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On April 23rd, at 5:49 ET SpaceX launched a Dragon 2 Crew Capsule to the International Space Station.

If a dog is man’s best friend, can a robot dog named Zeus be best friends with a rocket to Mars? We’d like to believe so, and that’s what appears to be happening in South Texas.

LabPadre who documents SpaceX activity at its Boca Chica facility caught footage of what appears to be a Boston Dynamics-made robot dog running around the Starship test site.

After the success of its first flight at the beginning of this week, Ingenuity took its second flight early this morning. This flight pushed the tech demo to do more challenging tasks as they step through their testing campaign this month.

SpaceX’s Dragon capsule has been a huge success with the launch of DM-2 and Crew 1 for NASA last year. This year they have two more missions to launch crew rotations to the International Space Station under the Commercial Crew Program with the next coming up this week.

Date: Friday, April 23nd, 5:49 AM EDT

In a press release Wednesday, Virgin Orbit announced that they were selected by geospatial analytics company Hypersat, and QinetiQ, a defense and security company, to launch 6 hyperspectral satellites into low earth orbit.

Tomorrow, April 22nd, Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will be making its second flight.

Early Monday morning NASA’s Ingenuity took its first flight into the Martian atmosphere. This marks the first powered flight on another planet 118 years after the Wright brothers took their first flight here on Earth. You can celebrate the occasion by building your own Ingenuity out of LEGOs!

After the announcement of the first successful flight of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter people have taken to social media to share their excitement, including companies and celebrities.

Amazon’s answer to SpaceX’s satellite-based Starlink internet service is called Project Kuiper, and now the company has secured flights on ULA’s Atlas V rocket. These launches will be the first of many to build out the constellation of 3,236 satellites.

On a livestream from mission control early this morning, the Ingenuity team received the very first data confirming the successful flight of Mars Helicopter Ingenuity.

After six months working on the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins is returning to Earth tonight alongside her mission colleagues Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov. NASA will have live coverage through the night of the crew’s departure from ISS and return to Kazakhstan.

After delays in the first flight of Ingenuity due to a failure to complete the first high-speed spin test, Ingenuity may be back on track. NASA shared today that Ingenuity has successfully completed a high-speed spin test; an important test before the first flight.

NASA is buying SpaceX’s Starship rocket a $2.9 billion ticket to the Moon, and the ramifications of that decision are plentiful. The Washington Post was first to report that Starship is NASA’s sole choice for the Artemis human landing system for astronauts going to the Moon. The agency later held a press conference with reporters during which it made the news official while adding more color to the story. NASA has also published a source selection statement written by Kathy Lueders detailing specifics around its decision.

NASA will soon have a new second-in-command leading America’s space agency. The Biden administration announced its intent to nominate former astronaut Pam Melroy for the role of deputy administrator.

This week join Space Explored’s Seth Kurkowski and Zac Hall to discuss the announcement of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle winning NASA’s Human Landing System contract, Blue Origin’s 15th New Shepard launch, Sun ‘n Fun coverage, and more.

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NASA is actively working on Artemis, a space exploration program that includes a mission to send the first woman and first person of color to the Moon during this decade. Astronauts will travel from Earth in NASA’s Orion spacecraft which will launch on the space agency’s Space Launch System rocket. SLS gives Orion the boost it needs to reach the Moon, but Orion doesn’t touch down on the lunar surface. A third vehicle called a human landing system is needed to transport astronauts to the surface of the Moon. One year ago, NASA selected three potential partners for providing the human landing system for Artemis 3, the first mission in the program that includes walking on the Moon.

Later today, the U.S. space agency will officially announce which partner it will proceed in funding for development. Ace Washington Post space reporter and author Christian Davenport has scooped the 4 p.m. EDT press conference with source selection details. According to Davenport, SpaceX has won the contract with its Starship-based human landing system bid.

It was announced today that Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Space Systems division would be splitting off into its own, independent company. This move comes shortly after SNC announced their future plans for space, including an inflatable space station.

SNC has a long history of working on space systems, and Sierra Space further emphasizes its commitment to achieving its goals. Moving the Space Systems division independent will likely result in these goals reaching fruition faster.

After having to cancel 2020’s events due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Sun ‘n Fun is back on and better than ever. A week-long air show and aviation convention, the benefits of which will empower future generations to take to the skies.

At 10:16 pm Eastern Time, a Meteor lit up the sky over Florida. The meteors large streak was spotted by people across central and south Florida.

Firefly Aerospace is nearing its inaugural flight. Firefly’s first Alpha rocket, which arrived at Vandenberg in November, is now vertical on the launch in preparation for a static fire and launch.

[Update Below] On April 10th, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shared in a Status Update that the first flight of Mars Helicopter Ingenuity has been rescheduled to No Earlier Than April 14th. Ingenuity underwent a low-speed spin test of its rotor yesterday, reaching 50rpm. When the helicopter moved to begin the full-speed spin test of its rotors the watchdog timer expired.

Blue Origin announced this weekend that they will attempt to launch their 15th New Shepard flight later this week. This marks the second flight for New Shephard this year following the January flight of Blue’s 4th vehicle, the first built for future crewed flights.