This week Seth and Daryl go on a banter about Tesla’s new AI-powered robot, SpaceX’s new ships being built in Port Fourchon, and end with a comprehensive review of Boeing’s Space store.
The smallsat launcher owned by Richard Branson announced it will be joining the trend of other space companies and merging with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). This also comes with some new future plans for Virgin Orbit like turning LauncherOne into a reusable rocket and developing a new LauncherTwo vehicle.
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Last week Tesla pulled a “One more thing” and announced they are working on an autonomous robot powered by their Full Self Driving neural net. Many have questioned the companies choice but there could be a clever reason for Elon’s madness. Yes, it includes Tesla Bots on Mars, it’s always about Mars.
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This week on the Space Explored Podcast Seth Kurkowski and Zac Hall discuss SpaceX’s acquisition of new ships for fairing recovery and most likely droneship operations, Boeing’s continued issues with Starliner, and NASA’s Artemis program progression.
A few weeks back the US Government Accountability Office denied Blue Origin and Dynetic’s protest of NASA’s Human Landing System contract. Since then Blue Origin has been on a PR campaign to throw mud at the winner, SpaceX, and has started a lawsuit against NASA.
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The Colorado-based launch provider United Launch Alliance has reportedly required its employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of October, according to an internal email to ULA employees.
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NASA Astronaut Victor Glover visited NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to get a tour of the SLS rocket being stacked in the VAB.
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The dedicated smallsat launcher, Rocket Lab, announced last Tuesday that they will try to push their launch schedule with a rapid succession of missions starting later this month.
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NASA has been working on a new generation of Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMU), the big white space suits you see on spacewalks, for their Artemis Program. Elon Musk offered his help with xEMU development to make sure it would hit its 2024 deadline.
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Today Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, released his final part of his Starbase tour/interview with Elon Musk. This part of the tour shows what Starbase’s orbital launch pad area looks like the day before teams stacked the orbital mount table.
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Today Northrop Grumman plans to launch their 16th Cygnus spacecraft from Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) for NASA. Today’s mission will see an Antares rocket launch the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station. It will deliver over 3,000 pounds of food, experiments, and other supplies to the station for its crew to use. The spacecraft will also conduct experiments on its way to and after departing the space station.
Date: Tuesday, August 10th at 6:01 p.m. EDT
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This week Seth and Daryl discuss Seth’s trip to Florida for the OFT-2 launch, Starship’s crazy production increase, Daryl’s review of a Space Shuttle book, and they do a comprehensive review of SpaceX’s web store.
This week Seth and Zac discuss Starship’s impressive build and stacking, Inpsiration4 Netflix special, Boeing’s OFT-2 delay, Perseverance first sample return, and more.
Earlier this week Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, released the first part of his interview/tour with Elon Musk at SpaceX’s Starship facility. Saturday, Dodd released his second part featuring a stockpile of Raptor engines for Starship and Super Heavy.
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After a full week of immense progress toward SpaceX’s first orbital Starship vehicles. The SpaceX teams down at Starbase finally stacked their first Starship launch vehicle.
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SpaceX continues to push hard towards the first stack of a Starship and Super Heavy vehicle. Super Heavy Booster 4 is currently positioned on the launch pad and SpaceX is working towards the stacking of Starship 20 as soon as today.
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Over the weekend Tim Dodd, creator of Everyday Astronaut, walked around SpaceX’s Starbase facilities. The 3 part Starbase tour, given by Elon Musk himself with Everyday Astronaut, gave never before seen views of the facility.
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This week on Rapid Unscheduled Discussions, Seth and Daryl have Space Explored founder and editor-in-chief Zac Hall on to discuss the first launch all three say together. The team also discussed possible future endeavors the site could see.
Update: A few hours before launch Boeing announced that the launch was postponed due to issues with “unexpected valve position indications” used in the propulsion system.
After the missed opportunity to dock with the International Space Station due to a timer issue on its first flight a second test flight was needed. Boeing will be performing their second orbital flight test for their Starliner crew capsule as soon as Friday to dock with the ISS. This will also serve as the final test before NASA puts crew onboard to determine if it’s ready.
Date: Tuesday, August 3rd at 1:20 p.m. EDT
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Earlier this week Russia launched their newest module to the International Space Station. After a rough orbit insertion, Nauka caused even more issues when it started firing its thrusters while attached to the International Space Station. Video shows Nauka’s docking mishap.
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This week on the Space Explored Podcast Seth and Jared discuss Blue Origin’s protest being denied by the GAO, SpaceX hustling to get Starship Booster 4 and Ship 20 built, the troubles Nauka caused the ISS, and more.
On Saturday, SpaceX and Inspiration4 both shared images of the crew signing their booster, after arriving for another week of training. The new tradition was started by the members of NASA’s Crew-2 mission, the first crew to fly on a flight-proven booster.
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The Mars 2020 mission consisted of two main payloads, the Perseverance rover and a technology demonstration helicopter called Ingenuity. Perseverance was the 6th rover ever sent to the Martian surface and was based on the successful design of the 2011 Curiosity rover. On this day, Mars 2020 launched to space.
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After a failure in the second stage during their “Running Out Of Toes” mission earlier this year. Rocket Lab is planning to return with a now improved system this week. The mission will carry a test satellite for the United States Space Force to evaluate new sensor technology. In tradition with Rocket Lab’s fun naming style, this launch will be named “It’s A Little Chile Up Here”. This is in honor of the green chile of New Mexico where the Space Force’s Space Test Program is based.
Date: Thursday, July 29th at 4:00 a.m. EDT (2-hour window)
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