 Hello fellow citizens of Earth! This is your Space News for May 1st, 2019 and let's head on over to China. They've got a surprise for us. And that surprise was a Long March 4B rocket which lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China's Shanxi Province on April 29th at 2252 coordinated time. A board were two Tianhe 201 or Sky Drawing Satellites, which will be used for scientific experiments, land resource surveys, geographic surveys and mapping. We also have two launches coming up. The first is SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 for CRS-17, currently scheduled for no earlier than Friday, May 3rd, 2019. The Dragon capsule and trunk will carry supplies along with NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 and the U.S. Military Space Test Program Houston 6 payloads. After launch, Dragon will take three days to reach the station. The second is Rocket Lab's Electron, scheduled for liftoff at 0600 universal time, with a four-hour launch window on May 4th. It will be carrying a three-satellite payload from the U.S. Air Force's Rapid Agile Launch Initiative called STP-27RD. The three satellites will demonstrate new systems, avionics and help evaluate ground-based tracking of space objects. The launch of SpaceX's CRS-17 Dragon was supposed to occur on May 1st, but unfortunately, an electrical issue has developed on board the International Space Station and has pushed that launch back. Engineers were examining an unspecified issue with a main bus-switching unit, which distributes electricity generated by the space station's solar panels to systems on board the station. The suspected system distributes power to two of the eight channels on the International Space Station, and flight controllers are working to reroute power through the remaining six channels. At present, that's all we know about the electrical issue on the International Space Station, and of course, if we hear more, we'll make sure to keep you updated. Now, changing gears, let's take it to the test stand with Sarah. On April 25th, Firefly Aerospace had a successful 300-second burn of their Lightning One engine. The Lightning One is the engine for the second stage of the company's Alpha Launch Vehicle. This duration burn demonstrates that the engine is ready for the next step in testing, and none too soon. Firefly Aerospace of Cedars Park, Texas is one of many companies participating in NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Delivery Services program, also known as the next step to getting humans back to the moon. According to the NASA program page, they expect to make an award for the selected payload in May of this year. With this burn, Firefly is well on their way to making their launch goal of later this year. NASA astronaut and current International Space Station resident Christina Koch is getting an extension to her stay. Koch will set the new record for a woman in space with 335 continuous days, breaking the previous record of 288 days held by Peggy Whitson. In addition, Koch's stay will be the second longest of any NASA astronaut, the longest being Scott Kelly's 340 days during his one-year mission. The reason NASA is doing this is because the majority of data available is on male astronauts. However, men's and women's bodies respond differently to space, and health conditions occur at different rates in men and women. Studying Koch's physiological reactions to an extended time in space will help with a compare and contrast. And now to study what's going on in our inner solar system, here's your weather report with Dr. Tamatha Scove. Space weather this week is definitely picking up. As we switch to our front-side sun, you can see that coronal hole there that's rotating in through the Earth strike zone over the next couple days. It could bump us up to active conditions and even bring Aurora down to mid-latitudes for a short while. But that's not the big story. The big story is on the backside of the sun. Do you see that bright region there on the East Limbin Stereo's view? Well, that's Old Region 27, 38, and 39. Now they fired a solar storm back on the 26th, and then watch this on the 30th. Wham! Bam! Do you see that? There's two solar storms that were launched on the sun's backside, so these regions are definitely still arguing, and we're going to be very excited to see them rotate back into Earthview here in the next few days, because they could end up being solar storm producers. Switching to our moon, we are now passing through the new moon phase with the new moon being on the 5th, and even by the 7th the moon will still only be about 5% illuminated, so you night sky watchers, now's a perfect time to catch those dim objects in the sky, you know, like Sunday, maybe a meteor shower. Speaking of meteor showers, this week Earth is passing through the debris field of Comet Haley, which is known for its very fast meteors that leave long streaks across the sky. Now the shower is supposed to peak between the 4th and the 6th of May, which pairs well with our new moon on the 5th, so you night sky watchers, if you get into really dark skies, you could see up to about 20 meteors an hour, and that makes this meteor shower one of the best of the entire year, so be sure to check your local weather for clear skies. For more details on this week's space weather, including what to expect for your GPS reception, amateur shortwave and emergency radio communications, and when and where to see Aurora, come check out my channel or see me at spaceweatherwoman.com. And of course, we want to thank our patrons of tomorrow. We are a nearly completely crowd-funded show, and if you got something of value out of this show, feel free to throw something of value back in. You can visit us over at patreon.com.tmro, subscribestar.com.tmro, or you can even head over to community.tmro.tv and see how you can help out in other ways. We'll see you for the live show this Saturday, and we'll see you for your news update next week. And don't forget, keep exploring.