Space Explored

Virgin Orbit announced a partnership with the Texas-based nonprofit Southwest Research Institute to work on future research missions.

This week, SpaceX’s new ships arrived in Florida while Firefly had their first launch that ended in failure. Virgin Galactic has been grounded by the FAA along with more Top stories this week.

Ingenuity recently completed its 13th flight on Mars. Mars helicopter campaign extended from the initially planned 5 flights and is now serving as a valuable tool to assist with route planning for the Perseverance rover.

Just 3 days after their first launch, Firefly Aerospace provides some insight into what occurred during the first stage boost phase. Along with the statement was a video showcasing some different angles of Firefly’s first Alpha launch and tracking footage.

SpaceX plans to start catching their Starship Super Heavy booster have raised eyebrows. Those Starship catch attempts should start with Booster 5, the second Super Heavy booster to launch, Elon confirmed in a tweet this week. Along with this, news about Starlink satellite’s laser interconnects and development at Starbase.

With the continued goal of crewed landings on the Moon in 2024, NASA is in need of more flight hardware for lunar exploration. The next big part will be a rover, NASA put out a request for information regarding proposed Artemis rovers.

The second of SpaceX’s new support ships, Bob, arrived in the Port of Tampa Saturday. Leaving Port Fourchon after it sustained a direct hit from Hurricane Ida last weekend.

SpaceX is flying four private citizens to orbit on a three-day mission called Inspiration4, and Apple hardware will be key in a first-of-its-kind research study happening during the flight. These products include Apple Watch Series 6, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPad mini 4, as selected by SpaceX.

Thursday afternoon Firefly Aerospace attempted to launch their first Alpha rocket. Firefly’s first Alpha rocket, while the liftoff was nominal, suffered a failure a few minutes into launch.

Firefly is working towards the first launch of their Alpha rocket, as well as the company’s first launch at all. While this is a test flight FireFly will have real payloads on board this rocket. The smallsats come from a variety of education and research programs that competed for a free spot on the maiden flight. The goal of this mission is to validate the design of the Alpha rocket and its subsystems.

Date: Thursday, September 2nd, 9:59 p.m. (Window closes September 3rd at 12:00 a.m. EDT)

A recent Jigsaw report raised concerns over the growing number of government-engineered internet outages across the world. With over 850 government-engineered internet outages in the past decade, citizens of affected nations are desperate for a solution. SpaceX Starlink and similar satellite internet services could potentially help overcome these outages in ways that legacy connectivity cannot.

During July’s Unity 22 spaceflight of Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, The New Yorker reports that the pilots deviated off their approved course. In the report, they state the FAA has begun an investigation; Virgin Galactic replies.

Virgin Galactic has announced its next spaceflight mission after sending founder Richard Branson to space on its previous mission.

Last Tuesday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson hosted Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky at NASA’s headquarters in Washington, DC. 

On Twitter today, Inspiration4 shared a first real look at the Dragon capsule’s cupola that will allow them to have an immersive view of the Earth below throughout the mission.

This week on the Space Explored podcast Seth and Derek talk about SpaceX’s recent and upcoming launches, the newest members of SpaceX’s fleet, Astra’s failed launch attempt, and more.

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Update: In a reply to the images SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed the tread is for a new crane they purchased.

There is something exciting about seeing that SpaceX “X” painted on the side of some sort of machinery. Again we have another social media post showing possible new SpaceX hardware but this time much further away from the US.

The shiny new droneship SpaceX built in Louisiana has done its first mission this weekend. A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG) returned to Port Canaveral with its first booster on top.

Following a successful flight to space, Richard Branson announced that Virgin Galactic is partnering with Omaze for a trip giveaway for you and a guest.

The upcoming Inspiration4 mission to space won’t just make history as the “world’s first all-civilian human spaceflight mission to orbit” as it’s frequently described. The four crew members aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will participate in a new health research study during the three-day journey in space.

The newest addition to SpaceX’s fleet, Doug, has finished its trip from Port Fourchon, Louisiana to Port Canaveral, Florida, arriving late Monday night.

NASA is sending astronauts back to the Moon for the first since Apollo 17 in 1972. The new space exploration program is called Artemis, and the first Artemis mission is just months away from happening. A new report though begs the question of when will NASA truly launch Artemis 1?

Cosmonauts aboard the ISS have discovered cracks on the space station’s oldest module, Zarya.