Space Explored

Over the last week there has been a lot going on around SpaceX‘s biggest and baddest rocket in development. While the action has returned down in Starbase for pre-IFT-3 flight tests, action might come in the future to the Space Force side of Florida’s Space Coast, according to the Department of the Air Force.

After a few weeks of featuring at least one big name launch that makes writing these articles easy, we’re back to more standard communication satellites. Two launches from SpaceX are on the schedule with a third possible over the weekend. China, not to be left out is also scheduled for a Long March 5 with an unknown payload on top.

This week Varda Space received the nations first ever Part 450 reentry license from the FAA, green lighting its W-1 mission for touchdown in the Utah desert. After eight months in space the Varda Space built capsule and Rocket Lab built spacecraft bus will finally get its chance to return its crystal experiment to Earth.

On Valentines Day SpaceX showed us its love for lifting rockets off into space with a double header from both LC-39A and SLC-40. The two launches, roughly eight hours apart, were for Intuitive Machines‘ Nova-C lunar lander and a classified payload for the US Space Force.

This week SpaceX is here with three launches, the biggest of the three being on Wednesday. Oh wait, all of SpaceX’s launches this week will be on Wednesday, fun day.

Originally only planned to last 15 days on board, Axiom‘s third mission to the International Space Station undocked after 17 full days in space. The crew will spend today in orbit before making a planned splashdown tomorrow morning off of Florida’s coast.

In a letter to employees and contractors, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced a deduction of 570 personnel between its workforce and contractors. The lab sites concerns over NASA‘s 2024 budget to continue funding the Mars Sample Return (MSR) project it is developing at high enough levels to support its team.

A group of environmentalist won an appeal to sue the Texas government over access to Boca Chica Beach near SpaceX‘s Starbase facility. Something that could make launching Starship out of there even harder than it already is as the company moves to continue expanding its presence.

This week we expect to see three rocket launches and all three will be from SpaceX. While two of those will be Starlink missions, which I guess could be exciting if we knew which boosters were flying, one of the missions will be for a new NASA science mission.

Momentus, a “last mile” in-space delivery service, is looking for a savior to give it enough cash to continue operating. The company has already laid off a large portion of its workforce and has stated it doesn’t yet have a way forward.

Last month John Deere announced a partnership with SpaceX to bring Starlink satellite internet connections to the fleets of equipment at farms around the United States and abroad. This is just one of the many technologies that farmers have adopted to increase effectiveness.

Monday evening Space Shuttle Endeavour was lifted and installed onto its final resting spot which it should be rather familiar with. For the first time since the Space Shuttle’s retirement a full Shuttle stack has been assembled in launch position. However, this one won’t be rolling out to any launch pad any time soon.

After successfully landing on the Moon over a week ago, it looks like SLIM is finally getting a chance to conduct some science on the lunar surface. JAXA announced it regained communication with the lander as the batteries began charging with the Sun now in line of sight of the solar panels.

After an end of month rally by SpaceX to get to 10 launches in January, the company will have only one launch this week but it will be a big one. With the retirement of its primary rocket, Northrop Grumman will fly its Cygnus spacecraft on a Falcon 9 this week to the ISS.

Going into 2024 SpaceX was aiming to launch 144 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches before the year is up, however, that number has now increased up to 148. The company’s VP of Falcon launch confirmed this at Everyday Astronaut’s AstroAwards.

Exolaunch, a German based launch management and satellite deployment company, won a €18 million contract with the German space agency, DLR, to help advance its novel small satellite program.

The little helicopter that could, and did, has flown its last mission after damaging one of its carbon fiber propeller blades. After three years of flying, Ingenuity totaled 72 total missions of its planned, five test flights, making it one of NASA‘s greatest achieving missions on the red planet.

This month was expected to be a big one for lunar exploration with two new landers attempting soft landings on the Moon‘s surface. However, once again, landing on the Moon seems to be the next major hurdle for anyone, even the United States.

This week Rocket Lab will reattempt its first launch of 2024 and possibly Virgin Galactic will fly Friday on one of its final missions before it goes quiet. For SpaceX however, this month has been far below its 13 launches a month goal, although this year’s start looks to be stronger than last year’s.

Thursday afternoon SpaceX launched the Axiom-3 mission out of Kennedy Space Center making it its first human spaceflight mission of the year. Another milestone first was it being the first entirely European crewed mission ever with all four astronauts holding citizenship from a European nation.

Axiom Space is less than a day away from initiating Axiom Mission 3. Ax-3 is the commercial space company’s first all-European astronaut mission. Here’s what you need to know to follow along from anywhere in the universe.