The Space Roundup - Nov 14th, 2021
Hello, hello, my dear space lovers!
Are you ready for yet another week of space awesomeness?
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3, 2, 1, zero! Lift-off!
Martian updates
15 flights! The Mars Helicopter successfully flew again for 128.8 seconds, covering about 400 meters and taking images “of science interest” that will be processed soon. It is now heading back to the initial aerodrome it used to fly for the first time. How amazing is this?
Also on the surface of the red planet, the Perseverance rover, which, remember! is an amazing science laboratory on wheels, has been working on a new very intriguing layered rock that it has opened to see what’s inside it. Looking forward to new updates from the team.
SpaceX is on fire!
This week has been amazing for SpaceX and human spaceflight.
They have returned 4 astronauts to Earth, ending a 200-day flight, and then, less than 48 hours later, they had another Dragon capsule docking with the International Space Station. This was their fifth human flight and definitely, they are breaking all records… amazing progress in such a short timeframe!
This is truly amazing, not to mention all the launches that are planned for 2022: at least five … FIVE … Falcon Heavy launches are already planned for next year. Just wow.
And then a static fire to test all six engines of the Starship SN20 for the first time. Wohooo! We’re getting closer to the launch date. #wenhop
Scrubs!
Not all are successful launches. This week, we’ve had two scrubs: one from SpaceX (although it finally launched successfully yesterday) and another one from Rocket Lab. No worries! It is more important to do it right than anything else. Safety first.
Asia’s hyperactive! China, Japan, South Korea...
Wang Yaping becomes the first Chinese woman to walk into space. You can see her in action in this stunning video.
Japan’s Epsilon successfully launches RAISE-2 and eight secondary satellites. It is a very interesting mission full of commercial and scientific experiments. You can read more about them here.
South Korea bets on reusability! This is great news and definitely the way to move forward. Directly quoting one of their top decision-makers, "Starting next year, the development of a high-performance reusable rocket with liquid-fueled 100-ton thrust engines will begin”.
Launches of the week
Sunday Nov. 14th - Astra Rocket 3
Tuesday Nov. 16th - Rocketlab Electron - Love at first Insight
Tuesday Nov. 16th - Vega • CERES
And that’s it for this week!
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Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut