 Hello and welcome aboard station 204. Do you have yourself a very nice sleep day? Because I sure did, even though there weren't any launches this week. But don't let that fool you because we have got a lot to talk about in this space news episode, such as a poppin' SpaceX update from Ryan, our weekly space weather update as well from Dr. Scove, a convergence of companies all in the same area and a type of rendezvous that has literally never happened in space before. And before we get into it, I just want to remind you to subscribe and like us and add your notifications and you can actually set up what level of notifications you want and everything and hopefully we'll be having a live show this week depending upon whether Jamie still feels sick or not. I guess we'll find out about that a little bit later. So let's go ahead and get started with our space news for March 1st, 2020. And I'm gonna hand it right over to Ryan for our busy, busy, busy SpaceX update. The start of the new month has given us some exciting information about an upcoming Falcon Heavy flight in 2022 and the Starship SM-1 vehicle has taken flight, but definitely not in the way that we were expecting. But before we get into the juicy news, CRS-20 is coming up. So why don't we have a look into that? CRS-20 will be the 23 supply mission to the International Space Station from SpaceX and it's going to have some exciting payloads on board such as the Bartolomio payload platform, the G-ROS ISS climate research experiment and the interoperable radio system which is actually a foundation for the new radio system which is being developed for use on the International Space Station. The CRS-20 mission is planned to be launched at 0645 Coordinated Universal Time on Saturday the 7th from Sleek 40 on the soon to be renamed Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Starship development has gotten kind of crazy during the last week with the third Raptor test stand now online in McGregor, Texas. And the SM-1 test vehicle made it so little hot. Every time SpaceX tests the tank's pressure capabilities, they camp the tank down onto the mount it sits on. However, the explosion might have destroyed that piece of hardware, leading to it to leap into the sky a fair bit. From watching the mount, it seems that something definitely wasn't right as you can see something leaking out of what is probably cracks that had developed in the welding. The vehicle quickly tried to release as much pressure as possible before the explosion occurred. As you can see the valves on the top and the side of the booster opening. But in the end, it wasn't enough. Meaning the SN2 construction has begun with it or any future versions being slated for a 20 kilometer hop within the coming months. An Elon is aspiring for an orbital flight of Starship before the end of 2020. That's only nine months to get a vehicle into orbit around the Earth that has flown zero times as a full Starship spacecraft. Now I firmly believe that SpaceX the only aerospace company that could get such a momentous task done. However, I am somewhat skeptical of this whether this goal can be met. But even if it isn't, this year is still looking to get even more busy from this point onwards with more Starship development, the commercial crew program and the rapid launches of Starlink making the future of spaceflight even more exciting for all of us. And before I end off this week, SpaceX has been awarded with the duty to launch NASA's Psyche mission into the asteroid belt. The Psyche mission will travel to an asteroid named Psyche, the asteroid was named first. Which will then investigate Psyche's exposed nickel and iron core, which is what scientists have found to be the core to most Earth-like planets. Once launched, Psyche the satellite's mission to Psyche the asteroid is expected to take around four years with Psyche the asteroid hopefully welcoming Psyche the satellite into its neighborhood in 2026. SpaceX has also had approval from the Board of Harbor Commissioners to build a new facility in the port of LA. The next step after this is approval from the LA city council which has gotten the excitement rolling within me and I hope I've spread a little of it into you. So without anything else to talk about, I'm gonna hand it back over to Jared. Thanks, Ryan. And it's not just SpaceX that's gonna be making moves in the Los Angeles area. Relativity Space just announced that they're opening a new facility in Long Beach. The factory will autonomously 3D print their rocket, the Terran One. But just last month, Rocket Lab announced a new HQ and production facility in Long Beach as well. And Virgin Orbit is literally just down the street from them all. And the still in stealth mode spin launch is also in the same part of Long Beach. And I do have to say that they're all well qualified to represent the LBC. The cutting edge isn't just happening here on the ground but it's also happening in space as well. Specifically up in geostationary orbit. And I'm not just talking about like never been done in geostationary orbit before I'm talking about never been done in space before, period. You'll recall back in October we covered the launch of UtilSat 5 West B on a proton rocket. But it shared that launch with a type of spacecraft that had never been flown before. A dedicated commercial servicing vehicle. Northrop Grumman's first mission extension vehicle called MEV-1 was sent on a course to link up with IntelSat 901, which has been operating in space at Geo for 18 years and is a bit low on fuel as anyone would be after 18 years. MEV-1 will attach itself and take control of IntelSat 901's propulsion system. It's like that scene in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice, but like a lot nicer of an outcome. MEV-1 actually spent a few weeks around IntelSat 901 prepping and calibrating its systems for a rendezvous and capture. And this is so cool that these are actual images of IntelSat 901 from MEV-1. Then the approach began and these even more amazing photos came down. I mean, look, it's a satellite with the Earth far beyond it. This is so cool. Look, this is some absurd. Finally, at 1715 universal on February 25th, MEV-1 captured IntelSat 901 and attached itself, this rendezvous and attachment being done autonomously. I'll be it with go-aheads from the meat at Northrop Grumman and IntelSat HQs. It's important to mention that IntelSat 901 had not been designed for another spacecraft to meet up with it, let alone capture it. So MEV-1 had to be as precise as possible and hopefully all the work that happened on the ground translated to working up in orbit. And it worked. And we get another amazing sequence of photos showing MEV-1 attaching itself to IntelSat 901. This is some kind of future, huh? Now, MEV-1 is going to stay at IntelSat 901 for five years before moving it into a graveyard orbit or an orbituary, if you will, where MEV-1 will then detach itself and move on to the next client to capture and control. Satellites in Geo are big business. To be able to extend their lifetime to provide additional revenues to the company that owns them, that's kind of a game changer. And IntelSat really does believe in that because they did buy a second MEV vehicle from Northrop Grumman to hook up with another one of their old commsats. Now, if you wanna do that, you're gonna have to give Northrop Grumman a tall, cool $13 million per year in order to have an MEV come and hook up. Now, if you ask me, that sounds like a steal in order to continue to make money off of your satellite. And those people who build satellites nowadays, they are also including serviceability now instead of just aiming squarely on reliability. Now, if you're gonna have a satellite up in Geo, you have to worry about space weather and how it affects your satellite. And to talk a little bit about this past week's space weather and get you your update, here's our very own Dr. Tamatha Scove. Space weather this week is definitely picking up just a little bit as we switch to our front side sun. Nevermind that photo bomb of the moon right there. You can see there's not a lot going on it, but we do have a couple dark patches and as those rotate into the Earth strike zone, they're gonna be sending us some fast solar wind, just pockets of it. And that should keep us at about unsettled conditions. Now, also on top of that, we also have a couple of bright regions that are gonna be rotating into Earth view here in the next couple of days as we switch to our far-sided sun. This is stereo A and it's looking at the sun pretty much from the side. You can see those bright regions there as they rotate in through stereo's view and they will be boosting the solar flux for amateur radio operators and emergency responders, but don't worry, they are not actively flaring so that's not gonna cause an issue for radio comms for launch or for other kinds of space traffic. And now for your Leo, Mio, Geo orbit outlook. As we switch to our low energy particle environment, these are the particles that charge up the surface of the spacecraft, including the solar arrays that then can discharge and cause electrical short circuits and other types of issues. You can see everything is in the red and this is due to the recent solar storming that we've had and they're really weak solar storms and some of the activity we continue to have, it's not strong enough to kind of flush these particles out of the geo environment and so they continue to build up. So you satellite operators in and around Geo and also even down into the Mio orbits expect to deal with some surface charging issues here over the next few days and possibly into the beginning of next week before things begin to settle down. For more details on this week's space weather, including when and where to see aurora and how those bright regions on the sun's far side are gonna affect us earth side, come check out my channel or see me at spacewetherwoman.com. This week we didn't have any launches but it is time for you to start your fire walk in because here are this week's departure. From her destination cause she's fine. Now before you wrap up this week's space news I just again wanna thank everyone who contributes to the show. We cannot do this show without you and each and every one of you who does so you are amazing and it's greatly appreciated. If you'd like to contribute to the shows of tomorrow head on over to youtube.com slash tmro slash join to do so and check out all the great rewards we have available to you at different levels of support. And of course, watching our shows, liking, subscribing, setting up notifications and sharing us everywhere you can is an incredible help as well. And that about wraps up this week's space news. Thank you so much for joining us here at two zero four and until the next one, keep exploring. But just last month Rocket Lab, whoops. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Lots of Rs, Rs are hard. The G-ROS ISS climate research experiment and the interoperable inter interoperable and the interoperable radius. I hate naming conventions honestly. It is odd, that's why it's good. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da It's bending down to get my drink. How old am I, 31?