Space Explored

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, we have been following how it will affect Northrop Grumman’s capability to launch its Antares rocket. Northrop Grumman has finally announced its solution to unavailable components in a partnership with Firefly Aerospace to supply engines and a new first stage to the Antares 330 rocket.

While Cape Canaveral is no stranger to a high launch cadence, last week the Cape saw something it hasn’t seen in decades – two launches on the same day. On the early morning of August 4, ULA launched SBIRS GEO-6, then in the evening, SpaceX launched KPLO.

Coby Cotton, one of the five members of Dude Perfect, launched on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket early Thursday morning. Cotton’s participation is part of a partnership between the trick shooting YouTubers and a crypto company called MoonDAO.

Rocket Lab, the leader of the SmallSat launch market, has completed its “Back to Back” launch campaign for the National Reconnaissance Office. This marks a major cadence milestone for the company working to become the SpaceX of SmallSat launches.

Back when Tesla still had its vehicle referral program, one of the perks was the ability to launch a photo to space with another one of Elon Musk’s company’s – SpaceX. Now, for many of the Tesla owners who have waited years, that time has actually come. Tomorrow, as SpaceX launches a Moon-bound South Korean satellite, many Tesla customers will have their photos tag along. Here’s everything you should know about the launch.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has already blown the minds of humans across the globe with its original set of color images. Now Webb has a new image, one of the chaotic Cartwheel galaxy.

Surprising probably no one, the timeframe SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has given for a successful orbital Starship mission is anywhere from next month to next year.

Announced in February, Jared Issacman’s Polaris Program crew has been training for a flight on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft this year. At EAA’s AirVenture airshow this weekend, Issacman announced that the launch date for Polaris Dawn could be as soon as the end of this year.

Barnard Propulsion Systems (BPS) has been working towards landing a model rocket like SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 boosters, but this presents a challenge. Unlike the Falcon 9 with its liquid rocket engines, model rockets typically use solid propellant motors that have essentially no throttle control. Joe Barnard of BPS has spent the past seven years working towards this goal, and it has finally been achieved.

SpaceX just released a new paper detailing how the company is reducing the brightness of its Starlink Gen 2 satellites. As a part of their effort to protect the night sky, they will also be offering the reflective film they developed to other satellite manufacturers at cost.

A farmer in New South Wales, Australia, made an unusual discovery on his sheep farm after two large pieces of space debris and several smaller ones crashed down the Earth. The debris seems to have come from the trunk of Crew-1’s Dragon Capsule.

In the company’s second quarterly earnings report, Boeing has absorbed a $96 million charge in relation to its Starliner spacecraft program. This brings Boeing’s Starliner cost overrun tally to $688 million due to numerous problems.

NASA and the European Space Agency are on track to bring the first-ever Mars soil and atmosphere samples back to Earth. Today both space agencies shared an update on exactly how they plan to do that thanks to the Mars helicopter Ingenuity.

The race to developing a presence on Mars is long, but several players are already competing. From those who wish to explore and colonize the planet, Mars is a major focus more than ever right now. There are a few races happening to reach Mars with new technologies happening simultaneously. Which will be first is the question…

Back in April, NASA chose Canoo to build the electric vehicles that will bring astronauts to the launchpad for the Artemis program. Since then, Canoo and NASA have brought the vehicles around Kennedy Space Center, from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout building to the launchpad that will return astronauts to the Moon.

In a filing with the FCC Monday, SpaceX is revealed to be looking to add the 2GHz frequency to its Starlink license for use with “mobile users.” While we don’t know much about what this means, it could be the start of offering its service to cell phone users.

Many of the first images released by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope have been retakes of locations Hubble previously captured. This comparison of Hubble versus JWST photos shows just how far we have come.

Want to collect a piece of James Webb Space Telescope history? Later this year, the U.S. Postal Service will release a special stamp collection celebrating the new deep space telescope. JWST launched last Christmas and delivered the most detailed views of deep space earlier this month.