 SpaceX's starbase has been hammered with bad weather, Orion is flying backwards around the moon, ESA's got new astronauts and much more is coming up in Monday's tomorrow's Space News. I'm starting us off down in McGregor, Texas this week as SpaceX has been static firing the latest Falcon 9 booster, B107-8. It's always wonderful to see a new booster being added to the fleet, especially since this week has seen the loss of an old one. Stay tuned till the end for information about that in Space Traffic. B107-8 is expected to fly the crew's sixth mission on behalf of NASA next February with NASA's Steve Bowen and Warren Hohberg, the United Arab Emirates Sultan Al-Niyedi and Roscosmos' Andrei Fedyev. Heading further south, get your raincoats ready because it hasn't been the most productive week at starbase. The entire facility has been engulfed in stormy weather for pretty much the entire week, which naturally slows the ability to work on the vehicles or the ground support equipment. There is activity inside high bay one with ship 25 however as it was moved back to the left and then back to the right, vacuum raptor installation shenanigans. And finally, the storms cleared up but then the fog rolled in. SpaceX could return to working on Starship but we couldn't see it. When the fog cleared, we could see a temporary tent being dismantled by the orbital launch mount. This was put into place so teams could work on repairing concrete following booster 7's static fire. And I'm afraid that very small snippet of information is pretty much all there is to report in the world of SpaceX this week. NASA's Artemis-1 mission is remaining successful with no major blips found as of yet, at least on the rocket side, more on that later. On Friday, the Orion capsule and the European service module entered the planned distant retrograde orbit around the moon following a 1 minute and 28 second burn. On the day of this episode's release, Orion will surpass 430,000km from Earth, crashing the 400,171km crew-capable spacecraft record set by Apollo 13, which Orion actually surpassed on Saturday. The imagery NASA is continuing to provide is still absolutely jaw-dropping and it isn't just on orbit images that are being released to the public. NASA has released this video from the launch of Artemis-1, viewing down the rocket. The shockwave at launch can be seen very clearly and following the roll program, it becomes extremely apparent why beach access was not and will not be available for LC-39B, with the cloud nearly covering the sea. Somewhere else you definitely won't want to be during an SLS launch is the mobile launcher and especially the lift. The force of the launch of Artemis-1 ripped off the lift doors and produced a lot of damage in general around to the launch site. According to these images taken just hours after the launch, there were pieces of metal lying around, a lot of scorching to the mobile launcher and grass around the flamethridge. We were also told in a press conference that some plumbing was damaged too, however there are no public images of this. We also got drone footage, which doesn't really show us anything different, but it's drone footage, so I included it anyways. The Artemis-1 mission manager Mike Sarafin has said that the issues faced by the mobile launcher were greater than they had expected and they will be fixed in time for Artemis-2, currently slated for May 2024. The European Space Agency has announced their latest astronaut group, the Class of 2022. 17 candidates have been selected with five career astronauts who will begin training straight away, 11 reserve astronauts who will be sitting on the sidelines and one para-astronaut as Issa wants to send the first person with a physical disability into space. The candidate selected as Issa's para-astronaut is Paralympian John McFool, who is 41 years old and from the United Kingdom. After losing his right leg at the age of 19, he's gone on to competing in Beijing 2008, get a bachelor's degree from Swansea University and a master's degree from the University of Wales and he graduated from Cardiff University School of Medicine with a bachelor's in medicine and surgery in 2014. On top of all of that, John was a foundation doctor in the NHS and he's currently in the UK's National Trauma and Orthopaedic Specialist Registrar Training Program. In other words, he's definitely qualified for the job. It is going to be very interesting to see how the feasibility project develops over time, improving our understanding of what various spaceflight currently has and how they can be overcome. Alongside John, Issa has selected five new career astronauts who are, in no particular order, French helicopter test pilot Sophie Adono, Spanish aeronautical engineer Pablo Averles Fernandez, British astrophysicist Rosemary Cougan, Belgian neuroscientist Raphael Lujois, and Swiss paratrooper and anesthesiologist Marco Alansiba. Alongside those five, 11 reserve astronauts have also been selected by Issa. These people will not be permanent Issa staff, however, they could be selected for specific projects, whatever that means. Across the entire selection, the nation with the most representation is the UK, with three candidates who were selected. Italy, Germany, France and Spain all have two astronauts, whilst Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, Poland and Sweden all have one. Personally, as you might have guessed, I'm very excited to have three new Brits in the ranks. If the para-astronaut feasibility study is in favour of John going to space, then the country will have its third and fourth astronauts, with John and Rosemary following in the footsteps of Helen Sharman and Tim Peake. And if McGann Christian ever gets the opportunity, we'll have our fifth. The Earth Departures really picked up in the latter half of the week, starting off with SpaceX launching U-TelSat 10B at 0257 Universal Time on November 23rd from Slick 40 at the Cape. The satellite was successfully placed into its initial 59,831 by 261 kilometre, 22.78 degree super-synchronous geostationary transfer orbit following the ride uphill, which was powered by booster B149. On its last ever flight, this booster was flying with a white interstage, something never seen before in the Block 5 era. This is because its previous interstage was donated to B1052, which was converted from a Falcon Airby Sidecourt to a Falcon 9 booster. An old Falcon 9 V1.24 thrust interstage was bolted onto B1049 and jobs are good. On Saturday 26th at 0626 UTC, the ISRO were launching this PSLB XL rocket from Launchpad 1 at the Satish Devan Space Centre in India, on board with many payloads, EOS 6, BhutanSat, Anand, 5V1 and 2, as well as AstroCast 1, 2, 3 and 4. These were all placed into a sun-synchronous orbit. Back to Florida we go with the launch of CRS 26 at 1920 and 43 seconds Universal, also on Saturday. A complete opposite to the previous SpaceX flight, booster B1076 was beginning its career, carrying something else beginning its career, Cargo Dragon C211, the final cargo-specific Dragon ever planned to be built. After sending the capsule on its way to the International Space Station, the booster returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship just read the instructions. Just before Dragon C211 had been docked to the International Space Station, China snuck in a launch of the Long March 2D at 1223 UTC on the 27th of November, carrying three YG-30 Group 3 military reconnaissance satellites from Launch Complex 3 at the Shichang Satellite Launch Centre. The CRS 26 cargo Dragon then docked to the Harmony Xenith port at 1239 UTC. A couple of hours later, the crew aboard the orbiting laboratory were able to access the supplies and science experiments. Departing Earth over the next seven days, Grona's M61 on a Soyuz, three Tyconauts will be heading to the Tiangong Space Station aboard Chenzhou 15 on Tuesday. SpaceX will then be launching Hakutu-R Mission 1 and Luna Flashlight on Wednesday from the Cape, 901-2 on the Soyuz 2.1A from SpaceX will also be flying on Wednesday. There's another Starlink-Flying Group 2-4 from Vandenberg, but that doesn't have a date yet, and currently is slated for next December 3rd. Tsuki-2 will be flying for the first time from China, making it, if successful, the first methane-powered rocket into orbit. A big thank you to all the citizens of tomorrow who contribute financially to the channel once a month. For exclusive perks, you can't access any other way, such as the Escape Velocity Discord channel and the members' live show hang out, head to join.tmro.tv or hit the join button below. There's more to come over in the next week, so don't go anywhere. On Wednesday, Dr. Tamethasco will be back with a space weather update on Friday. There should be a live show, and after that, I may or may not be back with more space news on Monday. You'll find out if it's released or not. A sneak peek for those who've stuck to the end. Keep your eyes peeled for part 2 of my documentary on the history of British spaceflight. We're just coming very soon. Thanks for watching, and goodbye.