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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.

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.

New information found shows that Space Florida, Florida’s spaceport authority, will be building a new complex for astronaut training near Blue Origin’s factory.

SpaceX Starship will officially be the single solution for the first lunar landing mission under NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon. This comes after the US GAO backed the decision to use Starship as the lander, stating it didn’t break any laws with the selection. The space agency first announced its decision to land astronauts on the Moon with SpaceX in April, but legal protests from the Blue Origin-led National Team and Dynetics halted progress for the contract.

The new “Nauka” Space Station module arrived at the ISS early this morning. Since then, it has caused the station to lose attitude control by firing its thrusters without being commanded. The ISS has since regained attitude control.

On July 21st, a new module to join the International Space Station launched on a Proton rocket into orbit. Since then numerous issues with the Nauka module have cropped up, but recently, it seems to be trending well.

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)

‘For All Mankind’ has captivated audiences for two seasons with a look at what may have happened if the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union had continued. Now, it appears that Apple TV+ has seemingly green lit For All Mankind season 4, in addition to the third season which is filming now.

This week on Rapid Unscheduled Discussions Seth and Daryl discuss Wally Funk going to space, Europa Clipper moving to Falcon Heavy, Elon meme page on TikTok, and sports got brought up more than it should.

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This week on the Space Explored Podcast Seth and Derek discuss what it means for Jeff Bezos to go to space, new Super Heavy boosters, Europa Clipper getting a new ride to Jupiter, and more.

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This week, the focus has been on Blue Origin. On Tuesday, they completed the first crewed flight of New Shepard, flying the oldest and youngest person to ever visit space.

While the news this week primarily focused on Blue Origin’s flight to space on Tuesday, SpaceX has continued to work towards the first flight of Starship Super Heavy. This week, Super Heavy had its first static fire, while Starship may see some slight design changes moving forward.

SpaceX’s winning streak continued Friday with NASA’s announcement that it has selected Falcon Heavy to launch the agency’s long-awaited Europa Clipper mission in 2024.

NASA and Boeing will attempt to launch the Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) mission on July 30th at 2:53 PM EDT. This comes after a successful Flight Readiness Review today.

Update: Skittles will not be selling these in stores but rather giving a select few away on their social media platforms.

Along with the fancy watches, sapphire dotted wings, and national media attention, the crew of Blue Origin’s NS-16 flight also carried some Skittles with them to space. Now the company will give away a number of limited-edition Skittles Zero-G pack of the candies on their social media channels.

Over the last two weeks, we saw the first two private commercial space flights. Both companies pinned their participants with their versions of “Astronaut Wings” but are they real astronauts? The FAA just released their requirements for the title of astronaut.

In May of this year, Rocket Lab attempted to launch their 20th mission to space. The mission ended with failure of the Electron’s upper stage, but now they are ready to move on to their next flight.

It has been over a month since Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos announced he was flying to space. After decades of development, and many test flights of the New Shepard rocket, the day finally arrived.

This week we welcome the addition of a new podcast for Space Explored, Rapid Unscheduled Discussions. Started by Seth Kurkowski and Daryl Sausse at the beginning of 2020. The show takes a more laid-back and humorous approach to discussing current events. This week they go over what they missed over their (rather long) two-week break.

This morning Blue Origin is planning their first crewed flight of their suborbital New Shepard rocket. The crew will be Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, legendary aviator Wally Funk, and early ticket holder Oliver Daemen.