Space Explored

SpaceX showed off its new version of Starship‘s methane powered rocket engines over the weekend. The new Raptor 3 engine is dramatically cleaner and more powerful then what SpaceX was using on its first Starship missions.

Former NASA astronaut and now Arizona senator, Mark Kelly, is on the short list to potentially become Vice President Harris’ running mate. As head of the National Space Council, his potential nomination has spurred some excitement in the spaceflight community.

This week SpaceX is looking at launching three Falcon 9 rockets, two of those will be for the company’s Starlink constellation. Another payload is a multi-payload satellite that will host missions for the Space Force, Norwegian’s Ministry of Defense, and ViaSat.

Rocket Factory Augsburg is gearing up for its first orbital launch attempt of its RFA One rocket. Its spaceport, a set of Islands north of mainland Scotland, is also ready for the company’s launch, the first from the UK’s soil.

The agency announced this week that it will phase out its NASA TV over the air broadcast service in favor of its digital NASA+ streaming service. Still free, the agency promises all the same great content, just in a new location.

ULA launched an Atlas V rocket early this morning carrying a classified payload. This was the Atlas V’s final national security payload, with the remaining NSSL missions being carried out by the company’s new Vulcan rocket.

SpaceX announced last week that the company will be moving its Dragon recovery operations to the West Coast of the United States due to trunk debris surviving reentry, even though computer models said it wouldn’t. This will be a return to form as the company started out recovering its Dragons from California.

This week we have a total of four launches on the schedule as of right now. Two of the missions are coming from SpaceX with the remaining two coming from Rocket Lab and ULA. The highlight for the week will be the Atlas V launch, as it will be ULA’s final Atlas launch for national security missions.

After Thursday’s green light from the FAA to resume launches, SpaceX took no time to try to catch up on the last few week’s lack of Starlink missions. Using all three of its Falcon 9 launch sites, the company launched a total of 67 Starlink satellites into orbit.

With the week wrapping up, here’s what NASA is presenting to the public at EAA Oshkosh 2024. Full of research and development, NASA’s Bob Pearce, Associate Administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, gave us some background into ongoing and upcoming projects.

SpaceX has been cleared by the FAA to resume flight operations for its Falcon 9 rocket, even though the company’s investigation hasn’t yet been fully closed. SpaceX released a statement detailing what caused the failure of its second stage earlier this month and a short term fix ahead of Saturday’s early morning Starlink launch.

Blue Origin announced Wednesday its crew for the NS-26 missions. On board will be several high achieving and and lucky individuals that will get the chance to fly and feel weightlessness above the Karman Line. One of the crew members, a daughter of a previous participant, will become the youngest woman to reach 100 km.

Back in 2021, the Department of Transportation set in motion a plan for the US aviation sector to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. NASA, the government’s go to for civilian aviation research, discussed its advancements, challenges, and predictions on hybrid/electric aircraft at EAA Oshkosh this week.

Next month SpaceX is planning to launch the next crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. In case you forgot, here’s a quick recap of who’s going to be on top of that Falcon 9 rocket come liftoff.

The X-59 has been under development for years now. While its first flight is hopefully coming later this year, what do all the program’s test pilots do when there’s no plane to fly? The X-59’s lead test pilot Nils Larson and his partner Jim Less gave a good explanation with what has kept them busy.

We only have two known launches this week and both will be coming from SpaceX within a couple hours of each other. However, there is no word from the FAA if the agency has green-lit the company to return to flight.

Earlier this month, NASA selected SpaceX to be the builder of the vehicle that will be tasked with deorbiting the International Space Station in the 2030s. While no design was shared, it was said to be built on Dragon heritage hardware. In a new render, SpaceX shows off that it’s not just based on it, it’s basically just a long Dragon.

It’s that time of year again where the aviation world descends onto the city of Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the annual EAA AirVenture fly-in convention. It is also our yearly reminder that the second letter of NASA stands for “Aeronautics,” as they will have a pretty serious presence this year surrounding their X-59 supersonic test plane.

On Thursday, Astra announced its deal to be taken private by its founders and long time investors, closed, effectively removing it as a publicly traded company. Its new parent company, Apogee Parent LLC, will purchase all of its outstanding stock and all stock it doesn’t own.

Researchers Lorenzo Bruzzone and Leonardo Carrer, from the University of Trento in Italy, have identified evidence of a significant lunar cave by reanalyzing data from advanced radar technology collected more than a decade ago. Located in Mare Tranquillitatis, the region of the Apollo 11 landing, this discovery reveals critical insights into the Moon‘s subsurface structure. 

This week SpaceX founder and leader Elon Musk has decided to pull SpaceX’s headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Starbase, Texas over a pro-LGBTQ+ law. However, what this actually means is unclear, as this is not the first time Musk has moved its company to Texas over political trouble.

A new approach to spacesuit technology promises to revolutionize astronaut life support systems, ensuring sustainability and self-sufficiency in the harshest environments of space. Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University are addressing a significant challenge in space travel: water reclamation. Inspired by the “stillsuits” from Frank Herbert’s “Dune” novels, the new spacesuit system prototype aims to extend spacewalks and improve astronaut hygiene by recycling expelled urine into drinkable water.

Under a blistering Louisiana sun, the Artemis II core stage left the Michoud Assembly Facility this morning in New Orleans. This is the core of the massive SLS rocket that will take four astronauts to orbit the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.

In contrast to weeks past, we only have a single mission scheduled to launch this week, an Electron from New Zealand. Due to SpaceX’s anomaly mid-flight last week, its Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded until an investigation is completed.