 Virgin orbits getting sold, we can't work out the chosen Starship for SpaceX's next flight, NASA's playing with Dragonfly's budget, and much more is to come in this tomorrow's space news. Kicking off the showdown in Starbase, the liquid oxygen tank, the one over on the right, has had a crew on a cherry picker giving it a look. It didn't sustain a lot of damage from the Starship flight test last month like its sibling tanks, however the vibrations produced by 30 Raptors firing near maximum thrust theoretically could have dislodged some components inside so it's worth taking a look. The orbital launch mount itself remains pretty scarred from the event and I expect it'll be a while before it gets a fresh coat of paint. The diggers and scissor lifts have something to do in the meantime, at least. Looking towards the future of the program, we still haven't heard which ship will be accompanying Booster 9 on the next test flight. Is it going to be Ship 28, which is hiding in the high bay? Is it going to be the Naked ships 26 or 27? Is it going to be the unfinished Ship 29 or is it going to be the shock return of Ship 25? It was spotted undergoing cryogenic proof testing at SpaceX's Massey site last week but it's probably not as it seems. Ship 25 had already completed four cryo tests prior to this one proving it's a reliable vehicle that won't disassemble rapidly without a schedule. The most likely scenario is that S25 has been moved to Massey's in order to test out the ground service equipment which has been built there. It's successful, which as far as we know it was. This test could spur on a new process of ships being tested here before being rolled out to the launch site. Oh and in case you didn't know, there's a third high bay under construction. It's not going to be here in the rocket garden, it's just being constructed through multiple prefabricated pieces. Czechia has become the 24th country to sign the Artemis Accord participating in the Principles to Guide Space Exploration Cooperation amongst nations, reinforcing the commitment to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty ensuring we remain friendly to one another in space. Signing on NASA's behalf was of course Administrator Bill Nelson with Foreign Minister Jan Lipowski signing on behalf of the Czech Republic. The list of countries is still set to expand with Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Czechia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, South Korea, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Ukraine, the UAE, the UK and the US expecting many more collaborators in the years to come. NASA's 2024 proposed budget for the Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's moon Titan is facing an almost 20% reduction according to ZB Turtle, the principal investigator for Dragonfly at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. The budget proposal requested $327.7 million for Dragonfly with the mission scheduled to launch in 2027 and landing on Titan in 2034. The budget cut amounts to 18.1% a big reduction from the $400.1 million Dragonfly received in the fiscal year 2023. This means there's either going to be a change to the mission, most likely it becoming less complex or a change to the schedule, most likely delay. ZB Turtle did not specify how much of a difference there is between the request and the mission's profile but she did say the project is looking at options on how to address the lacking cash. Dragonfly completed its preliminary design review in early March and the mission is preparing for a confirmation review where NASA will set a formal cost estimate and launch date for the project in early autumn. The proposed cut has attracted the attention of members of Congress including Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Dutch Rupersberger who asked NASA Administrator Bill Nelson about the proposed cut in back-to-back hearings in April. Administrator Nelson said in both hearings that the cut would not delay Dragonfly's 2027 launch and that there is no plan for a cut in fiscal year 2024. Dragonfly is one of the coolest planetary science missions that's coming up at least in my opinion, building off the lessons learned with the Ingenuity Helicopter so fly a drone on a body that's 10 times further away from the sun than our own. Want to know what you all think of this somewhat concerning story so make sure to leave your thoughts down below. The US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware has approved a plan to sell small-sat air-launch provider Virgin Orbit assets this month. The sale could result in either a new ownership for the launch provider or the feared worst-case scenario, its dissolution. The court order had set a rather swift timeline for the sale of the company with potential bidders having until last Thursday to submit non-binding indications of interest with formal bids due in a week's time. If there is more than one qualified bid, an auction will take place on May 18th. The hearing on the sale is scheduled for May 24th in the Bankruptcy Court. Bidders could propose to purchase a subset of the company's assets like the Boeing 747-400, November 744 Victor Gulf, more commonly known as Cosmic Girl, if that maximizes the value of the deal for creditors. Taking specific assets away would break the company up because you can't air without a plane and you can't launch without a rocket. Virgin Orbit's CEO, Dan Hart, has said that they're still committed to working with investors and creditors throughout the sale process to achieve an optimal outcome for everyone. For Virgin Orbit and us fans, the optimal outcome would be a sale of the entire company to a new owner who would continue operations as is. However, there's a good chance that will sadly not be the case. Orbex, the UK-based spaceflight company, not the flight simulator developer, has started construction on the UK mainland's first vertical launch site at Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland. The site will be the home of Orbex's Prime rocket, designed to transport smallsats up to 180 kilos into a high inclination low earth orbit. There's been many doubts around the smallsat market, especially considering how it's going over at Virgin Orbit, so it's going to be important for Prime to stand out from the other bajillion smallsat launchers currently being developed. Well, luckily for us UK spaceflight fans, Orbex has got one. Prime is the first commercial rocket designed to work with renewable biofuel. It's called Futuria Liquid Gas, a clean-burning renewable fuel source that cuts carbon emissions by 90% when compared to fossil-hydrocarbon fuels. It's supplied by Orbex's bio LPG fuel partner, Carol UK. Similar to Rocket Lab's Electron, which is arguably the most successful dedicated smallsat launcher to date, Prime utilises carbon fibre. It's combined with aluminium to create a lightweight composite. The Shetlandic Saxavord spaceport, the other vertical launch site being built in the UK, has been very vocal of its progress over the last few months. Fingers crossed, the news out of Sutherland will be just as exciting. It's not the busiest launch week on the record, but first thank you to the citizens of Tomorrow for your constant and consistent financial support of the show. Your contributions are greatly appreciated and in return, the ground support suborbital escape velocity and plowed ProPlus citizens get access to exclusive Discord channels, the members only livestreams and much more. To see if anything takes your fancy, head to the join button below. If you want to support the show in a free way, then watching, commenting and sharing all goes a long way in the eyes of the algorithm. Back to traffic and we're back to Cape Canaveral for yet another launch out of Slick 40. On Thursday at 0731 UTC, we saw the launch of Starlink Group 5 Mission 6, which was delivering another batch of 56 Starlink V1.5 satellites to the second generation constellation. The booster supporting this flight, serial number B1069, marked the 200th recovery attempt and the 115th successful in a row by touching down on the newest drone ship to the fleet, a shortfall of Gavitas. A launch at an acceptable time of day came next, at least in the local time zone, as Rocket Lab were launching from the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand on Monday. Departing Launch Complex 1B at 0100 Universal Time, Rocket Like a Hurricane is Rocket Lab's first flight of two satellites for NASA's tropics program after Astra pulled the plug on Rocket 3, who launched the first two of the constellation. For those of you who are not in the know, the time-resolved observations of precipitation, structure and storm intensity with the constellation of smallsats program intends to provide a set of microwave measurements over the tropics for weather forecasting purposes. You see how the name works now? Electron successfully deployed the two CubeSats, but at the time of writing, neither of them has had their signal acquired. According to NASA, CubeSats taking their time isn't unexpected. Coming up over the next seven days, China is launching the Long March 7 with the Tianzhou 6 cargo resupply mission leaving Wenchang for the Tiangong space station, and we've got two styling missions, 2-9 from Vandy and 5-9 from Slick 40. Your tomorrow schedule is looking good, with Dr. Tamotha Sco returning on Wednesday with the latest out of the world of space weather. Dali's back on Thursday with a midweek news update, and will be live on Friday night with our weekly live show. But for now, thanks for watching and goodbye.