Plus: Work on Starliner continues
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Musk and SpaceX shift from Mars to the moon, NASA and Boeing continue work on Starliner, Firefly plans Alpha return to flight and more.
If someone forwarded you this edition, sign up to receive it in your inbox every weekday. Have thoughts or feedback? You can hit reply to let me know.
| | |
|
|
|
Top Stories
Roughly one year after Elon Musk dismissed the moon as a "distraction," SpaceX is all-in on setting up a permanent human base there. Musk said over the weekend that SpaceX had shifted direction "to building a self-growing city on the Moon," which he believed could be done in the next decade. Musk had long been associated with a desire to establish human settlements on Mars, and early last year said using the moon to advance those ambitions would be a distraction. The statement came after reports that SpaceX had abandoned plans to launch its first Starship missions to Mars in a window late this year, although most industry observers considered that schedule unlikely. Musk did not elaborate on his plans for the moon but said he remains interested in sending humans to Mars in the long term. [SpaceNews]
NASA is waiting on an uncrewed test flight of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner in the coming months before deciding whether to use it for a crewed mission to the International Space Station this fall. At a briefing Monday, agency officials said they have not set a date for Starliner-1, another uncrewed test of Starliner that will deliver cargo to the station. That mission is planned for no earlier than April, but a more specific launch date will come only after engineers resolve issues from the spacecraft's crewed trip to the station in 2024. NASA revised its commercial crew contract with Boeing last November, making Starliner-1 a cargo-only flight with three crewed flights to follow. NASA said it can wait until at least this summer to determine if a fall mission to the ISS will use Starliner or Crew Dragon. [SpaceNews]
Weather is delaying the next crewed mission to the station. NASA announced Monday that the SpaceX Crew-12 mission, which was to launch early Wednesday, would slip to Thursday because of poor weather expected in some abort zones along the East Coast. NASA said early Tuesday it would further delay the Crew-12 launch to Friday morning, again because of weather. Crew-12 will deliver astronauts from NASA, ESA and Roscosmos for an eight-month stay on the ISS. [NASA]
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is dropping a case against SpaceX, arguing it does not have jurisdiction. The NLRB filed a complaint against SpaceX two years ago after the company fired eight employees who circulated an open letter inside the company criticizing Elon Musk. The NLRB informed attorneys for the former employees it was dropping the case after the National Mediation Board (NMB) issued an opinion that it was the proper agency to handle the case, not NLRB. The NMB largely handles cases involving companies in the rail and airline sectors, and employees of those companies have fewer legal protections than those covered by the NLRB. [Bloomberg]
| | |
|
|
|
Other News
Firefly Aerospace plans to return its Alpha rocket to flight next week. The company announced Monday it is targeting a launch of its seventh Alpha rocket no earlier than Feb. 18 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Firefly said it recently completed a static-fire test of the first stage, clearing the way for the launch. The mission will be the first for Alpha since a launch failure last April. [X @FireflySpace]
SpaceX is expanding the Starship launch site at Starbase in Texas. The company recently received final approvals to roughly double the size of the launch site, which now has two pads and support infrastructure. The additional land will accommodate a plant for liquefying natural gas for use on Starship as well as additional ground support equipment. [NASASpaceFlight.com]
The head of the Indian space agency ISRO wants closer cooperation with the United Space in space technology. Speaking at a U.S.-India Space Business Forum event in India, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said there were opportunities for international collaboration as India embarks on the development of a space station and heavy-lift launch vehicles. Other officials from the U.S. and India said at the event that they wanted closer collaboration between space businesses in the two countries as well. [The Times of India]
Scientists have found evidence of lava tubes under the surface of Venus. Researchers said Monday they found evidence of the lava tube, an underground cavity created by volcanic activity, in a reanalysis of data from the Magellan radar-mapping mission to Venus 35 years ago. Similar lava tubes have been found on the moon and Mars, and may show that Venus is not a geologically dead world. [Space.com]
| | |
|
|
|
FROM SPACENEWS |  | Exodus: The shrinking federal space workforce: At least 5,000 federal workers left their positions in the U.S. space workforce last year. Senior executives with decades of experience retired alongside younger staffers whose posts were eliminated or who sought opportunities in the private sector or academia. Read SpaceNews correspondent Debra Werner's conversations with former officials from NASA, NOAA, the Air Force Research Laboratory, NGA and Space Systems Command. | | |
|
|
| Crazy Mustache
| "I'm trying to get it as long as possible, see if I can get it to be more crazy than the hair of our fine female astronauts, but I don't think I will. They have more style than I do."
| – NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, discussing the mustache he has grown ahead of his launch on the Crew-12 mission during a press conference about the mission Sunday.
| | |
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment