Space Explored

Unistellar is a start-up building the most powerful digital telescopes that allow the average user to not only enjoy the beauty of the night sky but also contribute to scientific research and discoveries using nothing but the iPhone or iPad. We reviewed Unistellar’s eVscope a few months back, and today the company announced its new digital telescope tailored towards the scientific community: the eQuinox.

Yesterday, NASA’s Perseverance rover released the debris shield which protected the Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity. This marks the beginning of the deployment for Ingenuity; which is expected to take 10 Martian days (sols). The next major step in the process will be Perseverance driving to the center of the helipad which has been selected.

This is a commonly asked question about SpaceX Booster Recovery. Why would SpaceX waste fuel igniting the engines and trying to land vertically rather than using parachutes like the Space Shuttle SRB’s did? There are a number of reasons a propulsively landing system is ideal, but they all tie back to SpaceX’s goal of rapid reusability.

This week join Space Explored’s Seth Kurkowski and Derek Wise as we discuss President Biden’s nomination for NASA, what happened to SLS during its second Green Run test, a week’s worth of SpaceX news, and what’s happening with Starship SN11.

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While the rocket boosters and drone ships get all the fame on live streams there’s a fleet of hard-working support ships that follow along to make sure SpaceX’s missions go on without any issues. These ships all with unique roles during each mission support SpaceX’s goal to make rides to space cheaper.

NASA’s first hot fire test of the Artemis I booster took place on January 16th. This first test exceeded NASA’s preset hydraulic limits when gimbaling the motors. Exceeding these conservative limits during flight would not have caused malfunctions, nonetheless, NASA decide to conduct a second test to gather more data.

President Biden has been in office for just over 50 days and after the appointments and nominations of top executive offices, we have finally gotten our NASA Administrator nominee. A senator and representative from Florida, Army veteran, and Payload Specialist on Space Shuttle Columbia, Bill Nelson.

First photographed by Lab Propulsion Systems, and confirmed by Gavin Cornwell, a third Octograbber was seen in production at SpaceX’s Cidco Rd facility. This is a sign that SpaceX may be closer than expected to having a third operational droneship. This droneship will be called “A Shortfall of Gravitas” in reference to the Culture series of science fiction books by Iain Banks.

Last month Apple released its first augmented reality experience for the Apple TV+ video service, starting with For All Mankind: Time Capsule. Users catch up with what happened between seasons 1 and 2 and explore news events that happened in the alternate timeline. A new experience was launched today to further connect items in the show to viewers through AR.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover landed on February 18th and recently began to move. Mounted on the belly of the rover is Ingenuity, a small, 1.8 KG helicopter. Ingenuity will attempt the first powered and controlled flight on another planet no earlier than the first week of April.

On March 3rd, 2021 SpaceX launch their SN10 Starship vehicle for their third test to acquire more data for verifying the Starship design and attempt again to try to fly and land a vehicle of this size. Starship has promised a cheaper and sustainable future for space exploration and with each test flight that future becomes closer.

In the last 2 weeks, SpaceX has launched 3 Starlink missions with a total of 180 satellites deployed into low Earth orbit. SpaceX has been increasing its launch cadence all year, pushing what some thought was possible. With increased operations at the port to get the just received droneship back out to sea, SpaceX churned out Starlink missions like they were routine.

During the Shuttle era, NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos worked out a deal to trade seats between the Shuttle and the Russian Soyuz capsule. When the Shuttle retired this deal went away and NASA had to now pay for each seat it was going to take up until NASA could get its Commerical Crew Program up and running.

Astra, an up-and-coming launch company that will soon compete with SpaceX, announced today that former Tesla automation lead Pablo Gonzalez to help scale the production of their rockets. This comes not long after Astra hired a former Apple Car project lead to be Astra’s Chief Engineer.

Over the last few years, the pieces of NASA’s Artemis I mission have slowly been making their way to Kennedy Space Center for final checkouts and stacking. For the past couple of months, NASA has been preparing to receive the final parts of the rocket with the first step towards a fully stacked SLS finishing the other day.

This week Space Explored’s Seth Kurkowski and Daryl Sausse discuss SpaceX’s highly successful Starship flight, the frenzy of Starlink launches coming from the cape, new attractions at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, and more.

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On the heels of their last launch earlier this week, SpaceX is already planning to launch their next batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit as soon as this weekend. Starlink will provide worldwide high-speed internet through the use of thousands of satellites in low earth orbit.

Date: Sunday, March 14th, 6:01 AM EDT

SpaceX’s Starlink internet constellation is growing every month with the California-based aerospace company launching between 2 and 3 batches of Starlink satellites each month, the next for this month coming in the next couple of days.

SpaceX is continuing work on their Boca Chica facilities to support further launches and tests. New plans released by the US Army Corps of Engineers show some new additions that could be coming to the Starship launch site in the very near future.

With the wreckage of SN10 still laying on the landing pad, SpaceX is already moving forward with the next Starship prototype ready for testing. SN10 improved greatly over the last two vehicles giving SN11 a much higher chance of survival.

SpaceX has had launch sites on both coasts for years, Florida for most launches has been the primary location for customers to get their payloads into space. On the west coast, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California offers a specialized launch site for missions that require polar orbits.