Space Explored

SpaceX is just days away from conducting its first high-altitude test flight with its next-generation Starship vehicle. The latest details are included in Geoff Barrett’s newest Space Infographic shared with Space Explored.

Back in early March, a small satellite launch company called Astra attempted to launch its first orbital rocket as part of the DARPA Launch Challenge. Launch conditions weren’t cooperative, however, and the launch attempt was scrubbed. Months later, Astra returned to Kodiak, Alaska, for another launch attempt.

The popular sci-fi drama series “For All Mankind” returns to Apple TV+ with season 2 on February 19, 2021. A genius marketing campaign has launched ahead of the season premiere that includes a new mission patch set autographed by the legendary Ronald Moore.

A team has started applying the “Launch America” logo onto the side of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The new art celebrates NASA’s now-operational Commercial Crew Program and return to crewed flight from U.S. soil after the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

NASA conducted a readiness review from the teams at Stennis Space Center before the long-awaited Green Run Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) for Space Launch System’s core stage. The teams are all “Go” to begin the seventh and final test before teams ignite the four RS-25 engines (former Space Shuttle main engines) for a full duration burn strapped into the B-2 test stand in South Mississippi near Interstate-10 and the Louisiana state line.

Ultimately, the Wet Dress Rehearsal marks one of a few preliminary steps remaining before NASA launches its Artemis I mission in November 2021. Artemis I will be the first flight of Space Launch System, in which NASA’s new rocket sends its Orion spacecraft around the Moon for a lunar flyby mission. Artemis II will introduce astronauts to the lunar flyby route, and Artemis III will deliver the first woman and next man to the Moon.

Today, Virgin Galactic has shown off its new non-pressurized flightsuits that its pilots will be wearing in the near future. The flightsuits were designed and created with Technical Spacewear Partner Under Armour.

Shane Kimbrough serves as commander for the next SpaceX crewed mission called Crew-2, and this week the NASA astronaut revealed their official mission patch. The international crew that consists of Kimbrough (NASA), Megan McArthur (NASA), Akihiko Hoshide (JAXA), and Thomas Pesquet (ESA) will launch from LC-39A no earlier than March 30, 2021.

The vibrant patch design includes the last names of each crew member, a fiery red dragon affixed to a starry background, and the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft launching upward. “The determined expression of the dragon in the patch reflects the strength of the team and their contribution to the exploration of space,” says Kimbrough.

This week Blue Origin continued to test its BE-7 engine that will be used as part of NASA’s Artemis program. The testing entailed a fourth thrust chamber test, which proved successful and went according to plan. 

In 1985, Coca-Cola was struggling with its brand. The companies biggest competitor, Pepsi, had multiple enormous advertising campaigns that were in full swing, and the public was loving it. It didn’t take long before Pepsi really started to eat away at Coke’s target audience.

Space Force has had the goal of building up a branch that is different than the rest of the military. A branch that is more agile and faster than the rest, something needed to be successful in the space domain. Space Force is continuing with that ideology with the new acquisitions command, bringing a fresh look to how contracts are awarded.

Alcohol has a complicated relationship when it comes to NASA and space, according to Supercluster. The stuff is completely banned from consumption in space by NASA, but a surprising amount of it somehow manages to sneak its way into space every year. So, how does all this alcohol end up in places like the International Space Station?

Live from their hangar in Jacksonville, Aevum unveiled its RAVN X autonomous air-launch vehicle to the world today. Aevum has been operating under the radar before today while developing a new system for affordable and easy access to low Earth orbit.

Founded in 2016, Aevum is a company built on the dream of its founder and CEO Jay Skylus to improve logistics and technology to give everyone access to space. Based in Huntsville, Alabama, the company designed and developed an autonomous air-launch vehicle called RAVN X initially to launch payloads for the U.S. Space Force from the Cecil Spaceport in Florida.

In September, NASA unveiled plans to pay commercial companies to collect Moon rocks and transfer ownership to the U.S. space agency for the first time. Now, NASA has selected four proposals to fulfill its goal, and the awards range from $1 to $15,000.

Blue Origin’s chief operating officer, Terry Benedict, will be leaving the company on Friday, December 3. The announcement comes via an email sent out to employees this week from CEO Bob Smith.

Back in September, a mysterious object became trapped temporarily in Earth’s orbit. The object was initially classified as an asteroid, but some weren’t convinced the classification was correct. Now those suspicions have been proven correct…

December 3, 2020: Updated with drone footage of the collapse provided by NSF.

The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico sadly met its ultimate demise overnight when the observatory collapsed. It was already going to be permanently closed due to damage sustained in August. A beating from Hurricane Maria three years prior originally put the observatory in bad shape. Then an auxiliary cable that supported the 900-ton instrument platform snapped and damaged the reflector dish underneath earlier this year.

SpaceX tends to avoid patenting its technology out of concern that China could use the legal filings as blueprints to copy and paste. Elon Musk provided this explanation to Wired in 2012:

We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China — if we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book. 

The major exception for the space exploration company is Starlink, SpaceX’s developing broadband internet service that relies on satellites deployed on Falcon 9 rockets.

On December 1, China’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft successfully made a landing on the Moon, where it was able to collect samples of the lunar surface. This marks the first time in almost 50 years that any lunar samples have been collected.

A “revolutionary” hypersonic jet capable of traveling 16 times the speed of sound has completed tests conducted by the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In theory, the results show an engine capable of traveling to any location around the globe within two hours.

The Phoenix lander was sent by NASA to uncover the mysteries of Mars’ north pole ice capes back in 2007 as a part of the agency’s Mars Scout Program. The Scout Program was a campaign within the Mars Exploration Program that would send small, low-cost missions to the Red Planet. This program also gave us the MAVEN orbiter and InSight lander in future missions.

On December 3, 2014, Hayabusa 2 launched from Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan, on a six-year-long journey. The mission was to study and collect samples from the asteroid named “Ryugu” before returning to Earth. That return date is a mere four days from today.

The supersonic aircraft manufacture that announced its first jet back in October joins others in the transportation industry to work on meeting the Paris Agreement’s goals by 2040 and becoming carbon neutral. Alongside their goal to bring back supersonic air travel, they hope to be pioneering the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in their fleet of jets.

A unique space tourism company called Space Perspective just raised $7 million in seed funding. The funding will allow the company to build and test a “space balloon” that will quite literally float tourists up to the edge of space in a capsule called Neptune.