 Hello and welcome aboard station 204. Very glad to have you here for an interesting week where we're gonna be talking about the last of the foundational dragons, something that was so, so close but didn't end up actually happening darn. Also our space weather update and the naming of a rover. And of course, don't forget to like and subscribe our videos and set up notifications so that you can know when they come out and make sure that you got that graphics package actually showing up down below. So let's go ahead and get going for your space news for March 8th, 2020. We're gonna go ahead and throw it to Ryan to start off with our SpaceX update. SpaceX has launched CRS-20. The Falcon has landed for the 50th time and much more starship development has gotten underway. So let's get right into it. The original Dragon spacecraft which saw its ISS birthing debut in May of 2012 will no longer be flying the CRS missions from SpaceX. The newer variant of the spacecraft known as Crew Dragon or Dragon 2 is going to be taking over from his older sister and hopefully in the very near future SpaceX are going to be reusing the Crew Dragon spacecraft which have been used for crewed flights, for cargo flights. For this Dragon capsule, however, it was its third flight having previously flown on CRS-10 and 17. And for SpaceX, it was their fifth launch this year which means that if they continue launching at the rate they are, they could see about 30 launches under their belt before the end of the year which I believe would be a rather large accomplishment considering that last year, the United States only launched 27 orbital flights collectively and if SpaceX reached at least 26, they would double their launch cadence from 2019. It's mind-boggling to think how quickly they are launching these Falcon rockets for such cheap costs compared to other launch providers with rockets of the same calibre and a large chunk of it is down to the reusability of the first stage. And talking about reusability, that couldn't happen without landing the booster back on Earth and they did do exactly that for the 50th time successfully and for the first time on land in nine months. This was a big achievement for SpaceX and hopefully they will start another streak of successfully landing boosters. After the sad demise of the Starship SM1 vehicle last week, one of the SN2 test tanks has already been moved down to the launch site at good old Boca Chica, Texas. This tank is going to hopefully successfully hold water first for pressure testing and then under cryogenic conditions using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. With being on aspiring to build one Starship in the week in the future, stuff is looking to get very exciting down south very quickly and they have doubled the workforce down there overnight which makes me extremely excited to see what SpaceX can do in the very near future with Starship flights hopefully happening within the coming months. Thanks for the update, Ryan. And SpaceX wasn't the only company to have a rocket on the launch pad this week. The recently out of stealth mode, Astrospace also had their rocket on the pad in order to try to fulfill DARPA's launch challenge and they were on the cusp of making it happen until the last minute, literally. DARPA really hasn't had a string of programs ending in success lately, but remember DARPA's idea of success is radically different from what's been ingrained into UNI. It's not about the sum, but what was developed in the drive towards the goal. If you'd like some more information about how DARPA views failure are space news from January 27th discussing Boeing ending its participation in DARPA's experimental space plane program features Tim Bailey, a former DARPA contractor who very carefully gives us the details as to what DARPA likes to get out of their programs. The US military has had its eye on a fast purpose launch system for the past decade, wanting to be able to loft small payloads with very little lead time. DARPA began the launch challenge program to provide that. Two launches from two different launch pads carrying unique payloads for each launch going to completely different orbits and doing all of that in under two weeks. Virgin Orbit, Vector Space and Astra were the three who gave the launch challenge a go. Unfortunately, Virgin Orbit left the challenge in the fall of 2019 in order to focus on the development of its Launcher One vehicle. Vector Space went bankrupt in December 2019, removing them as well. Astra was the only competitor left for the $12 million prize. Now it did go all the way down to the wire to the last possible day that the challenge could have been started on March 2nd. But Astra got their launch vehicle, Rocket 3.0, out to the pad with several CubeSats on board and was ready to launch. Everything was looking fantastic, especially that breathtaking scenery at the Pacific Spaceport Complex, Alaska. The countdown went very well and then 53 seconds before the planned launch time. 60 seconds. Hold, hold, hold. Scrubbing for the day meant the DARPA launch challenge was over with no winner. The $12 million prize went poof. Astra Space says that even though they didn't end up winning the DARPA launch challenge, they're still gonna continue to do what they were planning to do with Rocket 3.0 anyhow, and that is enter the small sat market and become a player there. So even though the expected result that DARPA wanted didn't actually end up happening, we did see that push and drive for technological innovation happen along the way. And there's also one more thing I'd like to point out to all of you watching right now. This is Astra's mission control and that fellow right there with the orange hair is Chris Hoffman, their launch director. You'll notice that he's got a Mohawk. So yep, aerospace and Mohawk haircuts go hand in hand. Sorry, I don't make the rules. Now that I'm done being petty, let's go ahead and take a look at this week's upcoming launches. And for your space weather update, here's Dr. Tamatha Scoop. Space weather this week is definitely bumbling along since we had that mini solar storm last week. As we switch to our front side, son, you can see we have a spotless disc right now. So there's not a lot of activity and definitely no flare activity and our solar flux continues to stay low. However, right around the second, we had a stealthy solar storm that was launched right here from near this Corona hole and we'll take a closer look at that solar storm in just a second from stereo's view, but it looks like it was launched a bit eastward of Earth, yet we could get grazed by it somewhere around the seventh and the eighth. Now as we switch to our far side, son, this is stereo's view and it's looking at the sun pretty much from the side. You can see the far side of the sun also is pretty spotless. We don't have any risk for radio blackouts or anything like that. And it just looks like the solar flux is going to stay pretty low. So this means we have no issues for radio communications, for space traffic or space launch. Now taking a closer look at that solar storm launch from stereo's view, this is stereo looking at the sun pretty much from the side and Earth is off to the right in this image. This is the Corona graph view which is like a false eclipse. We block out the sun so that we can better see the solar atmosphere of Corona. And it's right around the second you can see this stealthy solar storm lifts off. It kind of looks a little bit like a tube as it moves out. And we wouldn't be able to see it on the disc view but you can definitely see it in the solar atmosphere. Now it's moving very slowly and NASA prediction models have shown that it should graze Earth around the late on the seventh, maybe early into the eighth. But because it's moving so slowly it looks like aurora photographers. If you're at high latitudes you could get a bit of a view but aurora photographers at mid latitudes, well, I don't think it's gonna be hitting Earth hard enough to cause enough of a ruckus to bring aurora down to mid latitudes. So you may have to set this one out but hey, it never hurts to keep your batteries charged. For more details on this week's space weather including when and where to see aurora and how radio propagation and GPS reception should fare come check out my channel or see me at spacewetherwoman.com. And to wrap up news NASA's Mars 2020 rover officially has a new name. I was gonna have a long segment discussing it and all this other stuff but I feel that the winner of the naming contest 13 year old Alexander Mather is just too eloquent to not hear it straight from him. So here he is and here's the essay that helped him win naming that rover. Curiosity, insight, spirit, opportunity. If you think about it all of these names of past Mars rovers are qualities we possess as humans. We're always curious and seek opportunity. We have the spirit and insight to explore the moon, Mars and beyond. But if rovers are to be the qualities of us as a race we miss the most important thing, perseverance. We as humans evolved as creatures who could learn to adapt to any situation no matter how harsh. We are a species of explorers and we will meet many setbacks on the way to Mars. However, we can persevere. We not as a nation but as humans will not give up the human race will always persevere into the future. Holy smokes, get Alexander a job seriously. That was amazing. Now with the name now settled perseverance is currently at Kennedy Space Center undergoing final preparations for launch with the window opening on July 17th and closing August 5th. Landing is scheduled for February 18th, 2021. Now to wrap up this week's space news I want to thank everyone who contributes to make this show possible. Without you we really can't do it and each and every one of you who does contribute you are amazing and it's greatly appreciated. If you would like to help make the shows of tomorrow head on over to youtube.com slash TMRO slash join to do so and check out all the great rewards that we have available to you at different levels of support and of course watching our shows liking, subscribing, setting up notifications and sharing us everywhere that you can is an incredible help as well. And that's it for this week's space news. Thank you to all of you who have watched it and until the next one remember keep exploring.