Space Explored

During a press conference today at their offices in Louisville, Colorado about the commercialization of low Earth orbit Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announced a plan to build a new space station in low Earth orbit. SNC has been a major defense and aerospace contractor since the 60s and is currently building the Dream Chaser spaceplane for NASA’s Commercial Resupply 2 contract and is projected to fly in 2022.

During Inspiration 4’s “Meet the Crew” event earlier today, we were properly introduced to each of the four individuals who will be representing the best qualities of humanity as they fly to orbit as soon as September of this year.

SpaceX’s first operational crewed mission for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program has been on the International Space Station (ISS) since November of last year. The crew is planning to prepare the station for a new group of astronauts coming up in April from both Russia and the US.

SpaceX launched its Starship SN11 prototype rocket early Tuesday morning in the fog of South Texas. Visibility was extremely low. For example, onlookers were not able to view the rocket on the pad from a distance this time. Despite the hope of a successful landing, Starship SN11 was not the first to reach that milestone for SpaceX.

Earlier this year Jared Isaacman announced that he was paying for four people to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to space for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The twist was this was also a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Hospital and those who wanted to fly on the mission earned entries by donating to St. Jude or selling items and raising money for the hospital.

The National Space Council which was reestablished in 2017 by President Trump to plan the United State’s space policy is being renewed by President Biden. This comes after a several months’ wait to hear the fate of the council and the User Advisory Group.

After hopes were squashed due to the scrub of a duel static fire and flight day Friday. SpaceX is hoping to regroup and try again this coming Monday for the next attempt to fly Starship SN11 and more importantly bring it back in one piece.

The man-made Suez Canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea has been blocked by a massive 1,300 feet long cargo ship. This happened earlier this week and has brought the entire shipping lane to a halt. Now with the power of Earth-observing satellite constellations, you can see the stuck ship from space.

SpaceX is planning on flying their newest Starship vehicle today but first, they needed to get a third static fire out of the way. All the necessary closures have been scheduled with the FAA and Cameron County to allow SpaceX to fly their vehicle up to 10 km today.

This week join Space Explored’s Seth Kurkowski and Zac Hall as we discuss Apple TV+’s For All Mankind series so far, a month’s worth of Ingenuity flights is coming, a new podcast from ULA, ships stuck in a canal, and lots of SpaceX news.

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Early last night, those in the Pacific North West were treated to a shocking display of lights across the sky. At about 9pm PT (12am ET) the Falcon 9 second stage from March 4th’s Starlink mission reentered in a fiery cascade of lights.

SpaceX’s 4th flight-ready Starship vehicle, SN11, is nearing the final phase of being ready to fly up to 10 km down at SpaceX’s private spaceport near Boca Chica, Texas. We could see the next flight of a Starship vehicle as soon as today.

On the success of Rocket Lab’s most recent mission “They Go Up So Fast” the California-based launch provider announced that it will launch more global monitoring satellites for BlackSky. This is the biggest number of satellites the company has committed to launching to a single provider so far.

After a week-long hiatus of launches, SpaceX is planning to launch another batch of 60 satellites for their Starlink internet constellation. This will use up to 12,000 satellites to provide high-speed internet service around the globe with zero interruption. If launched by the end of the month, this will tie SpaceX’s record of 4 launches in a single calendar month.

Date: Wednesday, March 24th, 4:28 AM EDT

The New York start-up Launcher is unlike most other rocket companies. With a small team of 8 people, Launcher is working to create the highest performance rocket for small sat launches.

On this day in 1965, Ranger 9 impacted the Moon at 14:08:19 UTC with a relative speed of 2.67 km/s (5,972 mph). This impact concluded the 3-day mission of Ranger 9 and the overall Ranger program. This mission gathered important data needed for the later Surveyor program, and ultimately the Apollo program.

While the Falcon 9 continues to smash launch cadence records with already 9 flights this year, its bigger sibling the Falcon Heavy still hasn’t been seen since 2019. SpaceX plans to launch 1 maybe even 2 this year if schedules can hold, the first of which is getting closer to being ready for flight.

HoppAR was developed by Josef Grunig, a freelance developer and passionate space fan. The app was his passion project during quarantine and a gift to all fans of space exploration. Free to download on both iOS and Android, this is as close as you can get to viewing a launch in person without actually being there — you can also get far closer than you ever could to a real thing.

Today, during a press briefing on the first flight of Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, new information was revealed for the upcoming flight of Ingenuity. This first flight is currently targeting April 8th. When Perseverance first touched down, they determined that it landed right on the edge of an acceptable flight zone for Ingenuity.

The Visitor Complex at Kennedy Space Center has reopened one of its must-see exhibits and just unveiled the Delta II display! With the Coronavirus still very much a hazard, the KSC Visitor Complex has implemented new procedures to keep you safe while still being able to see the amazing Saturn V. Additionally, the latest addition to the Rocket Garden was officially unveiled today with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Rocket Lab is preparing for the 19th Mission of their Electron later today, at 6:30 pm Eastern time. This rideshare launch, “They Go Up So Fast”, will deliver 7 satellites into orbit for customers including BlackSky, the University of New South Wales, and the US Army’s Space and Missile Defense command.