Seth Kurkowski

Over the weekend, NASA made its decision that Boeing’s Starliner would not be safe enough to risk returning its crew from space. Instead, the agency has decided the two astronauts who flew up to space on it will return with Crew-9 on SpaceX’s Dragon early next year.

It’s a busy week for us here following the spaceflight industry. Polaris Dawn‘s rocket and crew are ready for launch, SpaceX has three Starlink missions lined up, and Blue Origin plans to fly its NS-26 rocket with customers out of Texas.

SpaceX finished construction of its second launch tower down at Starbase, Texas for its Starship rocket. This comes hopefully a few weeks out from the next launch of the company’s next generation rocket.

On Monday, the four members of the Polaris Dawn crew arrived at the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center ahead of its launch next week. The crew will finish up their training at SpaceX’s facilities at the cape as they prepare to push what is possible by commercial spaceflight.

In what was believed to be the final strand of tests before attempting its first orbital launch, Rocket Factory Augsburg suffered an anomaly during a hot fire test of its first stage and a loss of the vehicle. So what happens now for European launch?

This week will be another week of Starlink launches from SpaceX after a short break from the company to launch some missions commercially, how nice of them. With that, according to the current launch manifest, two Starlink missions are scheduled to lift off from the same launch pad in less than three days.

In an update to the media this week, NASA reiterated many points it said in an earlier update as it works through more data before making a final decision on the Starliner CFT spacecraft. For now, Starliner’s crew are in limbo as to what how and when they will return home.

A new study has shown that the once “near-term” collision between Andromeda and our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is now only a 50-50 chance in the next 10 billion years. So if you were preparing an intergalactic bug out to avoid such a disaster, it might not be needed.

SpaceX announced Monday that a Chinese crypto entrepreneur purchased a flight on Dragon that will fly around Earth’s poles. The mission will feature crew members from three other countries, none from the US, and could launch as soon as late 2024.

CNBC reported the industry leading commercial launcher has violated basic water treatment regulations with its Starship deluge system in Starbase, Texas. While SpaceX has denied the report, the FAA has postponed its environmental review public meetings for an unknown reason, and both Texas and Federal agencies have reported violations per CNBC.

We have a total for four launches this week currently on the schedule, we’ll see if that changes. Two of those are from SpaceX and shocking, even myself, neither are for the company’s Starlink constellation. The headliner this week will be Russia‘s Progress MS-28 resupply mission to the ISS on Wednesday.

NASA‘s mood toward’s the safety of returning Boeing‘s Crewed Flight Test crew back on Starliner has switched from steadfast support to plans to use SpaceX Dragon for a return flight. However, this has caused drastic changes to both SpaceX‘s and NASA’s launched schedules using its Crew Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX showed off its new version of Starship‘s methane powered rocket engines over the weekend. The new Raptor 3 engine is dramatically cleaner and more powerful then what SpaceX was using on its first Starship missions.

Former NASA astronaut and now Arizona senator, Mark Kelly, is on the short list to potentially become Vice President Harris’ running mate. As head of the National Space Council, his potential nomination has spurred some excitement in the spaceflight community.

This week SpaceX is looking at launching three Falcon 9 rockets, two of those will be for the company’s Starlink constellation. Another payload is a multi-payload satellite that will host missions for the Space Force, Norwegian’s Ministry of Defense, and ViaSat.

Rocket Factory Augsburg is gearing up for its first orbital launch attempt of its RFA One rocket. Its spaceport, a set of Islands north of mainland Scotland, is also ready for the company’s launch, the first from the UK’s soil.

The agency announced this week that it will phase out its NASA TV over the air broadcast service in favor of its digital NASA+ streaming service. Still free, the agency promises all the same great content, just in a new location.

ULA launched an Atlas V rocket early this morning carrying a classified payload. This was the Atlas V’s final national security payload, with the remaining NSSL missions being carried out by the company’s new Vulcan rocket.

SpaceX announced last week that the company will be moving its Dragon recovery operations to the West Coast of the United States due to trunk debris surviving reentry, even though computer models said it wouldn’t. This will be a return to form as the company started out recovering its Dragons from California.

This week we have a total of four launches on the schedule as of right now. Two of the missions are coming from SpaceX with the remaining two coming from Rocket Lab and ULA. The highlight for the week will be the Atlas V launch, as it will be ULA’s final Atlas launch for national security missions.