 It's 10 days until the end of 2021 and only 4 until Christmas but that doesn't mean that the space industry is quietening down. It is as busy as ever. In today's show I'll be covering all the latest gossip from SpaceX and Starbase including a big landmark in booster recovery, what's happening with Boeing's Starliner, another SLS delay, China's new moon rocket and all the launches and space traffic. So stay tuned as this is your episode of tomorrow news which is for the week of December 21st 2021. We're starting off this week's SpaceX update with some beautiful footage from CEO Elon Musk. Here you can see a test of the thrust vector control system with all nine Raptor centre engines on super heavy spinning 360 degrees before re-centering which looks super cool. That arrangement is not going to be lasting long however as according to Elon the next booster will be equipped with 13 steerable Raptor 2s and the number of R-Vacs on the ship is doubling to 6 for 9 total engines a design closer to the original ITS ship. Eric X on Twitter has responded to that news by creating this fantastic visualisation of a 9 engine ship which looks super cool. Make sure to follow them on Twitter as they have a ton of realistic renders of what the future of the Starship program could be. The first aft dome for the new 33 engine super heavy has also just been sleeved. A while ago I covered Falcon 9 booster B1035 being re-homed to Space Centre Houston. Well another Falcon booster is going to a museum with the Kennedy Space Centre visitor complex receiving B1023. This booster previously supported Tycom 8 as a Falcon 9 booster and most famously the Falcon Heavy test flight as a side booster. Gateway the Deep Space Launch Complex is an exhibit opening in 2022 which will allow visitors to quote experience the interstellar travel of tomorrow while celebrating what is happening right now within our space program. The concept art looks interesting and I can make out a Starliner capsule and a Ryan capsule a model of SLS as well as the massive booster suspended from the ceiling. It isn't just the visitor complex getting in on the SpaceX action though as after Elon announced that work on the LC39A Starship pad had resumed and NASA revealed it would conduct environmental assessments at LC49 to support Starship launch and landing operations which is a location close to the original plans for LC39C and LC39D. This is exciting for both launchpad fans and Starship fans as who doesn't have any launchpad and Starship has five named possible launching locations being Starbase, LC39A, LC49, Phobos and Demos. Moving down to Starbase and the continuing development Starship S21's main tank section has been rolled out of the mid bay and the nose cone section has been prepped for stacking Interestingly a bit of the skin covering the inner workings of one of the flaps on SN15 has been removed and I can't figure out why they've done this. Maybe it's to look inside, maybe they're going to disassemble SN15, only time will tell. Booster 4 has been undergoing some testing after it was lifted onto the orbital launch mount last week. The biggest visual identification of this is the massive vapor clouds coming out from the stand. Every time I see some footage of the wide bay it feels like it's doubled in size and that's because it keeps growing day by day and probably a little bit faster now but SpaceX are installing some prefabricated parts. There's also been some work done to the outside of the high bay which nicely wraps up the Starbase updates. As always there's so much stuff happening down there we only have the time and mental capacity to scratch the surface of what's happening down at Starbase on this show so if you want to do some further exploring all of our sources I linked below. Ever since the Orbital Flight Test 1 mission Boeing's Starliner program just seems to have been plagued with issue after issue and delay after delay and to try and break the cycle NASA and Boeing have announced that Orbital Flight Test 2 or OFT2 will launch no earlier than May of 2022. The service module which was originally going to be used for OFT2 is now being replaced with the service module which was designated for the crew flight test. This now means that that mission will take the service module for Starliner 1. Basically all the service modules are moving down a mission. According to Boeing this new approach will now have a spring launch date and they're currently working with ULA and the Eastern Range to sort out the proposed May launch date. OFT2 was originally meant to launch back in August but then some valve problems cropped up when some in the propulsion system failed to open which can be found in the service module. You can probably see where this is going Boeing doesn't want more valve problems so they're just going to skip to the next service module. A statement from John Vollmer read, based on the results to date with the decision to fly service module 4 next and continue longer term tests with service module 2 hardware on the vehicle and in offline facilities. According to engineer Long Li Hao, a senior space industry figure and Long March launch vehicle designer in China, the country's next big heavy lift rocket capable of sending tyco-naughts to the moon could see its first flight in 2026. They also told CCTV that they could be landing people on the moon before 2030 which is only nine years away. These views pair up well with recent comments from Yipijian, who is a senior official within China's lunar program. The United States' lunar program is currently experiencing another delay as the inaugural flight of the space launch system has been pushed back yet again. NASA announced on December 17 that SLS engineers have decided that they need to replace the controller for engine 4 on the core stage because one of two redundant channels in the controller failed to power up properly during tests at the Kennedy Space Center. They haven't released a schedule for the work taking place but they have ruled out the February launch window and March or April is no more realistic time frame. It isn't all bad news though as the upper part of the core stage for Artemis 2 has been assembled at the Michaud assembly facility in New Orleans, Louisiana. So with all the new data you've received during this episode, why not play a round of everyone's favorite game? What will launch first? SLS, Starship or Starliner? Speaking of launches, it's time for space traffic. Quickly though, before space traffic, this is editing Ryan here. Just as I finished recording, NASA tweeted that James Webb had been pushed by one day to December 25th due to unfavorable weather. So fingers crossed, this day actually goes ahead. Okay then, here's your traffic. Gifting off from Site-95 at the Jiquan Space Launch Complex in China at 0200 Corsonated Universal Time on December 15th, Akwaza 1A was meant to take GSAT 1A and 1B to an unknown low Earth orbit but sadly the launch failed and the payload was lost. The reason for the failure and even what it was has not yet been disclosed. That also means that the picture on your screen right now is of a previous Akwaza launch. Next up is a launch with a happier outcome, Starlink Group 4-4. Lifting off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Spaceful Space in California at 1241 UTC on December 18th, the Falcon 9 booster used for this mission, B1051, set a record by becoming the first ever orbital-class rocket booster to launch and land 11 times. The launch profile for this mission really hugs the coastline, meaning that the booster landed on, of course, I still love you, 638 km stand range but just off the coast of Baja, California. This landing marked the 98th successful landing of a Falcon booster. All 52 satellites are currently on their way to a 540 km low Earth orbit. B1051 has also returned to port with this picture being taken by Jack Byer at the port of Long Beach. The following day, December 19th, at 0358 UTC, SpaceX had another launch but this time it was from Slick-40 on the east coast. B1067 lifted off with the 4,500 kilogram TX-5B on top and by doing so, it set the record for the shortest time between SpaceX launches ever at just 15 hours and 17 minutes. For the 99th time, a Falcon 9 booster successfully landed. This time, it was on a short full of gravitas, about 620 km downrange. But of course, this isn't just launches, this is space traffic, so we cover all the ISS activity as well. Japanese billionaire Yosuke Meiazawa, his video producer, and commander Alexander Misurkin boarded the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft on December 19th and a couple of hours later at 2350 UTC, they undocked from the poisk module to begin their voyage back to Earth. Because of bad weather at the landing site, no video is available of the crew actually landing, which occurred at 0330 UTC the following day, but we have got video of them being extracted from the Soyuz vehicle. This flight has come at the end of a year full of tourist space adventures, including Inspiration 4, Virgin Galactic's flight with Sir Richard Branson and Blue Origin's three flights. Here it is then everyone, the big launch we've all been waiting for, CRS-24, which lifted off at 10.06 UTC on December 21st, from historic launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, carrying Dragon C-208, as well as 3,000 kg of cargo up to the International Space Station. But that is not the reason why this mission is so important. Approximately 8 minutes after launch, B1069 descended towards just read the instructions and smoothly touched down, marking the 100 successful landing of an orbital class booster on the anniversary of their first successful landing. This is a brilliant way to round off 2021 for SpaceX, marking their 31st flight of this year. Coming up over the next seven days, we have Inmarsat I6F1 on a H2804 along March 7A, the first test flight of an Angara A5 PNC, the James Webb Space Telescope on an Ariane 5, and then OneWeb12 on a Soyuz 2.1 B3 Gadem. Before the end of the episode, thank you to all the citizens of tomorrow for their continued support of the show. Their generosity is a big aid in keeping this show on the internet for you all, and if you want to join the escape velocity orbital, sub-orbital, all ground support members, and experience some of our perks for yourself which includes access to scripts whilst they're being written, and access to the pre- and post-show tomorrow live broadcasts, then click the join button below or head over to youtube.com forward slash tmro forward slash join. If you want to support tomorrow but you don't want to financially, then just subscribing, hitting the notification bell, sharing our videos around that helps a huge deal, and it also keeps the algorithm happy. As always, the sources for all our stories today can be found in the description below, and we'll see you again soon. Thank you for watching, and goodbye.