 This Chinese company has done something no other startup has ever done. It's the end of the runway for Virgin Orbit. NASA have unveiled the crew of Artemis 2. It's SpaceX wet-dressing starship again. There's so much coming up this week, you don't want to miss it. This is Tomorrow Space News. Booster 7 is back. Finally, after weeks of waiting, the super-heavy booster is back on the orbital launch mount, getting ready for the orbital flight test. At the time of this recording, SpaceX is already testing this gigantic machine, getting the stainless steel all the way up frosty in the salty Texanere. Ship 26, the flabless, tireless, bare starship, has been spending some time on the Raptor install stand recently, and lo and behold, it's had three RVACs installed. These three vacuum-optimised engines are usually paired with three sea-level-optimised engines, which have a small engine bell. It's older sibling, Ship 24, has been returned to the orbital launch site alongside its ride to space, Booster 7. It's yet to be stacked, but it is settling to know that Ship 24's role was not an April Falls joke. The first humans to fly around the Moon for the first time since 1972 have finally been announced by NASA. They're the crew of Artemis II, with commander Reed Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canada's Jeremy Hansen all on board. The commander of this historic flight, Wiseman, has already spent six months in space on the International Space Station for the Soyuz mission TMA-13M. Pilot Victor Glover, you may remember from a couple of years back as they were the pilot of SpaceX's Crew-1 mission, the first commercial operational crewed flight in history. Christina Koch is also someone who is very familiar with spaceflight. They spent just under a year in space on the ISS, launching on MS-12 and returning on Soyuz MS-13 landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan. And finally, the Canadian, who's coming along for the ride, representing the Canadian space agency, Jeremy Hansen, that'll be making their first spaceflight on the Artemis II mission. There must be quite something to make your rookie flight on the first human flight to the Moon since 1972. So, yeah, big congratulations to these four people. It's going to be an incredible mission. And personally, I can't wait. Virgin Orbit, the commercial air launch provider who had promised to bring launch services to locations which physically can't launch vertically, has very sadly not been able to secure the funding it needed to keep operating. Because of this, the company is ceasing operations for the foreseeable future and laying off 85% of its staff. This leaves just 100 positions left at the company, a fraction of its former self. Virgin Orbit has made sure to provide a severance package for everyone leaving the company, and they're also setting up a priority hiring system with sister Virgin company Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson has first dibs on the assets of the company, such as the Boeing 747-400 Cosmic Gal, following a $60 million USD investment from the Virgin Group, one of many investments over the past few months, whilst the team has been stuck in Cornwall and stuck in the Start Me Up investigation. Technically, the company does still exist, however at this point it appears as if recovery is near impossible. I don't think we'll ever truly know what was going on at the Civil Aviation Authority and Virgin Orbit in the months leading up to the Start Me Up mission, but there was clearly some kind of big communication misunderstanding. It makes no sense for the team, Cosmic Gal and Launcher One to fly across the Atlantic to Newquay just to sit there twiddling their thumbs for three months, burning cash. Did the CAA get their timeframes wrong? That's all speculation, of course, but it is a fascinating question that, in my opinion, needs to be asked. Of course, Start Me Up was not successful, but the investigation is only taken until now, about three and a half months later. If the mission happened in October or November like the company was expecting and it was still a failure, then there could have been the possibility for at least one more launch out of Mojave to bring in some more revenue. But still, that's just speculation. It'll also be interesting to see what happens with the multiple spaceports that were gearing up for accepting Virgin Orbit around the world, especially Spaceport Cornwall, which already proved it could host a launch. With no Virgin Orbit, the only role it is currently speculated to play is a potential landing site for Sierra Space's Dream Chaser. I will also note that at the time of writing, there's been no official word from Virgin Orbit on their socials or on their website. I mean, you can still inquire about booking a launch so they've really gone radio silent to the outside world. After the failure of their last flight, Astra took the gamble to discontinue Rocket 3 and move on to their next vehicle, Rocket 4. CEO Chris Kemp has said that he's expecting test flights of the new type to commence before the end of the year. Before we get to that point though, we're going to need to see extensive ground-based testing first, such as cryo-proofs and a full-duration static fire. Assuming that these processes go as smoothly as possible and Astra can get launching Rocket 4 as soon as possible, it does beg the question, will their gamble pay off? The whole point of cancelling the Rocket 3 program was to accelerate the development of Rocket 4 and with a successful launch rate of less than 50% with Rocket 3, Astra really need to hit the ground running with Rocket 4 to not raise doubt over the company's abilities. Before cancelling Rocket 3, Astra had already implemented some radical changes never seen before when launching orbital rockets with shrinking mission control down to just four people. With Rocket 4, the company plans to halve this again to just two people in the mission control room. Astra are a nimble aerospace company who have, and I suspect will continue to in future make quick and rapid changes that nobody else has really thought possible. Test Flight Alpha and Test Flight Bravo are the first big milestones to look out for and we should all be wishing Astra success because Rocket 4 could be the first true competitor to Rocket Lab's Electron if the program is scaled up correctly. Of course you have all the other commercial small-sat launch providers coming online but in terms of successful flights, the only real match is Firefly. Yes, they've launched a lot less than Astra have but they have a 50% successful record which is higher than Astra's. Their collaboration with Northrop Grumman, a traditional aerospace company might have the potential to make them less nimble compared to Astra and I think it's going to be very interesting to see how this industry evolves over the next year or so. Earlier in the show I was talking about Starships ever approaching orbital flight test but it's not the only methane powered rocket that's gearing up to be the first to make it into orbit and in fact China's entry into the list could be about to return. Zoukei-2 is the private company and space's methalox field rocket which it flew for the first time back in December from LC-96 at the Shih Kuan Satellite Launch Center. As is typical for orbital rocket flight tests, the vehicle failed to make it that far only reaching about 64% of the required velocity to successfully achieve orbit after the Vernier engine on the second stage which kind of acts as a third stage had its locks pump out a casting broken. This however is another Zoukei-2, the rocket destined to fly the second launch of the type and according to Landspace it's already fully assembled and ready to go. You may have seen this tweet from ULA CEO Tori Bruno earlier in the week informing us that a Centaur 5 that was being tested at the Marshall Space Flight Center experienced an anomaly but don't worry, after some questioning Tori confirmed that what happened with this specific article is very unlikely to impact the second stage currently stacked at SLIC-421. So with Starship currently looking at April and Vulcan looking at May whereabouts do you think Zoukei-2 could fit in the mix? Could the experience of already having a flight under their belt give Landspace the advantage to make it to orbit or will Vulcan's heritage in the Delta and Atlas families give it a better chance of orbit on the first attempt? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments. There was an unscheduled launch from Israel last week that we didn't know about but firstly, thank you to the Citizens of Tomorrow for continuing to support the show offsetting the costs of Station 204 so we can bring out some wonderful content every single week. If you want to see a name on-screen and experience some of the awesome perks these members already get to experience then head on over to join.tmro.tv or the join button below and consider supporting on the ground support level, suborbital level, orbital level, escape velocity level or even if you're that crazy the Tomorrow Model 33 Plaid Pro Plus level. Editing Ryan here as I completely forgot about this that happened which was Soyuz MS-22, the leaky Soyuz as everyone likes to call it nowadays undocked from the Rasvet Ledeer port on the ISS at 0957 UTC on Tuesday. It landed in the Kazakh steppe just under two hours later at 1146 UTC and because of the coolant leak issue it actually reached about 50 degrees inside the spacecraft which would have been completely uncomfortable having three crew members inside so this proves that it was the right call to send up MS-23 early for the three crew members of MS-22 Sogay Prokopyev, Dmitry Potelyan and Francisco Rubio. The first launch of the week is a flight we didn't actually know was happening which is this flight of the Shavik-2 from Israel. Launching at 2310 Universal Time on Tuesday this vehicle was carrying the OFEC-13 Synthetic Aperture Radar Reconnaissance Satellite to a retrograde low Earth orbit. Hopefully that detail answers all of the How did they launch to the east without a note from that side? Questions. Next up with the rarest of the Soyuzes the Boosterless Soyuz 2.1V which launched at 1957 UTC on Wednesday from Site-43-4 at the possessed Cosmodrome in Russia. Inside the payload fairing was a satellite which we're not allowed to know about as is common with government private payloads from all nations around the world. Designated Cosmos 2568 it could be an Inspector satellite but we'll only be able to sort of semi-confirm that if it launches a sub-satellite. A previous suspected Inspector sat launched on a Soyuz 2.1V Cosmos 2542 did exactly that. It's time for another Starlink launch with Group 5 Mission 10 being delivered to an initial 299x339km 43° orbit by Falcon 9 B1077 at 2001 Universal also on Wednesday from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape. These 1.5 satellites are helping to flesh out the start of Starlink Gen 2 whilst the B2 Minis are on hold until at least at the moment this month. Over the coming weeks all 56 satellites will be trying to raise them settled up to a final operational orbit which is 530km circular. The Booster supporting this flight as mentioned earlier B1077 successfully concluded its fourth flight on the drone ship. Just read the instructions. Next up are a trio of Chinese launches the first of which was PiSat1 a mission comprised of one satellite and three sub-satellites which launched at 10.50 UTC on Thursday from Launch Complex 9 at the Taiwan Satellite Launch Center. PiSat1 was successfully delivered to a 528km Sunsynchronous orbit. It's also successfully made me very hungry. Friday at 06.27 UTC saw the launch of the Aragon 3404 an optical remote sensing satellite from Site 9401 at the Jiquan Satellite Launch Center. This payload was delivered to a low Earth orbit. Before, has the private startup made it to orbit on their first attempt with a liquid field rocket? Well, at least until now as the private Chinese aerospace company Space Pioneer has launched their Tiang Long 2 vehicle with two satellites on board to a Sunsynchronous orbit. Just like with a lot of American aerospace startups Space Pioneer got a bit of help from their respective government space agency but a maiden flight working perfectly is an accomplishment that should not be underappreciated. Specifically, the engines on the first stage were developed by SASC, the Chinese National Space Agency but the engines on the second and third stages were developed by Space Pioneer. The fact that this vehicle isn't just another amalgamation of existing solid rocket motors also proves that Space Pioneer are actually developing stuff for a nation which traditionally has loved its hypogonic fuels. For the future, it's probably best to be moving away from the spicy orange smoke and having a successful 2-tonne to Leo Keralock's vehicle is great to see. The post-launch reaction photos also show that this success means a lot to the team at Space Pioneer as well. Finally, it's another Vandemfog launch. It's the US Space Force's Space Development Agency's Transport Tranche Zero interoperable mesh network. Try saying that one five times fast. This flight commenced at 1429 universal on Sunday from Slickfall east of the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. We were treated to a West Coast RTLS as booster 1075 concluded its second mission on landing zone 4. Only a couple launchers are scheduled for this week with iSpace's Hyperbola 1 launching on Wednesday from Juke One and SpaceX launching Intel SAT 40e slash Tempo on a Falcon 9 from the Cape on Friday. It might be the end of the news, but it's not the end of the week and there's a lot more content from tomorrow coming your way. On Wednesday, Dr. Tamfus Gove will be back with another look at what the sun's been up to on Friday. We've got our weekly live show and I'll be back next one day, as always with more news. But for now, thanks for watching and I'll see you next week.