Hello, hello, my dear space lovers!
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Now, are you ready? 5,4,3,2,1...lift-off!
The Chinese did it!
Wohooo! This week we’ve seen three Chinese Taikonauts fly to their Tianhe Space Station for the first time. Now we have TWO space stations and a total of ten astronauts orbiting our planet at the same time. Nice! It’s crazy to see how fast they have managed to execute the first phase of the mission: with just three launches, now they have a space lab, supplies, and three astronauts on orbit.
The flight and docking took only 6 hours (less than a commercial flight from London to New York!) and the three Taikonauts are now ready to start their scientific mission.
Hubble offline (again)
Talking about science, my favorite space telescope, Hubble, has experienced a technical glitch once again this week that has taken it offline. This is becoming more and more frequent, and it’s normal given how old this magnificent machine is. Let’s cross our fingers for it to be fixed soon so that it keeps amazing us with more space awesomeness.
SpaceX reusability milestone
The military has been very reluctant to using refurbished boosters (“second-hand rockets? no way, mate!” - said a high-ranking military officer somewhere very secret…I imagine XD), but the pricing that SpaceX is able to offer when they factor in reusability is massive, so they have reconsidered their position and this week we’ve seen the first military launch onboard of a reused SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This is key to transmit full confidence on reusability to the rest of the market. Bravo!
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NASA goes commercial: proposals for the ISS
This week NASA has requested proposals for two private astronaut missions to the International Space Station, allowing up to four astronauts per mission and up to 14 days at the ISS. It seems they want to ramp up the commercial utilization of the station, allowing two of these missions every year. Axiom is not going to be the only contender, so it seems two missions per year might be too few for the already increasing demand there is in the market. We’ll see who wins the contracts!
Russia and China’s International Moon Base
Russia and China have presented this week their plans to build a permanent International Moon Base for scientific research on the lunar surface.
It is worth watching the video Roscosmos released on Twitter (in English):
As a quick summary, they are planning to do it in three phases between 2021 and 2040, using Russian super heavy-lift launch vehicles to deliver cargo to the Moon. The first phase is “reconnaissance” with the goal of gathering data. The second phase “construction” is all about technology verifications, sample return, and massive cargo delivery. Also on-orbit and surface infrastructure for energy, communications, and in-situ resource utilization. Finally, “utilization” with crewed flights starting on 2036.
It is a very exciting roadmap ahead and they are open to international cooperation and contributions. I hope this is complementary to NASA’s Artemis mission and both can learn from each other and work together as much as possible to the benefit of all humankind.
Picture of the week
Today’s picture was taken in New Zealand. This was RocketLab's tenth mission on December 6th, 2019. The author is “RogueNZ”. Just wow. It has to be amazing to witness this spectacle!
Upcoming launches & events
Let’s see what we have in the week ahead!
Friday, June 25th - Soyuz 2.1b | Pion-NKS No. 1 Russian Space Forces
Friday, June 25th - SpaceX Falcon 9 | Transporter 2 (Dedicated SSO Rideshare)
And that’s it for this week! :)
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Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut
You make one of the best newsletters ever. Their really great and informative. I would recommend this to everybody I know. Keep up the good work!