Verge Science is here to bring you the most up-to-date space news and analysis, whether it’s about the latest findings from NASA or comprehensive coverage of the next SpaceX rocket launch to the International Space Station. We’ll take you inside the discoveries of new exoplanets, space weather, space policy, and the booming commercial space industry.
At 3:38AM ET, SpaceX confirmed the successful conclusion of its historic Polaris Dawn mission, which took four people, including Billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, farther into space than any astronaut has been in decades.
During the flight, Isaacman and Gillis became the first private astronauts to conduct a spacewalk. Gillis also recorded herself playing violin while in space, as Engadget notes.
After a historic spacewalk, the Polaris Dawn crew sent a message to Earth using Starlink’s laser communication technology. SpaceX has already started selling its “Plug and Plaser” tech to other companies to help improve communication from space.
The Starliner debacle fueled speculation that the space agency would dump Boeing. But if it did, it would be left with SpaceX — and Elon Musk.
When Dragon’s hatch opens for astronauts Sarah Gillis and Jared Isaacman, all four Polaris Dawn crewmembers will be exposed to the vacuum of space, according to SpaceX.
Gillis and Isaacman will then exit the spacecraft for about 12 minutes to perform the spacewalk and conduct suit mobility tests.
At 5:23AM ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully launched the four-person all-civilian crew into space on the multi-day mission. Among other things, they’ll be conducting the first-ever space walk by commercial astronauts wearing SpaceX-developed suits, and testing Starlink’s laser-based communications.
The troubled spacecraft successfully undocked from the ISS without issue just after 6PM ET, and now it is scheduled to land at 12:01AM ET on Saturday at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
According to Astrobotic’s post-mission report:
After an extensive review of the events before, during, and after Peregrine’s mission, the board concluded that the most likely cause of Peregrine’s anomaly was the failure of a singular helium pressure control valve, called PCV2, within the propulsion system.
Boeing’s first crewed Starliner launch got Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the International Space Station in June, but with issues including helium leaks, will the same vehicle still bring them home?
We expect to find out during NASA’s press conference that was scheduled to start at 1PM ET following an Agency Test Flight Readiness Review.
Will astronauts Barry ”Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams come home from the ISS on the Starliner, or will they wait to hitch a ride home from SpaceX next year without protective space suits?
We may find out on Saturday:
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and leadership will hold an internal Agency Test Flight Readiness Review on Saturday, Aug. 24, for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. About an hour later, NASA will host a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT from Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Getting to Mars will be easy. It’s the whole ‘living there’ part that we haven’t figured out.
In the meantime, NASA officials said on a media call that they will weigh the risks of bringing Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
The spacesuits they brought wouldn’t work, so they’d have to return without the protection of wearing one. Staying in space longer, however, could expose the astronauts to extra radiation.
The breakup of a Chinese Long March 6A rocket resulted in “over 300 pieces of trackable debris in low-Earth orbit,” according to US Space Command. The agency has “observed no immediate threats” as a result of the breakup.
Space.com has a good story about the situation.
The state-backed Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite Technology Company successfully launched 18 satellites on Tuesday, with goals of bringing 648 satellites into orbit by the end of 2025, according to the South China Morning Post.
The company, which aims to operate 14,000 satellites by 2030, still has ways to go to catch up to Starlink’s growing constellation of more than 6,000 satellites.
[South China Morning Post]
The Biden administration is investing $20 million in a program to use the GOES-R satellite for wildfire detection. The hope is that the satellite will spot blazes before 911 calls start, and see through a haze of smoke to point to where a fire ignited. That could help officials and firefighters respond more quickly and give them a leg up on fighting the fire.
It shows carbon dioxide pollution moving through Earth’s atmosphere. We can’t usually see the pollution causing climate change, but NASA was able to illustrate it using a a high-resolution weather model and supercomputers. It incorporates data from billions of ground and satellite observations.
