While this week has been devoid of launches, it was far from an uneventful week in space news. We’ve had spacewalks occurring at the ISS, the arrival of ULA’s Atlas V booster for CFT, and brand new exclusive updates on SpaceX’s newest droneship.
Today
Jeff Bezos is just a few weeks away from being among the first humans to leave Earth in his New Shepard rocket, and a growing number of people are hoping he won’t be allowed back.
We’ve been waiting a while to see any sign that shows SpaceX’s third droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas is nearing completion. This week, a few of those signs have shown up, proving that ASOG is getting reading for operation.
Josef Aschbacher is pushing a major initiative at the European Space Agency to recruit and launch the first physically disabled astronaut to space. Reuters reports that several hundred of 22,000 ESA astronaut applicants who have applied are eligible thanks to ESA’s initiative.
Elon Musk is known for his online antics and market-moving jokes. His Twitter account also provides a wealth of information.
June 25
Image Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX launched the Space Test Program 2 (STP-2) mission in early June 25th, 2019. STP-2 was launched on the third flight of Falcon Heavy, reusing the side boosters from the Arabsat-6A launch earlier that year.
Credit: The Panama Canal
We’ve been covering the construction on SpaceX’s news addition to the Eastern fleet, A Shortfall of Gravitas. ASOG will soon be taking the place of the droneship Of Course I Still Love You which is moving to the west coast.
Boston Dynamics Spot explores Martian analogue caves [VIDEO]
We occasionally explore ground-based drones, sometimes known as “Rovers.” And one of the most sophisticated, commercially available products of its kind is Spot – the quadruped produced by robotics and AI leader Boston Dynamics.
Over the last month, we’ve seen a lot of changes in SpaceX’s recovery fleet. New members to the fleet are being added, and some being moved around. Here is an update on what has happened recently.
Friday, June 25th, 10:55 a.m. EDT: SpaceX has confirmed that it will launch 88 payloads next Tuesday. No launch time has been announced.
SpaceX will launch 88 satellites into a Sun-synchronous orbit around the Earth as soon as Friday. This will be SpaceX’s second dedicated rideshare mission and host companies like Spaceflight Inc, ExoLaunch, and D-Orbit who will deploy the bulk of the payloads with their specialized deployment system. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch south, down the coast of Florida, and then the first stage will perform the first RTLS landing of 2021, back at LZ-1.
Date: Tuesday, June 29th
