 The countdown continues as in only 7 days time, Artemis 1 will be heading to the moon. We'll be talking about that as well as SpaceX's Starship's new satellite contract. This is Tomorrow Space News. We're going to start off this week with Ship 25, specifically its nose cone. It was rolled to high bay 1 before being stacked onto the upper tank section of the ship. In Booster News, B10's forward dome has been sleeved with the section which the grid fins are attached to. Some chined sections have also been spotted laying around and these will be installed on future boosters, such as, possibly, Booster 10. Booster 7 is still sitting in the mega bay, officially known as high bay 2, as its 13 gimbling raptors are installed. Hopefully we'll be seeing it roll out soon, but we already have a busy few weeks ahead. The chopsticks have been recovering since their hydraulic leak and here are some actuators waiting to be installed at the launch site. They'll be lifted up and installed just like this one and they'll be in use when trying to catch the boosters and ships. The chopstick structure has also been moving up and down, testing that it still works as expected after that hydraulic leak. Star Factory is progressing nicely as it usually is, with roof panels now being installed. Hopefully they'll install some lighting soon because it looks pretty dark in there. Starship has also been in the press office of the Skyperfect JSAT group this week as they're the first commercial customer to have signed a contract with SpaceX to launch their Superbird 9 communications satellite on a Starship vehicle. This first contract outside of NASA or internal SpaceX missions starts to put Starship on the map as a usable launch vehicle and I'm sure many more contracts will be coming once the vehicle starts flying. The satellite will be succeeding Superbird C2, which is already in orbit, providing KU band coverage over Japan and East Asia. No specific launch site was named, but it is currently scheduled for 2024, which means both Boca Chica and LC-39A would be available for a geosynchronous transfer orbit. As well as the Superbird 9 satellite, Starship is going to be launching the next generation of Starlink satellites called V2. Because of their increase in size over V1, Starship is required to launch these new satellites, or at least it was required as SpaceX has informed the Federal Communications Commission that it now intends to fly Starlink V2 satellites on both Starship and Falcon 9. But previously, Falcon 9 was ruled out because of the size of the satellites, right? Well, that's now changed. The technology inside of the satellites will be the same, but the physical structures of the satellites will be designed depending on what vehicle they are launching on. Why they have chosen to do this is pretty much down to speculation. I'd guess that SpaceX wants to get the V2 satellites out of the door and into orbit quicker, and using a reliable vehicle such as Falcon 9 will allow them to do just that. But it's just a yes. We covered the rollout of SLS for the Artemis One mission last week, but today August 22nd marks exactly one week until the first launch window opens on August 29th. Here in the UK, it's a bank holiday, so there's not really an excuse to not be watching the live coverage of the launch, assuming it does actually get that far because we must remember that this is the first launch of a brand new vehicle. It may be derived from Shuttle, but it is still a new vehicle, which the engineers and launch teams are learning about. The Orion spacecrafts, which will be heading to the Moon, will only be orbiting it, but NASA has released some very exciting information over the last week about the landing sites for Artemis 3, the first landing attempt of the program. 13 different 15x15km2 regions near the Lunar South Pole have been selected, with a minimum of 10 landing locations within each of the regions. Those regions are in alphabetical order. When these regions were named however many years ago, I'm sure they were thinking of me having to figure out how to pronounce them all. Each landing site is within six degrees of latitude of the South Pole, and the differing locations provide multiple options for when the Artemis 3 mission launches. If you were unaware, the South Pole was chosen for the Artemis missions, because it was somewhere that was never touched. During the Apollo program, it has parts which are always in darkness and always in sunlight, and it allows for science to be completed on the ice, which we already know exists there. Jacob Bleacher, NASA's chief exploration scientist, said alongside the landing area announcements, Lunar water ice is valuable from a scientific perspective and also as a resource, because from it we can extract oxygen and hydrogen for life support systems and fuel. If you want to stay on the Moon for a long period, you're going to need another way of producing the resources you need to survive, and ice is one way to do that. There are still opportunities for new landing sites to be added as well, so this might not be the final list. As Starship develops, its landing requirements may change as well, which could impact what sites were available, either positively or negatively. The final list will hopefully be narrowed down around 18 months before Artemis 3 launches, currently slated for the latter half of 2025. The future is looking very exciting, with one of the most important launches of the decade, maybe even the century, starting the journey for humans back to the Moon. If we go back to the roots of the national launch system, this is a story 30 years in the making and I can't wait to see it fly. Another future heavy-lifting launch vehicle has seen another update recently in both the launch pad and the landing pad department, starting with the new Glens Space Launch Complex 36. For the first time ever, the strong back or transporter erector for the vehicle has been spotted in its vertical position at the pad, slightly tilted back. It'll be a very exciting day when you're able just to sit on the beach and watch New Glenn ignite its BE-4 engines. It's not really something you get elsewhere at the cape from public viewing areas because buildings and foliage get in the way. The recovery ship for New Glenn was going to be Jacqueline, a big boat which was named after Jeff Bezos' mother, but instead, Blue Origin has decided to go in another direction for recovery similar to SpaceX with Jacqueline being scrapped. The boat, not the person. Its final journey was to the port of Brownsville, right next door to Boca Chica, meaning that NASA spaceflight's robot cameras as well as Nick and Sweeney were able to watch it arrive at its destination. The port of Brownsville is known for ship scrapping, SpaceX's operations here are merely a coincidence. Space traffic starts this week with an ISS departure, which later turns into an Earth Arrival. The Dragon capsule used for the CRS-25 mission, number C-208, undocked from the Harmony Forward port at 1505 UTC on the 19th of August, starting its one-day descent back to the Atlantic Ocean. There were a couple of launches in between undocking and splashdown, though starting with three Yang and 35 Group 4 satellites, which launched on a long march 2D, from LC3 at the Shichang Satellite Launch Center in China at 1737 UTC on August 19th. The payload mass is unknown, but it was delivered to a 500km low Earth orbit at a 34.99 degree inclination. The same day, at 1921 UTC, we had another Blue Teen Starlink launch, which was grouped for Mission 27. Inside the payload fairing were 53 Starlink satellites, which were launched from Slick 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. They were successfully delivered to their initial 336x232km 53.22 degree inclination low Earth orbit, with the booster supporting this mission, B1062, successfully touching down on a shortfall of gravitas. Despite being Mission 27, this was the 25th launch to Shell 4, and about 10 more missions will be required to fill it up. The 20th of August, at 1853 UTC, saw Dragon Sea 208 splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, and it was scooped up by the recovery ship Megan. Sadly, there was no broadcast of the splashdown, so you're just seeing more footage of the departure procedures. Here is probably one of the most historic upcoming launches I'm ever going to read. Between this and the next episode of Tomorrow Space News, we'll have the launch of Long March 11 from Xi Chang, a Long March 2D from Tai Yang, Starlink Group 3 Mission 4 from Vandenberg, Starlink Group 4 Mission 23 from LC-39A, and finally, Artemis 1 on the Space Launch System from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Thank you to all the citizens of Tawara who keep the show going week after week. Station 204, it's expensive to operate, but thanks to the escape velocity, orbital suborbital and ground support citizens as well as NeuroStream, the financial burden on Jamie is reduced. If you want your name on this list, you want to see Space News script as they're being written, and you want to be able to hang out in our pre and post live show Hangouts, head to youtube.com forward slash tmro forward slash join, or hit the join button below. The final week until Artemis 1 isn't finished yet, it's only Monday. Dr. Tamotha Skyev will be returning with this week's update on Space Weather on Wednesday. On Friday, we may or may not have a live show, Jamie is not available and Dutta is currently orange. Fingers crossed, following the launch of Artemis 1 on Monday, I'll be back with the news of the historical mission. The next few weeks are going to be crazy, so hopefully we'll see you then. Thank you for watching and goodbye.