climate change.

Roscosmos and NASA are in talks about the new Prichal docking module and allowing commercial spacecraft to dock to it, possibly relieving scheduling conflicts.

On this Thanksgiving week we had some major events and updates come from the spaceflight industry. Catch up on what happened below.

On Friday morning, Russian docked its new Prichal module to the Earth-facing side of the International Space Station.

This week, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck shared his thoughts on reusable rockets and shared a new shiny Electron design during a press conference.

NASA announced Monday that the launch of its next-generation space telescope would move to December 22 after an issue with one of the adapter clamps caused vibrations to the observatory.

Update: NASA confirmed in a blog post that no additional damage was seen during testing.

Back in July, after Virgin Galactic flew its founder Richard Branson on its SpaceShipTwo spaceplane, the company announced a sweepstakes to win two tickets to space. On Wednesday, the company announced the winner and who they want to bring with them on the journey.

The company that disrupted the smallsat launch industry with its dedicated launcher plans to make the jump to a medium-class launcher. Rocket Lab announced the update would take place on December 2. Read below to learn what we know so far about Rocket Lab’s upcoming Neutron launcher.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is set to launch tonight on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launch will take place from Vandenberg Space Force Base, just north of Los Angeles. Here is how to watch DART’s launch.

This week we saw a significant milestone for the launch provider Astra but were also reminded how far we are from ensuring safe access to space for everyone. Read the top stores from space below.

The United States Space Force has slowly begun to grow its presence everywhere space is present in the Department of Defense. This includes the Air Force Academy, which has now added a formal detachment there from the new branch.

On Monday, NASA’s Office of Inspector General released a report detailing their finding during an audit of the Agency’s Artemis missions. The results are full of information on Starship and predicted timelines for Artemis I through III.

Monday morning, Russia conducted an Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test against one of its satellites, Kosmos 1408. Now the International Space Station is going through multiple debris field passes.

Updated with statements from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin, US Space Command, and the US Department of State.

While the report is focused on the management of NASA’s Artemis program missions, the report revealed a lot about SpaceX’s Starship timeline, Including the long-awaited Starship Orbital Flight Test to take place in Q2 of Fiscal Year 2022.

Updated to reflect the date is for the fiscal year of 2022, not the calendar year 2022. Fiscal years are one quarter ahead of the calendar year.

It has been a busy week for SpaceX, with Crew-2 returning Monday and Crew-3 launching Wednesday. Now the company will launch its first Starlink mission from Florida since last May. SpaceX will launch 53 Starlink satellites into a 560 km (about 350 miles) orbit on this mission. The fourth shell will have 360 Starlink satellites in total.

SpaceX successfully launched and deployed its 53 Starlink satellites early Saturday morning.

Date: Saturday, November 13, 7:19 a.m. EST

Glen de Vries, a passenger on Blue Origin’s NS-18 flight, died in a light plane accident in New Jersey on Thursday afternoon.

After a successful launch late Wednesday night, SpaceX’s Crew-3 is preparing to dock with the International Space Station Thursday afternoon. Read below for live updates as SpaceX’s Dragon Endurance, with Crew-3, works towards docking.

Docking to ISS: 6:33 p.m. EST

Hatch Opening: 8:45 p.m. EST

Welcome Ceremony: 9:20 p.m. EST