SpaceX’s presence down at their private spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas has grown immensely over the last couple of years in both infrastructure and employees. One of the most prominent new structures to pop up in the last year has been the High Bay.
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In the last 2 weeks, SpaceX has launched 3 Starlink missions with a total of 180 satellites deployed into low Earth orbit. SpaceX has been increasing its launch cadence all year, pushing what some thought was possible. With increased operations at the port to get the just received droneship back out to sea, SpaceX churned out Starlink missions like they were routine.
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During the Shuttle era, NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos worked out a deal to trade seats between the Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz capsule. When the Shuttle retired this deal went away and NASA had to now pay for each seat it was going to take up until NASA could get its Commerical Crew Program up and running.
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Astra, an up-and-coming launch company that will soon compete with SpaceX, announced today that former Tesla automation lead Pablo Gonzalez to help scale the production of their rockets. This comes not long after Astra hired a former Apple Car project lead to be Astra’s Chief Engineer.
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Over the last few years, the pieces of NASA’s Artemis I mission have slowly been making their way to Kennedy Space Center for final checkouts and stacking. For the past couple of months, NASA has been preparing to receive the final parts of the rocket with the first step towards a fully stacked SLS finishing the other day.
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The new rocket built to be able to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and give ULA an increase in launch capability is getting very close to its first launch. The new fairings are the latest in parts beginning final testing.
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This week Space Explored’s Seth Kurkowski and Daryl Sausse discuss SpaceX’s highly successful Starship flight, the frenzy of Starlink launches coming from the cape, new attractions at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, and more.
On the heels of their last launch earlier this week, SpaceX is already planning to launch their next batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit as soon as this weekend. Starlink will provide worldwide high-speed internet through the use of thousands of satellites in low earth orbit.
Date: Sunday, March 14th, 6:01 AM EDT
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SpaceX’s Starlink internet constellation is growing every month with the California-based aerospace company launching between 2 and 3 batches of Starlink satellites each month, the next for this month coming in the next couple of days.
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With the wreckage of SN10 still laying on the landing pad, SpaceX is already moving forward with the next Starship prototype ready for testing. SN10 improved greatly over the last two vehicles giving SN11 a much higher chance of survival.
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SpaceX has had launch sites on both coasts for years, Florida for most launches has been the primary location for customers to get their payloads into space. On the west coast, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California offers a specialized launch site for missions that require polar orbits.
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Starlink L17 has been at the pad for weeks now, having its launch date repeatedly pushed back with even having L18 and L19 pass it and making it to space. It finally made it to countdown but aborted just before liftoff.
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Teams at SpaceX’s South Texas test facility have been working to get SN10 ready to fly its first high altitude flight. After 2 static fires and a swap of a raptor engine SN10 finally stood on its test stand ready to fly but the computer called an abort just before liftoff.
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This week join Space Explored’s Seth Kurkowski and Jared Base as they discuss Rocket Lab’s new rocket in development, concerns following New Glenn’s additional delay, updates on Starship, and more.
Unistellar, the company behind the eVscope smart telescope is putting on a Messier Marathon that they hope will break the record for the largest event of its kind. The event will be full of amateur and professional astronomers gazing at the sky to find as many Messier objects as they can and will include a week of outreach events to get more people into astronomy.
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The launch provider that has made themselves famous for launching dedicated missions for SmallSats on their Electron rocket is moving up to a new market. In a video Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck announced they are building a medium-class launch vehicle that will be able to launch not just heavier and larger satellites but also in the future crew.
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In celebration of Black History Month Vice President Kamala Harris was invited on board to the ISS to speak virtually with Astronaut Victor Glover about what it is like to be in space.
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The new heavy-lift launcher was supposed to take its first flight later this year but that was taking into account they would get the recent NSSL contracts from the Department of Defense which ended up going to SpaceX and ULA. Now the company has revised its plan for when it will debut its new launcher.
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After a relatively quiet week at SpaceX’s Starship facility in Boca Chica, Texas we finally got to see Starship SN10 come to life for a quick static fire on Test Stand A. The vehicle has been out on the pad for about a month now, being moved from the manufactory facility while SN9 was still on Test Stand B.
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Spaceflight Inc has been the go-to company for getting your payload into space for the past 10 years. They went from a scrappy start-up trying to find excess space in missions to fly their customers to launching dedicated rideshare missions tailored for their customers. We were able to speak with their CEO, Curt Blake, and learn more about how they operate.
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Join Space Explored’s Seth Kurkowski and Jared Base this week as they discuss NASA landing its newest rover on the surface of Mars, the newest crewmate to join the Inspiration4 mission to space, and an update to Starship progress in Boca Chica.
After battling cancer at the very hospital she now works at to help other children battling cancer, Hayley Arceneaux is already an inspiration to us all. Now she will get to continue her amazing life story by partaking in the first all civilian mission to space.
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After yesterday’s mind-blowing Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) video reveal and dump of raw images for the public to gloss over, some have been looking closer at the pattern used on the parachute. While most parachutes use special designs, JPL has been know to hide secret messages all around their spacecraft and in less than a day Redditors decoded it.
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After 3 days of downloading data from the rover via JPL’s Deep Space Network NASA finally shared with us the videos that documented the entry descent and landing process that took place on Mars last Thursday.
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