 Hello citizens of Earth and welcome to this week's edition of Tomorrow News. We hope that you sure enjoyed our little break that we had all of us here at Tomorrow Dead, but now it's time to get back on it. And in fact, Ryan has a smorgasbord of SpaceX stories to talk about. I'm going to be covering the Pentagon throwing some money at launch services and a bonanza towards the end of that. Now before we officially get into anything, of course I just want to remind you, if you really, really like what we do here at Tomorrow, don't forget to subscribe, set up notifications, hit the like and share this everywhere that you can, show us off to all of your friends. So let's go ahead and get started with news for the week of August 25th, 2020. And Ryan, what's going on down at X? Jim Bridenstein has just confirmed that the Q1 mission will not be launched any earlier than October the 23rd, meaning that if all goes to plan, it will be only a week ahead of its cargo counterpart, CRS-21. This also means that only two scheduled missions are planned between now and the first official crewed flight to the ISS, being Starlink 10 and GPS-3SV04 next month. SpaceX have put out a job offer for a resort development manager in Boca Chica, in order to transform the village from a village into a 21st century spaceport and the company's first resort. Now I don't know whether this is a fancy word for hotel or what, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. SN5 and SN6 are currently just sitting around in Boca Chica, waiting for their next assignment, as the only things that could possibly come up in the future for them are more tests, static fires or hops. However, what they could be put onto is SN7 and SN8. SN7 is set to use a new alloy for a test tank, which will be taken to burst pressure, so it probably won't be around for long. SN8 is going to be pretty much a full-blown Starship vehicle, apart from the important things that on the inside need for human habitation. This means that it will have one of the several nosecans we were sitting laying around attached to the top, and a couple of those massive body flaps attached to the bottom. Speaking of SN6, it has just been lifted up and placed onto the launch mount. Originally it was just placed onto some pipes to do some testing of the little landing legs that flip out, and then finally it was lifted up again and placed onto the launch mount, where SN5 once stood. And to round off the SpaceX goodness this week, SpaceX have recently launched a Falcon 9 from Slick 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station last Tuesday at 1431 UTC. The payload on board was 58 Starlink satellites for the Starlink 10 mission, as well as three satellites from Planet to add to their SkySat constellation. This was the sixth flight of a single Falcon 9 booster, which sets a brand new record, as well as the sixth landing of a Falcon 9 booster, which is absolutely bonkers to think about. And as well as those records being set, it was also the 99th flight for SpaceX in their history, with the Falcon 1 and Falcon Heavy counting towards that goal. Thanks, Ryan. Now, as Rocket Lab prepares for Electron's return to flight, they have also done some tests that are going to be helping on reuse, which is only going to be starting up in just a few missions. The final test of the recovery system for Electron's first stage simulated the maximum amount of force that's expected to be exerted on the parachute, and it passed with excellent marks. It was only just last year that Rocket Lab announced that they were going to attempt reuse. Now, this came after years of saying that they were not interested in doing so. So what changed the minds at Rocket Lab? Well, it was a big, big interest in the increase of flight rate without having to increase booster production. Rocket Lab already can lay claim to one of the more cutting-edge booster manufacturing processes. And they're certainly the leader of the small-sat launcher pack. And I'm really eager to see how reusability factors in and where that drives them. Now, Flight 17 is going to be the first attempt at recovery and they're going to be allowing the booster to drop into the ocean. The helicopter catch will come on a later mission. Rocket Lab is still on track for a return to flight sometime in the next six weeks, and that will be Flight 14. So we've still got a few launches to go before this first attempt. And also, in case you missed it, Rocket Lab just added Mike Griffith, the former 11th administrator of NASA to their board of directors. So they're getting quite a wealth of experience rolling in as well. Now, Rocket Lab's test is going to be a few months out and probably going to be occurring in early 2021. But Northrop Grumman just did a test on a rocket of their own that we're going to be talking about not just in this segment, but also the next segment as well. The GEM63 XL solid strap-on motor will be used by United Launch Alliance on their upcoming Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle. Now, it's generating just under 450,000 pounds of thrust and a 90-second burn kicked off the first of what will be several qualification burns during this round of testing. Northrop Grumman has already delivered three new GEM63 solid motors for use on an Atlas V flight later this year. This is continuing ULA's method of incrementally adding Vulcan Centaur hardware to Atlas V launches for testing. And the GEM63 derives its name from an acronym standing for Graphite Epoxy Motor in reference to the casing with a 63-inch diameter. And standard GEM63 is 20 meters long and a GEM63 XL, which was tested here, is 22 meters long. Now, as mentioned earlier, there is another story involving ULA's upcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket. And in addition to that, SpaceX's entire line of Falcon rockets as well. And it's involving the Pentagon's dollar-dollar bills, y'all. The Department of the Air Force officially made public the contracts for a four-way competition, the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 Launch Services Procurement, and in a tetrad of launch companies reviving for what are traditionally the best-paying contracts a launch service can have bestowed upon them. These are the golden gooses of launch services. You had United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman all putting on their best in order to try to impress the top brass in the United States military. These mission contracts being awarded are for flight between 2022 and 2027 with potentially up to 34 missions. United Launch Alliance offered the upcoming Vulcan Centaur as their bid. SpaceX continued the tried and true duo of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Blue Origin touted the benefits of New Glenn and Northrop Grumman's Omega was in the fray. Its future on the record is hinging on the procurement of these contracts and at the end of the day the safe bet was taken as was the old, new underdog who sure isn't anymore. ULA and SpaceX were in. Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman are out for now. Now as mentioned, these contracts are big big money and that's because the U.S. Air Force has a lot of requirements for their payloads. The launches will be split 6040 with United Launch Alliance set to fly 60% and SpaceX handling the remaining 40%. ULA was immediately assigned two missions for a combined $337 million while SpaceX was assigned a single mission for $316 million. You caught that right? ULA is flying two missions for the same cost of a single SpaceX mission that kind of seems like a mirror universe is happening right? But if you know a little bit about what SpaceX is going to need to do in order to come up to snuff with these United States Air Force payloads this was no surprise at all. U.S. Air Force and now U.S. Space Force they're very particular about their payloads things such as vertical integration and just how big those payloads are drive the design. SpaceX does not have vertical integration capability yet so it'll be adding those to both the Cape and Vanden Fog and we've seen that in the render of the slick pad 39A with that nice mobile gantry that they're also looking at building a massive payload ferrying for Falcon Heavy far larger than anything SpaceX currently flies. So wondering why that mission for SpaceX is nearly double what it is for ULA? Well just look at the requirements and what SpaceX is going to have to do to meet them. Now one of the great plot twists in aerospace is that back in 2014 when the phase one contracts were handed out the United States Air Force handed them to United Launch Alliance uncontested. They said that they weren't going to give any to SpaceX because ULA had a certified launch vehicle and SpaceX did not. But now here we are six years later in phase two and SpaceX is the only one who got a contract that has a certified launch vehicle now. It's kind of flipped a little bit hasn't it? Now I'm not exactly saying that the folks at ULA HQ in Centennial Colorado are breathing a sigh of relief but Vulcan Centaur certainly has a hell of an anchor customer now and don't think Rocket Road and Hawthorne is quiet. There's certainly happy echoes off of B1019. Those upgrades are necessary expenditures and I'm sure Starlink isn't cheap nor is the Super Heavy Starship combo even with SpaceX having raised nearly two billion dollars recently. Also SpaceX even with this win they're still moving forward with its protest of the launch service agreements that were given to ULA Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman back in 2018. And speaking of Blue Origin there is absolutely no worry there. Jeff he's dumping a billion of his own bucks every year so he doesn't care. And Northrop Grumman's Omega though well we're gonna have to wait and see how that goes. There was a lot riding for Omega on this with these phase two contracts and the Pentagon has left open the possibility of additional missions a phase two A contract. Those might happen so that may prevent the demise of Omega living up to its name but there you know has to be a customer for Omega and actually they do have one Saturn Satellite Networks. This is a company that's aiming to deliver medium-sized geosynchronous commsats that weigh a few tons but Saturn satellite networks they at present have no customers themselves. So we're gonna have to see what the future holds. Now the rumor mill is that Northrop Grumman is moving to cancel Omega but that is a part of the rumor mill. And here tomorrow we do not entertain rumors so we're gonna wait for official confirmation from Northrop Grumman as to whether Omega lives or not because rumors are horseshit and we don't like spreading that around. Now let's move from horseshit to real shit because we had two launches this week and let's jump right into space traffic. Departing the Gekon Space Center a Long March 2D lifted off at 0401 Universal Time on August 6th. It successfully deployed Galfen 904 the fourth satellite in China's Galfen 9 Earth observation program. Declare a success the observation satellite carries an optical imaging system capable of one meter resolution. A small unnamed secondary satellite from a university in Beijing was also carried to orbit where it will be used to measure atmospheric density in the Earth's gravitational field. Then giving us a long missed dose of some rumble in the jungle an Ariane Space Ariane 5 launched on August 15th at 2204 Universal Time from the French Yana Space Center. An upgraded avionics bay experimental autonomous flight termination system and payload fairing designed with improvements for the James Webb Space Telescope's ride next year were all flown. A successful launch into geosynchronous transfer orbit allowed a payload triple feature to be deployed. Intel sets Galaxy 30 and Japanese operator Bsats Bsat 4b commsats are now set to move into their respective orbital positions both providing a boost in bandwidth to their respective regions of North America and Asia. In addition Northrop Grumman's mission extension vehicle two was also deployed which will now rendezvous with Intel set 1002 in early 2021 attach itself and provide five years of additional service life to a satellite with a nearly empty fuel tank. With the Ariane 6 on the horizon there are now only eight more Ariane flights left and here are your upcoming launches. And now for your space weather here's Dr. Tamethasco. Space weather this week is definitely calming down especially from the series of solar storms that were launched last week as we switch to our front side son you can see the culprit region 2771 pow right there that's firing an earth directed solar storm that was actually one of several that it fired now luckily this storm ended up going east and south of earth so it really missed us it was pretty much a fizzle at earth but one of the ones that also fired actually hit the stereo a spacecraft which is just east to earth and oh my goodness it was a beautiful specimen so if one of these had actually not been a fizzle and actually hit earth we could have gotten to a g2 level storm very quickly and it could have actually got some issues for that star link constellation that just got launched here's a nice little treat while we were waiting for that partly earth directed solar storm to arrive on august 19th astronauts aboard the ISS got a glimpse of something special amid the weak aurora caused by disturbed solar wind ahead of the strong storm that ultimately missed us russian cosmonaut even Wagner caught something unexpected did you see them for just a moment five bright lights appear in the distance just above the air glow right before the auroral rolls into view but don't blink or you'll miss them these space guests as Wagner has affectionately called them have definitely raised eyebrows on social media called everything from aliens to meteors these guests are likely not guests at all but rather five of the newest members of the starlink constellation considering the latest launch of 58 more starlink satellites was completed just the day before this is the most likely culprit of course official word for most cosmos on what the guests truly are is forthcoming however this is not the first time starlink satellites have photo bombed aurora pictures from the ISS back on april 13th another sighting of a starlink train was discovered by rickardo rossi once again we see a long line of satellites just skimming the top of the aurora region but thanks to dr. Marco Rulainbrook the guests in that photo have been successfully doxxed but just as a shots back in april the recent sighting really illustrates how closely these low earth orbiting satellites come to the aurora in fact many of these satellites pass right through the electric current systems that feed the aurora one only needs to look for the columns of light often seen extending like fingers upwards into space at the top of the aurora as evidence of these current systems but these systems are hazardous sources of surface charging for these low flying satellites and during a big solar storm these currents get much bigger much stronger and the atmosphere you see lighting up puffs out to higher altitudes so while the recent anticipated solar storm may have missed us these pictures are a reminder of the kind of tests these low earth orbiting satellites must yet endure because the new solar cycle is definitely ramping up and the next decent size solar storm headed towards earth it may not be a near miss for more details on this week's space weather including when and where you can see aurora and how it might actually affect the space traffic come check out my channel or see me at space weatherwoman.com it's been a bit of time since we've had one so let's go ahead and jump into a bunch of little stories for a spaceflight e-haw bonanza Jared's really wanting Tori Bruno's cowboy hat construction hard hat thing he has all three spacecraft currently in route to Mars are healthy and operating as planned the hope orbiter from the united arab emirates the Tianwen one orbiter lander rover super mission from china and nasa's perseverance rover and ingenuity helicopter all successfully performed their first trajectory correction maneuvers trans mars injection aims the vehicles just a tad away from mars so that the upper stages of the rockets which are not cleaned for contamination have a minimal chance of impacting mars and this first in a set of trajectory correction maneuvers gets the vehicles on track for entering into orbit and entry descent landing when they arrive at mars in february 2021 the x-37 b team has won the 2019 call your trophy considered by many to be the highest award you can win in aerospace the national aeronautics association noted the design development and most importantly the operation of the x-37 b as a reusable vehicle and platform for payloads as their deciding factor there are two of the mini shuttles that are used by the united states air force with five missions having flown so far that last one was a record time on orbit 718 days a sixth mission was launched in may of course we don't know when it's going to be coming back but one thing that we do know is that the x-37 b program is not going to be a part of the united states space force it's going to stay as a program operated by the u.s air force now as was the case with the launch in may the u.s space force is still going to oversee launch activities for the x-37 b one of the largest radio telescopes in the world the ari seba observatory has suffered considerable damage due to the failure of a support cable which collapsed generating a 30 meter gash in the dish while also damaging the receiver above burrito has taken a considerable wallop of natural disasters over the past few years including strong hurricanes and earthquakes which ari seba was still working through some repairs from those the national science foundation which provides the majority of funds for ari seba's operations has said that the repairs for the new damage will likely take at least several months and to wrap up this week's tomorrow news i just want to thank all of you who help contribute to the shows of tomorrow without you citizens we are not able to do the show yes we cannot come to you from my garage we cannot have folks like ryan and dr scove on to tell us all of the cool things and we can't get all of this amazing space stuff out into the universe for everyone to enjoy without you so we are forever indebted to you and what you have given us and if you would like to help contribute to the shows of tomorrow and become a citizen you can head on over to youtube.com slash tmro slash join and take a look at some of those levels there's one where in our discord server we have a special room for our escape velocity members and they get to see all of the bad jokes that myself and jamie and a whole bunch of other people sling constantly and that's cco eight for this edition of tomorrow news thank you so much for watching us and remember until the next one stay safe stay healthy and keep exploring it's getting moisted here stop it i'm trying to work stop it i'm trying to work stop it i'm trying to work i'm going to be talking about the pentagon throwing some dollars those did not separate well here let me see let me see if doing that like this can do it and the pentagons throwing money see that works up that works much better it's just the cleanup time it's a lot longer it's not a lot of money either because i'm a millennial should go get my uh my fake ruble and throw that in there too really confuse really confuse the uh system that they use to analyze everything i got a whole bunch of american money in a fake chinese ruble what how do i get a fake chinese ruble don't ask