Hello, my dear space lovers!
Yet another week full of space awesomeness!
Before we start I wanted to thank my Patreon supporters and welcome all new subscribers of the week: you rock! :)
Now, are you ready? 5,4,3,2,1...lift-off!
Mars!
The Martian helicopter Ingenuity completed its fifth successful flight! This time it was a one-way trip designed to start investigating how it can help the rover with activities such as scouting, making aerial observations of areas not accessible by the rover, or taking detailed pictures from atmospheric altitudes. Lessons learned from them will be very beneficial to the future aerial exploration of Mars and other worlds.
Its fourth flight was captured on video, AND AUDIO for the first time, by the Perseverance rover - check it out.
The United Arab Emirates, who recently announced the first female Arab astronaut, confirmed that the probe “Mars Hope” is fully operational and has already been in “scientific mode” for more than two weeks now.
China’s making everyone nervous
After successfully putting the core module of the space station in orbit, the first uncrewed cargo mission Tianzhou-2 is ready to be launched this month (on May 20th) with propellant and additional cargo for the station. Everyone has been very nervous about the potentially deadly Chinese way of handling uncontrolled reentry of their rockets back to Earth. It ended up in the Ocean, but this way of managing space debris is far from optimal…Let’s see if there’s enough international pressure on them to change their operations.
SpaceX’s week!
SpaceX nailed its first Starship landing this week. It is a spectacle worth watching for sure! It marks a very exciting milestone to the program and brings a well deserved relief to all following the company after several previous “failed” tests. If you haven’t had the chance to watch it yet in action, I bring the video for you below:
On top of that, Elon Musk tweeted that SpaceX might refly Starship SN15 after this historic landing, so we should be prepared for more exciting tests very soon!
This is all happening in spite of the politics around the Moon program for SpaceX. NASA told SpaceX to halt Artemis HLS development after the protests of its rivals, so that program is stopped for now… but that doesn’t mean SpaceX has to stop the development of Starship: and that’s what they’re doing!
This week there have been two additional satellite launches by SpaceX. First, they successfully completed its 25th operational Starlink satellite launch, perfectly landed the booster, and revealed that satellite internet service has already received more than half a million preorders.
And then, a reusability milestone: they have flown a Falcon booster for a RECORD 10th time earlier today, just 56 days after its previous flight. This booster has already flown ten times!!!! Going from “rockets can’t be reused” to “this rocket has flown ten times already” in a matter of a bunch of years is mind-blowing.
Competitors? What competitors?
And their competitors? What progress are they making? They are falling behind, but it seems July is their month:
Blue Origin is planning to fly its first astronaut on July 20th and Boeing has scheduled a second uncrewed test flight of the Starliner commercial crew spacecraft for July 30 after several delays. It will fly and dock with the ISS, and according to Boeing, it won’t be sooner because it is too busy up there! XD - With all the spacecraft currently attached to the station, there are no free "parking lots" for them until July.
Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser, another very interesting concept for commercial space travel, is cleared for Florida runway landing later on 2022.
Talking about commercial space: as the commercial space industry keeps making progress, NASA has released a new pricing list for private astronaut missions visiting the ISS, greatly increasing the average ticket to account for all expenses that it would imply to the agency. This will have an impact on commercial flights for sure, but it makes total sense for missions that are not scientific or strategic.
OSIRIS-REx is coming back!
After two years of studying the asteroid Bennu, collecting samples, and orbiting it making history (the closest orbit of a planetary body by a spacecraft and also the fact that Bennu is the smallest celestial object ever orbited by a human-built spacecraft), OSIRIS-REx is starting its travel back home, bringing back the largest sample collected by a NASA mission since the Apollo astronauts returned with Moon rocks.
Picture of the week
The picture of the week is from Venus, our sister planet. NASA's Parker Solar Probe has “recently” visited it (in July 2020) and it detected a natural radio signal coming from its atmosphere, helping us better understand it.
Upcoming launches & events
Let’s see what we have in the week ahead!
May 10th - NASA OSIRIS-Rex Departure from Asteroid Bennu
May 15th - SpaceX Falcon 9 • Starlink V1.0-L27
May 15th - Rocket Lab Electron | Running Out Of Toes
And that’s it for this week! :)
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Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut