 In this week's news, Boeing's Starliner has rolled out to the launch pad, Virgin Galactic delaying their customer flights, SpaceX might have fixed booster 7 and we learn what went wrong with SLS. This is tomorrow's space news. The past week saw the one-year anniversary of the most recent Starship flight, which was SN15. It was the first test article to launch, flip over, belly flop, flip back to vertical and land successfully without blowing up a few minutes later. The next Starship flight test is currently scheduled to be the orbital flight test, which the FAA delays with the environmental review aren't really helping. The president of SpaceX, however, Gwen Shotwell, has said the launch in June or July is likely, and I'm going to speculate that this is because the FAA are starting to finish some of the subcategories within the entire environmental review, the Endangered Species Act consultation and the Section 106 review. It is exciting actually seeing progress being made by the FAA, but it is important to remember that this approval is only one piece of the puzzle. SpaceX still needs to show us that they're ready for the flight in terms of hardware and ground service equipment. It's probably time we take a look at some of that hardware and ground service equipment, then as once again it's been a pretty average busy week at Starbase. Last week, the new Quick Disconnect plate was delivered and integrated onto the QDR, and some crews have been seen working on it still into this week. The orbital launch mount was seen venting by NASA Space Flight Starbase 24-7 cameras, which means the SpaceX is still going through GSE testing in this area. It seems like the team in Boca Chica might have been able to fix boost to 7, following the leaked image that was doing the rounds on Twitter, showing a downcomer transfer tube, which was completely crumpled, very different from the straight pipe we're very used to seeing. We obviously don't know how much SpaceX have been able to fix as we can't see into the Super Heavy booster, however they must have a use for B7, because if they didn't, then it would have been heading to the scrapyard. Once the booster arrived at the orbital launch pad, it was lifted up off the transport stand, moved across, and placed onto the launch mount. This was followed by a cryogenic proof test on Monday, which shows that the plumbing to fuel the vehicle is still usable. The only thing is, there are no engines on Booster 7, and the downcomer's purpose is to provide the methane from the top tank to the engines, so we'll have to wait and see if SpaceX chooses to perform a Raptor 2 static fire test with B7. Booster 8 has also been spotted during the past week, with the liquid oxygen tank section just hanging out at the production site. It's time to talk about the Starships themselves, as Ship 24 was next to be completed. It was seen in Highway 1 on Saturday, being lifted and moved slightly, which was speculated to be for nosecone stacking. The part being lifted here is the section which goes underneath the nosecone and the nosecone barrels. The speculation was correct, as the next day, Ship 24 was fully stacked with both sections being mated together. The silver strips across the spacecraft you can see here are the seams between the larger sections which were attached to form the entire vehicle, and these will soon be patched up with the Starbrick thermal protection tiles for a nice seamless look. The tents which are at the production site will be replaced eventually, and that eventuality seems to be coming relatively quite quickly, as Star Factory, the massive factory which will replace the tents, is still coming along nicely at a very quick pace. Recently we've seen a rather quick extension onto Hangar X in Cape Canaveral, where SpaceX refurbishes its Falcon 9 and heavy boosters. The exterior of that only took a few weeks, so I'm interested to hear how long you think Star Factory will take to complete, at least on the outside. A few weeks, a few months, or longer. Make sure to drop your thoughts in the comments down below. Virgin Galactic's first commercial flights carrying paying customers on a suborbital hop to the edge of space have been delayed several times in the past, and the latest delay sees a slip from Q4 of 2022 to Q1 of 2023. This comes down to supply chain and labour issues, according to their first quarter earnings release for this year, which are impacting upgrades to VSS Unity and VMS Eve, the space plane and carrier aircraft. According to the CEO of Virgin Galactic, Michael Colglasia, the main supply chain issues are coming from the availability of high performance metallics. For example, an aluminium alloy used to have a wait time of two to three weeks. That wait time is now much longer. The labour issues are coming from where engineers are being distributed within the company, as even though they're hiring new staff all the time, the majority of new engineers are working on the new Delta-class spacecraft, which will enter service around 2025. The company then had a second team which was working on Spaceship 3, called VSS Imagine. However, that experienced team are now having to work on Imagine, Unity and Eve. Their customer base is still growing, however, and these delays, so far at least, have not deterred the 800 customers already signed up for a flight on a Virgin Galactic vehicle for $450,000 a seat. VSS Unity is currently scheduled for two more test flights before commercial operations begin, one glide drop test, and one powered flight into space in Q4 of this year. On 5th May, NASA held a teleconference where they announced that the two problems on SOS, the helium check valve in the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, and the umbilical leak were being worked on and the causes of these problems had been found. For the former issue, a small piece of rubber was found within the valve, which prevented it from fully closing. However, at the moment, the technicians aren't actually sure where that piece of rubber came from. In the case of the hydrogen leak from one of the ground service umbilicals, that was likely caused by bolts being loosened on a gasket. They've been re-talked and tightened, but NASA won't be sure that the problem has been resolved until SLS is rolled back out at LC39B for the second round of wet dress rehearsal attempts. It isn't just NASA who needs to work on their systems, however, as the supplier of nitrogen gas to the Kennedy Space Center, air liquid, has been upgrading systems on their end as well, in order to keep up with the demands of the Space Launch System. Jim Free, NASA's Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development, that's a lot of words, said in the teleconference that air liquid is on track with the progress of their system upgrades. Starliner is now ready for launch, with OFT-2, orbital flight test 2, set to be the spacecraft's inaugural flight to the International Space Station, following the mission-adapt time computer problems during OFT-1. It was originally scheduled for last year in August, however, it was scrubbed and pushed last minute, when there were some valve problems on the service module. Boeing tested Starliner once again at the Marshall Space Flight Center and the White Sands Test Facility, with the root cause of the problem, nitrogen tetroxide, interacting with moisture to create nitric acid being mitigated. One of the ways they're going to make sure that this doesn't happen again is by performing a dry purge of the valves with nitrogen to remove any moisture and sealing an electrical connector. Along with this, Boeing will also be activating the valves every two to five days to ensure that they are still performing nominally. The capsule being used for OFT-2 was rolled out of the commercial crew and cargo processing facility known as C3PF-2 Space Launch Complex 41. That transit didn't go incredibly smoothly, however, as one of the window covers which protects the windows during transit decided it no longer wanted to be attached to the capsule. This wasn't the end of the world, however, as after a short pause to assess the situation, the convoy continued. Once Starliner had arrived, it was then lifted up onto the Atlas V inside the vertical integration building. The launch is currently scheduled for May 19th, so make sure to keep an eye out. You won't want to miss the next commercial crew vehicle docking to the ISS. The Kennedy Space Center has just had a new satellite arrival and personally, I'm very excited about it. Regular viewers probably already know what I'm talking about, however, if you know around here, I'm running a GoFundMe campaign to head out to the Space Coast in August to watch Psyche launch atop a Falcon Heavy, and Psyche is the satellite which has just arrived at the payload hazardous servicing facility for launch preparation. The next three months, we'll see plenty of action for the spacecraft, such as loading the fuel, which will be zen on gas, which will power the four electric thrusters. That process will take around three weeks, starting in June. Close to the end of the waiting period, we'll then see Psyche being placed onto the Falcon Heavy payload adapter before being encapsulated by the two faring halves. The satellite was assembled at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and it got to the KSC via a C-17 cargo aircraft provided by the military. Psyche is scheduled for launch at 18.20.60 UTC on August 1st, so if you want to make sure that I'm there to witness it, the link to contribute to the campaign should be on your screen and in the description. More details about what money is going where are provided on that page and I'd really appreciate it if you could do what you can do to help. If that's adding money to the pot or sharing the link, it all helps a great deal. Right then, it is time for a rather busy space traffic segment. The first piece of traffic to cover this week is this launch from China with Zhiliin One wideband 01C, high resolution 03D, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33 along March 2D. This flight departed from LC9 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 0238 on May 4th. It went to an unknown sunsynchronous low earth orbit for the rocket type's 59th successful flight. It's an ISS departure next with Crew 3 undocking from the Harmony Forward port at 0520 UTC the next day, the 5th of May. This ended the 174 days and six hours which the four-person crew of Roger Chary, Thomas Marshman, Matias Marra and Caleb Barron spent aboard the orbiting laboratory. Following the orbit burns, re-entry and parachute deployment, Dragon Endurance crashed down in the Gulf of Mexico to end its first flight to space approximately 23 hours after undocking at 0443 UTC on May 6th. The capsule was collected by Recovery Ship Shannon, allowing the crew to disembark and it will be refurbished by SpaceX for Matias' next purchased flight to the International Space Station with Nicole Orna-Pouman, Josh Casada, Koichi Wakata and possibly Anna Kikina, if Russia signed the agreements they need to sign. If recovering a crew wasn't enough to fulfill SpaceX's space flight itch for that day, then surely launching just four hours and 59 minutes later would, which is exactly what they did. Starlink Group 4 Mission 17 commenced at 0942 UTC the same day from the launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On board were 53 Starlink satellites weighing in at just over 16 metric tons and they were placed into their initial 308 by 286 kilometer 53.22 degree low orbits. The booster used for this mission, B1058, successfully landed on short-fuelled gravitas completing a record-matching 12 flights joining B1051 and B1060. This booster was also related to another crewed flight as this was the booster which took Bob and Doug to the ISS for the Demo 2 mission two years ago in 2020. It's time for another flight to another space station with Tianzhou-4, the third cargo resupply mission to China's Taingong space station. It launched at 1756 co-ordinated Universal Time on May 9th from LC201 at the Wenchang satellite launch center on Henan Island. Nobody is currently aboard the station to unload the vehicle so that will be done by the next crew to arrive at the station, which should be in a month or so. There's only two launches scheduled before the next show, both the SpaceX flights, both Falcon 9 flights, both the Starlink flights and they're both going to Group 4. One's mission 13, the other mission 15. And here's your space weather with Dr. Tamifasco. Space weather this week is continuing to keep our attention. As we take a look at the Earth-facing disc, all eyes back around the turn of the month were on the East Limb as Old Region 2994 began to rotate into view and it started firing off big M-class flares and even an X-class flare before it was fully in view yet and got its new number. It's a new number is now 3006 and while we've been watching this region firing off a bunch of flares, Region 3004 also started to develop and by the third, this region was firing off big M-class flares and an X-class flare. Meanwhile, these two regions have been continuing to trade M-class flares back and forth. They are still X-flare players so we are keeping an eye on them but we are also keeping an eye on the two filaments that are sitting here in the North. The first one here actually looks like it's kind of erupting a little bit as we speak but the second one looks like it's getting unstable and that would mean we could possibly get yet another Earth-directed solar storm so we're definitely going to keep our eyes on those. This is Stereo A. It's our partially farsighted monitor and as we take a look at the sun from Stereo's view you can see Region 3006 firing off those big flares but look just behind that region on the East Limb. In fact you can see that region there. Pow! Right on the fifth it fires off a big solar storm so this is a big solar storm player and in fact it could be a big flare player as well. For more details on this week's space weather including how this activity could affect you come check out my channel or see me at space weatherwoman.com. I'd like to thank our citizens before the end of the show and these are the people who contribute monthly to help keep station 204 on orbit. Each level from the escape velocity citizens down to the ground supports citizens all receive differing levels of perks and if you're interested in helping the show out head to youtube.com forward slash tmro forward slash join or just click the blue join button next to the red subscribe button. Like I mentioned earlier fingers crossed in august I'll be heading out to see Psyche launch on that Falcon Heavy so if you want to make sure that the best coverage possible happens contribute below or share the campaign either would be greatly appreciated. This is something I really want to make happen. Something I also want to make happen is growing this channel where we pump out high quality accurate and informative news every Tuesday as well as an enjoyable entertaining community driven live show every Friday so if you want to make sure you don't miss out on any of that hit the subscribe button it's not that hard to miss it should be bright red. Thank you for watching this week's news and goodbye.