Monday morning Netflix released the first two episodes of their Inspiration4 documentary series. The series will cover the crew’s journey to and from space onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. This week we got to see the first part of their journey, the selection of the Inspiration4 crew.
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Last month Netflix announced that a docuseries about the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission would be coming to their platform. Today the first 2 episodes became available to stream for those that have a subscription.
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Thursday afternoon Firefly Aerospace attempted to launch their first Alpha rocket. Firefly’s first Alpha rocket, while the liftoff was nominal, suffered a failure a few minutes into launch.
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Firefly is working towards the first launch of their Alpha rocket, as well as the company’s first launch at all. While this is a test flight FireFly will have real payloads on board this rocket. The smallsats come from a variety of education and research programs that competed for a free spot on the maiden flight. The goal of this mission is to validate the design of the Alpha rocket and its subsystems.
Date: Thursday, September 2nd, 9:59 p.m. (Window closes September 3rd at 12:00 a.m. EDT)
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During July’s Unity 22 spaceflight of Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, The New Yorker reports that the pilots deviated off their approved course. In the report, they state the FAA has begun an investigation; Virgin Galactic replies.
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This week on the Space Explored podcast Seth and Derek talk about SpaceX’s recent and upcoming launches, the newest members of SpaceX’s fleet, Astra’s failed launch attempt, and more.
Update: In a reply to the images SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed the tread is for a new crane they purchased.
There is something exciting about seeing that SpaceX “X” painted on the side of some sort of machinery. Again we have another social media post showing possible new SpaceX hardware but this time much further away from the US.
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The shiny new droneship SpaceX built in Louisiana has done its first mission this weekend. A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG) returned to Port Canaveral with its first booster on top.
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The newest addition to SpaceX’s fleet, Doug, has finished its trip from Port Fourchon, Louisiana to Port Canaveral, Florida, arriving late Monday night.
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Developers for Kerbal Space Program 2 released a video on their YouTube channel showing off some creations they have been working on.
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Hurricane Ida first made landfall at Port Fourchon a port we know very well due to its connection to the SpaceX ships that have undergone there. The storm has been pounding the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines for the past 24 hours.
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This week Astra launched their 5th test rocket which didn’t reach orbit again, both SpaceX and Blue Origin launched missions for NASA, and emails possibly leaked from ULA show their dark side.
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After weather scrubbed SpaceX’s first attempt to launch CRS-23, they will be trying again tonight. This mission will feature a Falcon 9 rocket launching the company’s Dragon 2 cargo vehicle to the International Space Station. This will be SpaceX’s 23rd mission for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program and 3rd for the CRS-2 contract.
Date: Sunday, August 29th at 3:14 a.m. EDT
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Saturday Astra attempted their 5th test flight of one of their smallsat launchers from Kodiak Island, Alaska. While Astra’s Rocket 3.3 did not make it to space this time, it did give watchers a show when it slightly recovered after an engine failure.
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Astra plans to launch their first commercial mission on top of their Rocket 3 vehicle. While the rocket has yet to reach orbit, the issue that caused the shortcoming was very minor and Astra is confident it will make it to orbit this time on this 4th launch. The payload on this mission will be the first of 2 demonstration missions for the US Space Force named STP-27AD1. This mission will be the companies first launch of the year.
Date: Friday, August 28th at 6:35 p.m. EDT
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In the last two years, we have seen SpaceX go from building circular rings in a dirt patch to having a full rocket factory in South Texas. On this day 2 years ago their first creation, Starhopper, makes its famed 150-meter flight.
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After the successful first crewed flight last month, Blue Origin launched 17th New Shepard mission full of scietific payloads for NASA and other researchers.
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Several users of SpaceX’s satellite-based internet service, Starlink, have reported the service is not working, showing the possibility of a global outage. Starlink currently operates in beta, and SpaceX warns that outages are possible while the satellite constellation is built out.
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Departing today, was SpaceX’s shiny new droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG) ahead of their CRS-23 mission to resupply the International Space Station for NASA.
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Six internal emails were leaked this week that share statements from United Launch Alliance Vice President Robbie Sabathier to a lobbyist about NASA’s “incompetent” leaders and favoritism towards SpaceX.
The emails leaked from the ULA employee also contain wild speculation that contracts awarded to SpaceX by NASA were tied to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s inferred support for former President Trump.
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Tuesday NASA released a video on their YouTube channel that went over why we are heading back to the Moon and what we expect we can learn from going.
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Ars Technica reported Tuesday that Blue Origin has rolled out the first test tank for their “Project Jarvis” New Glenn upper stage. Ars photographer Trevor Mahlmann captured photos showing the tank’s movement at Blue’s site on LC-36 in Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
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On this day 15 years ago, children across the world had to come up with a new way to remember the names of the planets in the solar system. No more pizzas were coming from our educated mothers, instead it would be… nachos?
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This week Seth and Derek discuss the possibility Tesla Bots have with working with SpaceX here on Earth and in space. They also talk about Blue Origin’s lawsuit against NASA’s HLS contract and upcoming launches from the US.