Space Explored

Today Northrop Grumman plans to launch their 16th Cygnus spacecraft from Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) for NASA. Today’s mission will see an Antares rocket launch the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station. It will deliver over 3,000 pounds of food, experiments, and other supplies to the station for its crew to use. The spacecraft will also conduct experiments on its way to and after departing the space station.

Date: Tuesday, August 10th at 6:01 p.m. EDT

This week Seth and Daryl discuss Seth’s trip to Florida for the OFT-2 launch, Starship’s crazy production increase, Daryl’s review of a Space Shuttle book, and they do a comprehensive review of SpaceX’s web store.

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The team at Space Explored is tremendously pumped for the upcoming Inspiration4 SpaceX mission happening as soon as next month, and a new TIME feature published this month explains why.

NASA recently conducted an important 8-minute RS-25 single-engine hot fire test at Stennis Space Center in South Mississippi. Space Launch System (SLS) relies on four RS-25 engines (and two solid rocket boosters) to leave the planet for destinations like the Moon and beyond as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

This week Seth and Zac discuss Starship’s impressive build and stacking, Inpsiration4 Netflix special, Boeing’s OFT-2 delay, Perseverance first sample return, and more.

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NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover reached the Red Planet in February, and weeks of never-before-attempted Ingenuity helicopter flights followed. Now Perseverance is ready to knock out a major mission of its own: collect Mars samples.

Last week Boeing paused its second Starliner orbital flight test mission to the ISS after discovering propulsion issues with the spacecraft at the launch pad. The company has released a new update today on the latest status of the mission.

This week SpaceX has made massive progress towards launching their Super Heavy rocket. Last week the booster was a mere tube in the build site, but now it has had the engines installed and been stacked with Starship 20; now laden with tiles.

According to forms filed with the FCC, SpaceX has acquired Swarm technologies. Swarm uses their pico-satellites to provide low-cost data plans for internet of things devices, so the acquisition by SpaceX could be beneficial for both SpaceX and Swarm customers.

After a full week of immense progress toward SpaceX’s first orbital Starship vehicles. The SpaceX teams down at Starbase finally stacked their first Starship launch vehicle.

SpaceX continues to push hard towards the first stack of a Starship and Super Heavy vehicle. Super Heavy Booster 4 is currently positioned on the launch pad and SpaceX is working towards the stacking of Starship 20 as soon as today.

The means of telling a story is something that’s left to the one who tells it. The most familiar to us is through text.

You open a book and the words begin to flow into the mind to leave the reader to picture what the author hopes to convey. This also applies to the spoken form and leads to some opportunities for some creative embellishment.

But author Piers Bizony has chosen another format to tell a story: pictures.

Update: Booster 4 has rolled to the launch site and is now awaiting integration with Starship 20, which has been stacked in the High Bay.

This morning Elon Musk showed off what appears to be a full complement of 29 Raptor engines in place on Starship Super Heavy Booster 4. The stunning overnight installation is the latest feat in a breathtaking surge of activity around SpaceX’s Starbase facilities as the company pushes hard toward a maiden orbital flight test for the fully stacked vehicle.

This week on Rapid Unscheduled Discussions, Seth and Daryl have Space Explored founder and editor-in-chief Zac Hall on to discuss the first launch all three say together. The team also discussed possible future endeavors the site could see.

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Update: A few hours before launch Boeing announced that the launch was postponed due to issues with “unexpected valve position indications” used in the propulsion system.

After the missed opportunity to dock with the International Space Station due to a timer issue on its first flight a second test flight was needed. Boeing will be performing their second orbital flight test for their Starliner crew capsule as soon as Friday to dock with the ISS. This will also serve as the final test before NASA puts crew onboard to determine if it’s ready.

Date: Tuesday, August 3rd at 1:20 p.m. EDT

Inspiration4 is easily the coolest spaceflight mission of the year, and Netflix will soon have a documentary detailing the incredible experience for the four private citizens traveling to space for three days.

After a year and a half of focusing on software issues, Boeing has paused its Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) mission to the International Space Station today. The launch was scheduled for this afternoon but scrubbed hours before liftoff due to a propulsion system issue with the spacecraft.

Boeing’s mission is to have its uncrewed Starliner spacecraft reach the International Space Station and return safely before it can be rated for human spaceflight. Boeing is one of two providers for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (along with SpaceX) to transport astronauts to and from the space station.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Chirag Parikh to serve as the executive secretary of the National Space Council. Parikh most recently worked as senior director of Microsoft’s Azure Space division. As executive secretary of the National Space Council, Parikh is well-positioned to influence space policy across the government.