The Space Roundup - Jun 27th, 2021
Hello, hello, my dear space lovers!
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Now, are you ready? 5,4,3,2,1...lift-off!
Commercial progress!
This week we’ve known that Virgin Galactic has been awarded a full commercial launch license by the FAA after its successful test flight in May. This is the first time the FAA has licensed a spaceline to fly customers... like it was a commercial airline! Amazing. Truly amazing.
Not only we’re closer to normalize commercial human spaceflight, but also this week NASA has awarded RocketLab with their first commercial mission to Mars. They have been contracted to send their small Proton spacecraft on a mission. Well, actually it is two missions in one, as it comprises two twin satellites that will travel together in 2024. The goal of the mission is to study Mars’ magnetosphere, all this for a fraction of the budget of a “normal” (ie: non-commercial) interplanetary mission.
First Chinese on Mars by 2033?
Last week we shared how China and Russia are planning to build an international base on the Moon. This week China has announced they also have plans for building a base on Mars and they want to build it as fast as possible to send the first Taikonauts as soon as 2033. They have outlined a similar three phases roadmap: android exploration (started this year by the Zhurong rover), sample return mission, and exploration of the right site. Then, sending heavy cargo at scale to finally send the first human crew to the base by 2033. While the Moon plan wasn’t super ambitious in terms of dates, this plan seems VERY challenging. Starting 2023, they have six launch windows to Mars until 2033: will it be enough for all these missions they are planning? Wow… we’ll see!
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Next steps for space helicopters
Now that Ingenuity has flown a total distance of 1km on eight different test flights (WOW), engineers have a ton of data to work with and they have started designing “the real thing” (remember this was just an experiment, as they didn’t know if it was even going to take off!).
The next martian helicopter can be a hexacopter weighing more than 30 kilograms, carrying up to 5 kilos of scientific payloads and traveling 10kms at a time. Boum! Can’t wait for it to happen!
Health in Deep Space
This week I’ve had the chance to interview Alex Ananin from UST about the future of astronauts in Deep Space and the challenges that radiation and zero gravity poses on astronauts (you can read the full interview here).
This same week NASA announced that as part of Artemis 1 mission to the Moon they will be sending medical mannequins to measure the impact the radiation and vibration will have on the body of the astronauts flying in the following Artemis missions.
Picture of the week
John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) keeps amazing me with his work. Today’s picture was taken two years ago and it captures the colors of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Upcoming launches & events
Let’s see what we have in the week ahead!
Tuesday, June 29th - SpaceX Falcon 9 - Transporter 2
Tuesday, June 29th - Soyuz - Progress 78P with cargo to the ISS
Thursday, July 1st - Soyuz - OneWeb 8 with 36 OneWeb satellites
And that’s it for this week! :)
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Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut