Up, up, and away!
Four astronauts went to space on November 10 as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Their destination is the ISS, where they’ll stay until 2022.
On Wednesday, November 10 at 9:03 p.m. EST, 2:03 UTC on November 11 SpaceX and NASA launched Dragon’s third long-duration operational crew mission (Crew-3) to the International Space Station from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage landed on the “A Shortfall of Gravitas” droneship.
On Thursday, November 11 at approximately 7:10 p.m. EST, 00:10 UTC on November 12 Dragon will autonomously dock with the space station. Follow Dragon and the Crew-3 astronauts during their flight to the International Space Station at spacex.com/launches.
Alongside advances in space exploration, we’ve recently seen much time and money invested into technologies that could allow effective space resource utilization. And at the forefront of these efforts has been a laser-sharp focus on finding the best way to produce oxygen on the Moon.
In October, the Australian Space Agency and NASA signed a deal to send an Australian-made rover to the Moon under the Artemis program, with a goal to collect lunar rocks that could ultimately provide breathable oxygen on the Moon.
Although the Moon does have an atmosphere, it’s very thin and composed mostly of hydrogen, neon, and argon. It’s not the sort of gaseous mixture that could sustain oxygen-dependent mammals such as humans.
Understanding the structural secrets of how mollusks form symmetrical pearls could inspire more optimal materials for solar panels and space travel.
NASA might be going to the Moon a bit later.
NASA wants to send humans back to the Moon as part of the Artemis program, but Blue Origin’s legal action has pushed the launch back further.
GGwynne Shotwell: Meet the Woman Behind SpaceX: There’s a proverb that says behind every great man is a great woman. That is certainly true of SpaceX. Elon Musk may be the most recognizable face of his aerospace company. But his right-hand woman is Gwynne Shotwell.
Shotwell is the President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX. She manages the day-to-day operations and the growth of the firm. In other words – she’s in charge of selling rockets and dealing with Elon Musk.
Unlike a lot of other SpaceX employees who grew up fascinated by rockets, she wasn’t. When she was five and her neurosurgeon father gathered the family around a TV to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing, she found it boring.
Now that Blue Origin’s lawsuit against NASA is over, the agency can work with SpaceX to build its next human moon lander. But it will take a while.
SpinLaunch, a start-up that is building an alternative method of launching spacecraft to orbit, conducted last month a successful first test flight of a prototype in New Mexico.
The Long Beach, California-based company is developing a launch system that uses kinetic energy as its primary method to get off the ground – with a vacuum-sealed centrifuge spinning the rocket at several times the speed of sound before releasing.
“It’s a radically different way to accelerate projectiles and launch vehicles to hypersonic speeds using a ground-based system,” SpinLaunch CEO Jonathan Yaney told CNBC. “This is about building a company and a space launch system that is going to enter into the commercial markets with a very high cadence and launch at the lowest cost in the industry.”
After a series of delays for bad weather, the ill-health of an astronaut and then a wait for the splashdown of the previous mission this morning the world’s only re-usable orbital rocket take four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) as SpaceX and NASA launch the Crew-3 mission.
Originally due to launch on October 27 2021 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA has now confirmed that its SpaceX Crew-3 mission will take-off no earlier than 9:03 p.m. EST on Wednesday, November 10 2021.
The four Crew-2 astronauts returned to Earth after 199 days in space.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After six months in space, SpaceX’s Crew-2 astronauts returned to Earth late Monday (Nov. 8), splashing down off the Florida coast to end the private company’s second long-duration mission.
SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission for NASA splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico just south of Pensacola, Florida, at 10:33 p.m. EST (0333 GMT on Nov. 9), with a recovery ship swiftly retrieving the spaceflyers’ Crew Dragon capsule from the sea. Their return wrapped up a six-month trip to the International Space Station (ISS).
