The Space Roundup - Mar 6th, 2022

Hello, hello, my dear space lover!

Getting back on track after all the historical events that are going on! Let’s go!

This week we’ve had a lot of activity on all fronts!

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Are you ready for yet another week of space awesomeness? 3, 2, 1, zero! Lift-off!

SpaceX updates

Given Boeing’s Starliner doesn’t seem to be ready anytime soon to take a crew to the ISS, SpaceX has been awarded three more commercial crew mission contracts.

Both BocaChica and Florida Starbases have been making a lot of progress, including multiple cryotests to the Starship (see the video below)

And also new infrastructure upgrades on both bases.

With last week’s launch, they have already launched nine Falcon 9 rockets in nine weeks: nice figure! 🙂

Rocket Lab & tons of sats!

SpaceX is not the only company speeding up its launch cadence. Rocket Lab successfully launched its mission "The Owl’s Night Continues” from their new launchpad. This second launchpad allows them to launch a rocket every three days. Yeah, you heard it right: they can now launch 10 rockets a month. Wow! Let’s see if there’s enough demand for them to max out this investment.  

These weren’t the only successes of the week. ULA’s Atlas 5 successfully launched GOES-18, a satellite that will be used to monitor the weather, and China has also launched seven new commercial satellites last week. 

And this all makes us think: how are we going to make this sustainable in space? Well, hopefully, there are many companies exploring in-orbit satellite servicing. Northrop Grumman announced they are going to launch a new satellite-servicing mission in 2024. I don’t know if you’ve seen this video explaining their mission, but it is certainly impressive. I recommend watching it! 

More progress and observations!

NASA has begun the assembly of Europa Clipper, which is scheduled to start its journey to visit Jupiter’s icy moon Europa in 2024.

A black hole eating another black hole? Yes! Look at this illustration of an event a group of astronomers recently identified. The small one seems to be approaching the big one in a course to collide with it.

Not