 Hello citizens of earth and welcome aboard station 204. So glad to have you here with us this week because Ryan has a busy space X update. I'm going to be busy going all over space. Dr. Tammeth Ascove is going to be talking about our son getting busy and then we've got a busy bonanza to wrap it up with as well. And before we officially get started on the course, just want to remind you that if you really like what we do here tomorrow, don't forget to subscribe to us, like our video, set up notifications, comment below and even consider joining us as a member to support us directly. So let's go ahead and jump right into it. Ryan, get busy. It's been a hectic week for space X as Starlink has launched again. NASA has awarded a new contracted Starship as kept on developing at 1225 coordinated universal time on October the 18th. Starlink 13 launches into the sky carrying 60 of those beautiful satellites. Of course, there was a fantastic textbook landing on the drone ship. Of course, I still love you. And at T plus 38 minutes and 13 seconds, we also got a little glimpse on the broadcast of a fairing making, let's say a harder than planned landing. Space X has just been awarded a smooth $53.2 million to perform a fuel transfer test on board a Starship vehicle whilst it is in space. 10 metric tons of liquid oxygen will be transferred from one tank to another whilst on orbit. And the last time I checked 10 metric tons is quite a lot of fuel. The nose cone that will be strapped to the top of SN8 has just had two flaps attached to itself, bringing us closer to the hop that I hope will be and I'm pretty sure will be happening before the end of this year. Elon has hinted at the Starship event being in just a couple of weeks time. So the Boca Chica team are most likely working on getting a full stacked vehicle to show off to the world's press. Elon has also shared a picture of the engine bay on Starship, which looks pretty roomy at the moment with just a three ground level Raptors. But when their vacuum engines are added, all of that space will be very quickly reduced. The Dragon spacecraft that will take the cargo up to the ISS for the CRS-21 mission has just departed Hawthorne and is heading for Florida, which is exciting indeed because well, who doesn't like a Dragon launch? Thanks for those updates, Ryan. I can't wait to see the Starship test flight. Or as I should say, belly flop. That's going to be super, super exciting to see that actually happen finally. Now, another thing that's pretty exciting is that NASA really is putting in the effort to make Artemis and try to get to the moon by 2024. But it's not exactly something that NASA is going to be doing by themselves. So how do you compel other countries to join you and how do you get them to sort of follow along with what you're going to do? Well, NASA has got that covered. The United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates together in a virtual ceremony this week made that cooperation between each other officially official by signing the Artemis Accords. Now, these are a critical set of guidelines and goals that are expected to be followed by the signatories. Things such as scientific data being placed into the public domain as rapidly as possible, the disclosure of resources that could be helpful for future missions, and the preservation of historic sites, like where the six Apollo missions landed. That's all governed by the Accords. Now, this document may have Artemis in its name, but it doesn't just cover the moon. Several countries actually asked NASA to expand it outside. It could cover Mars, asteroids, and comets. That way, humanity's near-term exploration is essentially covered by the signatories of the Artemis Accords. But does it actually have teeth? Yes and no. For the signatories of the Artemis Accords, absolutely. But for everyone else, nope. However, except for China, due to the nearly decade-old Wolf Amendment, any country is welcome to join. And already, it's an impressive group. It's not just the International Space Station regulars. We've got Australia and the United Arab Emirates entering into the mix, which is great to have fresh perspectives and eager agencies. And the Accords are built in the same framework as already existing international space agreements. There's a massive emphasis on transparency, cooperation, and very specifically, working with each other. Best of all, it is only seven pages long and it's actually written in language that you can understand. You don't have to have a law degree in order to be able to even figure out what the opening sentence of the Artemis Accords may possibly be. Now, there's no word yet as to whether you, as an individual, can sign on and send it. I haven't heard back from the emails I've sent to NASA, but we will put a link down below in the description if you'd actually like to read the Accords. Again, seven pages, easy to read. It's actually really nice to see a document like that. One thing, though, one very important partner in the International Space Station who you would consider being a part of the Artemis Accords, wasn't there. And that was Russia. The head of Russia's space agency, Dmitry Urogozin, said that from the perspective of Roscosmos, that Gateway, a critical part of NASA's Artemis missions, was, quote, too US-centric, and NASA needs to return to the principles of participation that the International Space Station was founded on. Now, that's a bit puzzling as Gateway uses the same intergovernmental agreement frameworks as the International Space Station, in addition to those newly signed Artemis Accords. It really was a little bit of a weird moment that happened during a panel of this year's International Astronautical Congress. And Urogozin did say that there needs to be a commonality in docking systems, just in case of contingency, which NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine did agree with. And Urogozin did confirm the commitment to the International Space Station going out to 2028 at the minimum. So there's that at least, but that was just like really awkward. I'm not sure if this was a case of, say something they wanna hear or something else, but it was definitely a bit of a bizarre moment. Almost as weird as a cosmonaut dunking on his own space agency on Twitter. 2020 folks, 2020. And it's not just in the what's that supposed to mean category that Russia is leading in this week. No, in the Russian orbital segment of the International Space Station, there are some things happening. Some not so great things. There has been a long-term leak that has been difficult to pin down somewhere on the International Space Station. And it's been growing too. Just in the past month, it went from 270 grams of atmospheric loss per day to 1.4 kilograms. That's a bit. But nothing, the systems and atmospheric storage aboard the International Space Station can't handle. So cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, who is currently flight engineer one for Expedition 63 on station, he had a bit of a stroke of genius and you're really not gonna believe how it was revealed where the leak was. And this is absolutely amazing solution. He used a tea bag and recorded video of its movement, which it was pulled precisely in the direction of the leak where a minuscule crack, about half a millimeter in size was found and work is beginning to properly patch it up. That is absurd. And I love everything about this tea finding technique. Talk about reading the tea leaves. In just a few days ago, the electron VM oxygen generation system in the Russian orbital segment broke and the backup system in the U.S. orbital segment kicked in and is operational. So there's no threat to the safety of the six crew currently aboard. And if that simply wasn't enough for your trouble this week, shortly after the electron VM system was knocked out, an experiment testing enzyme activity during space flight began to start smoking. Cosmonaut's narrative shut it off immediately and there was no threat to the safety of all aboard, but an air purification system was turned on as a precaution. So hopefully a little TLC helps. And you know, pardon my Russian here, but as the saying goes, Nedna prihode ronda. Let's bounce on over to our space traffic for this week where we've got two launches and a docking in low earth orbit. Starting in China on October 11th at 1657 universal time, a Long March 3B left the Zhixiang satellite launch center behind carrying Gaofeng 13, successfully placing it into a geostationary transfer orbit, where over the coming weeks, it will circularize itself into geosynchronous orbit. Gaofeng 13 is considered to be an upgraded version of another Gaofeng satellite in geosynchronous orbit, Gaofeng 4, which has the capability to image the full disc of the earth at a resolution of 50 meters. China says it will be used for remote sensing purposes. Hello, sir. Hello, sir. Looking off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Soyuz MS-17 carrying commander Sergey Risikov, co-pilot Sergey Kud Sverchkov, and flight engineer Kate Rubens said goodbye to earth for the next six months at 0545 universal time on October 14th, riding a classic Soyuz 2.1A booster on a flawless assent orbit. And a first for the Soyuz program, a wicked fast two orbit rendezvous was utilized, docking with the International Space Station at 0848 universal time on October 14th, only taking three hours and three minutes from launch pad to dock. Several hours later, the hatch was opened and the three astronauts were welcomed aboard by commander Chris Cassidy and cosmonaut flight engineers Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Wagner. Of note, October 14th was Kate Rubens' birthday, specifically her 42nd birthday. So yes, birthday 42 celebrated with a launch to space. I'm unsure anyone will ever really top that level of space nerd cred. Congratulations, Kate. This was also the end of an era as it was the final purchase seat on a Soyuz launch for a NASA astronaut with a low cost at the start of this program of about 21.3 million to the highest cost, which was Rubens seat, which was about 90.3 million dollars. The average was about 56.3 million dollars per seat. Delays to the commercial crew program facilitated a purchase of 13 additional seats at roughly a billion dollars, bringing the grand total to 71 seats purchased at around $4 billion. In future, flights of crew will barter spaces on Soyuz and US commercial crew vehicles. And here are your upcoming launches. No word on whether we're gonna continue scrubtober or not. And for this week's Space Weather, here's Dr. Tamatha Scold. Space weather this week is definitely beginning to pick up. You know, we started with a spotless sun, but as we switched to our Earth-facing disc this week, take a look at that. Bam, bam, bam, bam. There are four bright regions in Earthview. They all kind of came up all at the same time, including region 2775, and they've been firing off little mini flares. On top of that, we have region 2776. So this is the second sunspot that is in Earthview, and it's been firing some mini flares. And then as 2775 rotates off of the West Lim in Earthview, look at this, whoosh! That was a beautiful C-class flare. You could see that big fire jet jumping out there. In fact, it was partially occulted. So that means that the sun was actually blocking part of that region. So likely that was even a stronger flare than what was registered here at Earth. So the sun is finally beginning to give us some fireworks. And on top of that, we also have a coronal hole that's gonna be rotating into the Earth strike zone here over the next couple of days, and it could bump us up to active conditions. And that's some good news for our war photographers. Now as we switch to our far-sided sun, this is Stereo A, and it's looking at the sun pretty much from the side. My goodness, look at that! The bright regions just keep coming. We can see region 2775 as it's rotating off of Stereo's West Lim. There's region 2776 also in the South, and it looks like it's got some activity going. And then there's two regions in the North. One of them has already fired off a mini solar storm, and it looks like it continues to fire off some stuff. And what is this big region on the East Lim Stereo's view? And look at that big towering filament that's hanging over it like a big bridge. If that thing rotates into Earth view and erupts, it could give us a gorgeous solar storm here at Earth, but no matter what, it's gonna go soon, and it's gonna be a spectacular show. So it looks like finally, Solar Cycle 25 is here, and things are getting exciting. For more details on this week's space weather, including how these new bright regions and all this new activity is going to affect you, come check out my channel or see me at spaceweatherwoman.com. Here's a bunch of little stories that happened really fast like called a bonanza. Blue Origin flew its single-stage new shepherd suborbital rocket, the seventh flight of this specific booster, lifting off at 1336 universal time on October 13th. Reaching an apogee of 105 kilometers, 12 payloads flew aboard the NS-13 mission. One in particular was a NASA experiment called deorbit descent and landing sensor demonstration, which was placed on the booster and used to gather data to help develop precision landing systems for use on future robotic and crewed landings on the moon. The sensors attempt to identify hazards and then move to the safest spot it can detect within a diameter of 100 meters. Continuing the suborbital news train, NASA has selected the first human-operated suborbital payload that will fly to space. An experiment from the Southwest Research Institute will fly aboard a Virgin Galactic spaceship too as a part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. One experiment will test a low-light level camera while the other will test a collection of biomedical sensors, which means someone needs to fly wearing them and someone needs to fly to operate the camera. So who's going to be the one that we're all jealous of? Well, it's none other than Alan Stern. Yes, that's right, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and the vice president of the Southwest Research Institute. Stern began advocating for flying researchers on suborbital flights back in 2010. So he's a longtime proponent and well deserving of that seat. Virgin Galactic has noted that there are still two test flights of the White Knight two carrier aircraft needed before an official crewed powered test flight will be performed. No word on if that'll carry Alan Stern, but Virgin Galactic has specified that they are aiming for that crude powered test flight to occur before the end of the year. NROL 44's United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy is continuing to experience ground support equipment gremlins with its launch now delayed indefinitely after originally planning to loft in late October what is likely a multi-billion dollar classified signals intelligence satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Now we've talked in previous tomorrow news episodes about the woes of pads that have rockets with extremely low flight rates with the last Delta 4 Heavy flying in August of 2018. ULA's CEO Tori Bruno has said that the company is reviewing maintenance and test procedures for both pads Space Launch Complex 37 at the Cape and Space Launch Complex 6 or Slick 6 at Vanden Fog. And just to head off some likely snarky comments below a little reminder to you, SpaceX is contending with their own gremlins as well with booster 1062, no one is immune. And as the wise Dutta once said, you're only successful until you're not. Dutta is good, Dutta is wise. We've all probably got that one really good selfie that we like to show off to everybody. For me, it's having just reached the peak of Mount Whitney after climbing it. But if you're on the way to Mars it might as well take one, right? Tianwen-1, China's Mars mission currently en route ejected a satellite in early September that had two cameras as it tumbled away several images of the Tianwen-1 spacecraft were taken. The main bus along with the high gain antenna, twin solar arrays and white conical entry capsule containing a small lander and rover were visible. But Tianwen-1 wasn't the only spacecraft to snap some shots of itself recently. The European Space Agency's Bepi-Colombo spacecraft just flew past Venus for a gravitational assist as it heads to enter orbit around Mercury in 2025. Two cameras and 10 of the 16 science instruments aboard were activated for the flyby. During that time the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Venus Orbiting Akatsuki probe and several ground-based telescopes on Earth made simultaneous observations of Venus. Recent attention has been aimed at Venus after a study announced the discovery of phosphine, a gas that is only generated via biological sources on Earth, which we covered extensively in a special edition of Tomorrow News a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, that study came out too late to reprogram the instruments and cameras and at a distance of 10,720 kilometers above the cloud tops, that was likely too far away as well for the instruments to take any real meaningful data about the phosphine. But fear not, those of you who wanna know whether the gas is there or not, on August 21st, 2021, yes, just about 10 months away, another gravitational assist of Venus is set for Beppi-Colombo and this one is going to skim a mere 550 kilometers above the cloud tops and I would think with 10 months they've got plenty of time to program the instruments to, you know, hunt for it. And as we wrap up this edition of Tomorrow News, I of course wanna thank all of you citizens who helped contribute to us to make the shows of tomorrow possible. Without you and those of you who contribute to us, we would not be able to do this. Yes, no Station 204, no equipment, no me, no Ryan, no Tamatha, no retooled live shows that will be returning soon. None of this would be possible without you and the contributions that you give to us. So again, thank you all so very, very much from all of us here at Tomorrow. If you'd like to help us out here at Tomorrow by becoming a contributing citizen, head on over to youtube.com slash T-M-R-O slash join and check out the levels that we have and the varying rewards that you get at those levels as well. And of course, subscribing to Tomorrow, liking our videos, setting up notifications so you can never miss an episode, commenting below and sharing us everywhere that you can. That is an incredible help as well. And that's Seco 10 for this week's edition of Tomorrow News. Thank you so much for watching us and until the next one, remember, stay safe, stay healthy and keep exploring. Unfortunately, that study, I'm struggling. Unfortunately, unfortunately.