Seth Kurkowski

The former Google Lunar XPrize participant iSpace announced today that they will be opening new offices in the US. The new offices will be located in Denver, an already booming aerospace hub. The goal is for iSpace’s new offices to house a full engineering team to support NASA’s Artemis program through their Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

California-based, small sat launcher Rocket Lab released a video Sunday detailing its plan for a resilient space program. Its plan is based on its unique opportunity of having two launch complexes in two different hemispheres.

Yesterday, SpaceX moved its next Crew Dragon to LC-39A. The next step for the Resilience (the name for Dragon given by the crew) will be for it to be integrated onto its booster and brought to the pad for a static fire. The Crew 1 crew will arrive this weekend to start their pre-flight medical checks.

Development on SpaceX’s next-generation rocket has been ramping up down in Boca Chica, Texas. So far SpaceX has conducted two 150-foot test hops of their SN5 & 6 but their goal has been to conduct a 15 km flight. This launch could possibly happen as soon as next week but there has been no positive confirmation of that. SN8 stands on the launch mount at the Boca Chica test site with a few new pieces of hardware on it ready for this test.

Boeing announced today that they are hiring former SpaceX and Tesla employee Jinnah Hosein as their first vice president of software engineering. Hosein led software development for the Falcon family of rockets, Dragon, and Crew Dragon. He also worked at Tesla on their autopilot software.

After an abort shortly before liftoff and weeks of troubleshooting. The brand new Falcon 9 booster launched from SLC-40 last night without any problems. This is a good sign for making sure SpaceX’s Crew 1 mission doesn’t get pushed back, since their booster also needed work for a similar issue they found when inspecting their fleet after the GPS abort.

During the countdown of ULA’s NROL-101 mission, an anomaly was found with a ground system oxygen valve. It’s something that has become common in the last month with both ULA and SpaceX rockets. After the valve was replaced, the issue persisted, and it was determined that it was not possible to fix it within the launch window. ULA is planning another attempt on Friday, November 6.

Back in 2004, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta probe to a comet called 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Alongside the probe was a small lander called Philae, which had a goal to study the surface of 67P and become the first spacecraft to land on a comet.

Philae had a unique landing system containing harpoons that will shoot out to anchor the spacecraft to the surface, as well as thrusters that would fire to keep it on the surface to keep it from bouncing in the low gravity of the comet.

Tonight at 5:54 PM ET, United Launch Alliance intends to launch a national security mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. The countdown began today at 11:04 AM. You can track the live countdown on ULA’s site.

Firefly, one of the newest launch providers in the commercial sector, has its first mission in December. In an interview with Cheddar, CEO Tom Markusic talked about its future plans and its involvement in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services.

Newcomer to the satellite broadband network AST & Science has gotten looks from NASA for possibly being a troublesome constellation. AST is planning on placing about 240 satellites in the range of 690-740 km orbits. The goal for AST is to provide worldwide 4G/5G coverage.

United Launch Alliance’s next mission is getting geared up to launch this week. ULA attempted to roll out its Atlas V rocket out to its pad but ended up returning the rocket back to its vertical integration facility. Media was told during remote camera setup scheduled for today that the rocket will be rolled back, and they will have to reschedule setup for a later time.

Commercial missions from Cape Canaveral have grown in recent years. SpaceX has been building out its Starlink internet constellation, for example, and other commercial launch providers are coming online. With more commercial launchers coming to the Cape, NASA and Space Force are reevaluating how they manage resources to upkeep launchpads and related infrastructure.

New reporting from Florida Today highlights this strategy in action as a key piece of infrastructure is due to be replaced under new management soon.

Today Vector updated their website, which previously had nothing but a video from retired Air Force general Robert Spalding. It now states that Vector is returning and focusing on sub-orbital and orbital launch vehicles and government and commercial contracts.

Supercluster announced the release of its Astronaut Database this week. It’s an ongoing collection of every living thing that has gone to space so far, including humans, dogs, cats, and even fruit flies. It details which missions they were a part of, vehicles they flew on, and which country they flew for.

Last week, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft completed its sample gathering on the surface of Bennu. When the operation was finished, the team announced it will examine the sample over the next week to see if it would need to reattempt the tag.

Today Firefly announced they will be switching the production of their rocket airframes to an automated fiber placement system. They are retrofitting their facility in Briggs, Texas with two machines from Ingersoll Machine Tools that will begin producing their Alpha rocket frame in May 2021.

Today during a teleconference, Kathy Lueders (Associate Administrator, Human Exploration and Operations, NASA), Steve Stich (Manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA), and Hans Koenignsmann (Vice President, Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX) announced that SpaceX’s Crew 1 flight, the first operational flight of the Commercial Crew Program, is now planning to launch at 7:59 p.m. EST on Saturday, November 14, with its backup launch time of 7:27 p.m. EST on Sunday, November 15.

Tuesday, October 27, SpaceX’s automatous spaceport drone ship Just Read the Instructions (JRTI) returned to port carrying booster B1060 after it successfully landed from its launch of the October 24 Starlink mission. This is the booster’s third landing and its second time landing on JRTI.

Monday, October 26: Ms. Tree, one of SpaceX’s fairing catching ships, returns home to Port Canaveral carrying two fairings used during the Starlink mission on October 18th. Ms. Tree spent a week in Morehead City after experiencing a less than optimal fairing catch where the net broke and the fairing half was left dangling from the net.

Though they will not be launching from US soil just yet, the California-based rocket company plans to launch 10 CubeSats into low Earth orbit from their launch complex in Mahia, New Zealand. This mission will be its second since they experienced an in-flight failure in July.