 Hello everybody and welcome back to Tomorrow News. The last week has probably been one of the longest space flight fans have felt so far this year, with us all sitting for hours on end waiting for SN9, which we'll get onto in a second. So sit back and relax as this is your Tomorrow News for the week of February 3rd, 2021. We had another launch of Starship on the second, with SN9 igniting all three of its Raptor engines and taking to the skies. Everything was nominal, from the shutdowns of all three Raptors, to the belly flop to the flip, and then the relight... yeah, ouch. We got so close, just like SN8, but sadly SN9 landed a bit harder and a bit more diagonal than intended. With the help of this very cool camera angle, which was broadcast live by SpaceX, actually, the first Raptor lit okay, but then the second tried and again failed. This meant that Starship was able to flip vertically, but did not have enough power to actually stay vertical. Therefore, the vehicle couldn't both orient itself, also itself down enough to stick a landing. So once SpaceX identified these problems, it won't be a long wait until SN10 is up in the sky, which I hope will remain undamaged as some large chunks of SN9 remains from around the engine skirt very nearly hit the vehicle. If any more data comes to light, which I suspect it will, I will make sure that it all comes to you on next edition of Tomorrow News. I also want to thank NASA Space Flight Lab, Padre and Everyday Astronaut for their coverage of these launches from Boca Chica, because some of these shots are just incredible to look at. But don't forget that this flight was completely successful. SpaceX was still able to collect data which will hopefully negate this issue from ever happening again, because this vehicle is truly, in my opinion, the future of private spaceflight, which actually just got some cool news recently, as Axiom Space have announced the full crew members, which will fly to the International Space Station next year for what will be one of the first ever crewed, private, human, orbital spaceflights. Axiom Vice President and former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez Allagria will be the commander of the flight, adding under his 257 days, 22 hours and 46 minutes he has already accumulated in space. Canadian investor Mark Pathy, American entrepreneur Larry Connor, an impact investor Eaton Stibb will also join him on this mission. As an experienced jet pilot, Larry Connor will be the pilot of this mission, which is technically just the copilot with a fancier name. On the other two flying up with them, apparently aren't just coming along through the ride, as they want to be extremely thorough throughout their training, and all crew members appear to be very enthusiastic about this flight, which I hope they would be considering the price tag which is a smooth $50 million. But that isn't the only scheduled private spaceflight, oh no, there is another. Jarrick Isaacman, the CEO of Shift4 Payments, has purchased a dragonflight that cannot launch earlier than October of this year. He is calling the mission Inspiration 4 and is working with both his own company and the St Jude Children's Research Hospital to find three other people to join Isaacman on what he calls the first all-civilian spaceflight. The three extra crew members are going to be selected from Everyday Walks of Life with a frontline healthcare worker who is committed to help children fight cancer, somebody who makes a donation to the mission's website, and someone who is an inspiring entrepreneur and is building a business. So a minimum donation of just $10 to St Jude Children's Research Hospital, which you can find at inspiration4.com, can get you a seat to space. $10 to go to space! The actual dragon capsule that will support this flight is Dragon Resilience, which is currently up on orbit as we speak, doing its duties for the Crew 1 mission. Keeping with the crew launches, the launch date of Crew 2 has been confirmed to not be any earlier than the 20th of April this year, which is interesting because Crew 1 is scheduled for a May 2021 arrival back here on Earth, meaning that we'll be able to see two dragons on station at the same time, which I can't wait to get pictures of. On another note, do you remember that I mentioned that SpaceX had just gotten permission to launch Starlink to polar orbits, allowing a truly global internet connectivity system? Well, now we know they're going to have lasers strapped onto them. On the last SpaceX launch, Transporter 1, which we'll get more detail on later in the show, 10 Starlink satellites were added amongst the dedicated rideshare payloads headed for polar orbit. Now, the reason why these polar sats are equipped with lasers and the other hundreds of satellites aren't, is because when you're travelling over developed countries, you can find plenty of ground stations that can be used for internet use. However, over the poles, all you can really find is a bit of snow and penguins, which aren't really ideal antennas. Therefore, adding lasers is a lot easier than knocking down Santa's Grotto and building a ton of infrastructure in its place. SpaceX have sorted hinted at this before, as in a webcast back in September of last year, it was mentioned that two of the launch satellites were testing what they dubbed space lasers, relaying hundreds of gigabytes of data between each satellite, which is certainly good news for me. As the UK before was pretty much on the edge of Starlink connectivity, so I wouldn't have that many satellites to connect to compared to a location closer to the equator. And it's not just the continued build out of the Starlink constellation that's going to dominate 2021. No, there's actually quite a lot of exciting things that are going to be happening this year. In July 2020, we saw a flotilla of missions launched to Mars in what I would consider one of the most exciting groups of fresh explorers ever to be sent to the red planet. And we haven't seen three missions on route during a single launch window to Mars since 2003. In order of arrival, we've got hope. An orbiter from the United Arab Emirates Space Agency, led by the Muhammad bin Rashid Space Center, the orbiter will be studying something no one has studied in this level of detail before. The daily and seasonal weather changes of Mars, which its targeted orbit of a periarean of 20,000 kilometers and an aphiarean of 43,000 kilometers, will allow it to survey the planet as a whole. It successfully performed a 27 minute Mars orbit insertion burn at 1530 universal time on February 9th. And around 1600 universal orbit insertion was confirmed. And we'll be covering this in greater detail in our next episode, so stay tuned. Tianwen-1, the first Mars mission from the China National Space Administration is arriving tomorrow, February 10th. The orbiter will be mapping the composition of Mars' surface and atmosphere and then come April-ish-May-ish. It'll drop a rover down to the surface, which will contain a ground penetrating radar, camera, and weather station. And hold on to whatever you need to because on February 18th, we're all in for another dose of seven minutes of terror as NASA's Perseverance rover performs its entry descent landing at around 2100 coordinated universal time. With an instrument package aimed squarely at performing astrobiology and hunting for the potential signatures of evidence of past life, Perseverance will also grab and cache samples of Martian rock and soil for pickup at a later time. In addition, a small helicopter called Ingenuity is also along for the ride and it will be deposited onto the surface at some point and become the first vehicle to fly on another planet. But there is something that I am super excited about with Perseverance that most people are probably even unaware is actually going to be happening. During landing on February 18th, a multitude of cameras and a microphone will be running, recording video and audio as Perseverance goes through the entry descent landing process. A set of cameras will record the deployment of the supersonic parachute at 75 frames per second and 30 frames per second. Another camera attached to Perseverance will look downwards as it's landing at 30 frames per second. Another on the descent stage itself will record 12 frames per second video of it lowering the rover and dropping it off on the surface of Mars. And another camera on Perseverance is going to be looking up, recording 30 frames per second video of the descent stage as it's lowered, dropped off, cut the bridles and flies away. That is going to be some incredible footage if it all goes well. I mean, you're going to be seeing what it looks like to actually land on Mars. How exciting! I can't even comprehend how excited I am about that. And that microphone too. We're going to be hearing the actual sounds of atmospheric entry, explosive bolts firing, air rushing into the aeroshell as the heat shield falls away, the separation of Perseverance from the aeroshell, the thrusters firing, it getting lowered, rocks and dust being kicked up everywhere. And JPL said that they are not expecting that microphone to survive the entry descent and landing process. But don't worry because on the mast of Perseverance, its camera mast, it has a microphone there that will deploy a little bit away from the actual rover itself. Now it's attached to the mast so it will go everywhere that Perseverance goes. And what's very, very cool about it is it can record three and a half minute long clips of audio. So we'll be able to hear the actual winds of Mars. We'll be able to hear the actual dust devils. We'll be able to hear Perseverance operating its robotic arm moving around, heat pumps keeping it warm and its wheels driving over the surface. I'm so excited about that. Also coming up relatively soon will be Boeing's Starliner performing its orbital flight test-2 mission. After a not entirely successful mission in 2019, where the clock was mistimed and prevented the capsule from going to the International Space Station, Boeing agreed that they needed to perform a second test flight and do so on their own dime. Launch is currently set for March 25th. That could change around but best of luck, we're all rooting for them. Two NASA missions to asteroids will be launching this year. The first is double asteroid redirection tests, also known as DART. Launch is set for July 22nd and DART has a very special purpose. Get to double asteroid Didymos and precisely collide with the smaller of the two asteroids, Dimorphos, at 6 kilometers per second. Before impact a small six unit CubeSat built by the Italian Space Agency will be deployed an image that the impact that DART creates. Sometime in the mid-2020s the European Space Agency will be launching their own mission to Didymos called HERA, which will show us just how effective DART's impact was at moving Dimorphos. It's a mission that will one day save the planet. How amazing is that? NASA's other asteroid mission, Lucy, will be launching in October. In one of the most impressive displays of understanding how orbital mechanics works, it will visit two distinct points in space. The Sun, Jupiter, L4 and L5 group of asteroids called Trojans. Lucy will fling outwards to survey several of these asteroids only to dive back inwards through the inner solar system to reach the other side of Jupiter's orbit. This is a long-term mission with the first flurry of Trojan flybys starting in August 2027 and wrapping up in November 2028. That dive then takes almost four and a half years to reach the other side where Trojans in the Sun, Jupiter, L5 group will have their exploration begin in March of 2033. Lucy is certainly an interesting name for a spacecraft. And if you're thinking, hey, is it named after that hominin skeleton that was discovered in the 70s? Yes, it is. And that's because Lucy will be looking at those Trojan asteroids which are thought to be the leftovers of planets that were forming early in the solar system's history. So like little fossils that have been left behind of what that period was actually like. And of course, the skeleton that was found was named after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. And if you take a look at the mission patch for Lucy, you'll see that, yeah, there's a little bit of a reference there. NASA's insight lander at Mars is continuing its seismological studies although unfortunately the heat flow probe mole has been declared a loss. Overall though, insight has been such a success that NASA has given it a mission extension. So excellent data should continue to come down from it. And it is true that you could teach an old dog new tricks, especially if you tweak its orbit a bit. NASA also approved a mission extension for Juno, currently orbiting the king of the planets, Jupiter. Coming up on completing its 32nd orbit around the closest gas giant to us, one more orbit will be completed in April and then Juno will do something on June 7th. Something that has not occurred since the Galileo spacecraft was in orbit around Jupiter. And that is a close flyby of one of the four Galilean moons. And when I say close, I mean close. Although Galileo did get closer, Juno has an incredible suite of instruments and a fantastic imaging system aboard. And they'll all be skimming above Ganymede at a mere 1000 kilometers. Now that'll put Juno into a new smaller orbit which will set it up for an incredibly close shave of 320 kilometers above the icy surface of Europa in 2022. Physics of all kinds will see that close encounter with a potential harbinger of life continue to insmolinate Juno's orbit. Finally in late 2023 and early 2024 Juno will get up close and personal with the geologically tormented innermost Galilean moon Io keeping itself a relatively safe 1500 kilometers away. These flybys will both gather data and imagery that should exceed what we've gotten from Galileo. And it'll help for upcoming missions to the Jovian system such as NASA's Europa Clipper and the European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. September 2025 will herald the end of Juno after nearly a decade in orbit and a seriously incredible amount of scientific productivity beyond our wildest dreams. China will also be launching the core module of its large modular space station this year beginning to build out that facility in low earth orbit. Currently there's no overall name for the station but the core module is called Tianhu meaning Joining of the Heavens. Launch is expected sometime in the next few months and it'll be joined some weeks later by the Tianzhou-2 uncrewed resupply craft and then accrued flight Shenzhou-12 which no crew has been announced yet. Later this year another Tianzhou resupply craft and crewed Shenzhou mission will be launched. And I am crossing everything, everything, everything to make sure that this actually happens in 2021 universe. Please let this happen the launching of the James Webb Space Telescope. Y'all this telescope was supposed to be in space and up and running around 2007 but here we are 14 years behind schedule in $9.5 billion over a budget and yes that was billion with a B. But what the James Webb Space Telescope will be doing is something that has never been done before with systems that have never been built before in an environment that has never provided so much of a challenge to all of the new technological development that is needed. But here we are launch set for late October where once on its way to its hangout of the Sun Earth L2 point it will spend a month unfolding itself to prepare for a commissioning phase to assure that everything is working correctly and commence data gathering once set. So if you thought seven minutes of terror was frightening landing on Mars get ready for the James Webb Space Telescope's one month of horrifying origami. Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope the James Webb Space Telescope cannot be serviced so it has to work and it has to work from the get go. And then of course we have a huge number of new kids on the block and something that you and I absolutely love launch vehicles. Assuming things are okay with Blue Origin's BE-4 engine United Launch Alliance is aiming for the Vulcan Centaur rocket to be on the pad and ready to fly in the last quarter of 2021. Vulcan Centaur will be replacing the Delta IV and Atlas V lines of rockets aiming to deliver lower operational costs due to competitor pressure. And just a few days ago Tori Bruno the CEO of United Launch Alliance posted a video to his Twitter of the first Vulcan Centaur booster leaving the factory for the Cape. It's happening! Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency have collaborated on their next generation rocket the H3 and intend to launch it sometime this year. And much like the Vulcan Centaur its first stage is also in transport to the launch site but it appears to have had a whoopsies. So we may have to get back to you on that one but Jackson Mitsubishi are certainly rooting rooting for you here. There's also a surge in small sat launchers coming. Look out Rocket Lab the pressure is on. Firefly Aerospace is looking to be a few months away from launching their first rocket the Firefly Alpha and no word on if the brown coats have given it their blessing. Relativity Space is also looking to have the first launch of their almost entirely 3D printed Terran 1 rocket later this year. It's only got a handful of parts about 760 total which sounds like a lot until you realize that most rockets have about tens of thousands of parts. And such as private companies they're getting into the mix with their new launch vehicles no we've got some large organizations also doing so. The Indian Space Research Organization is a handful of months away from debuting its latest rocket the small satellite launch vehicle. Once the launcher is declared operational day-to-day work will be handed over to a consortium of companies working together as the commercial spaceflight arm of ISRO. We should get some more rumble in the jungle soon as Ariane Space will debut an upgraded variant of its Vega rocket known as the Vega C. Its first stage motor is brand new and is of the same type that will be used in the upcoming Ariane 6 launcher and an enhanced second stage will be included as well. Vega C will phase out the standard variant of the rocket and take over launch duties. But of course the thing that we are all probably the most excited about for this year and we're certainly going to be getting a lot more of it as the year goes on. Oh yeah those test flights are epic although that's not the only test flight that happened this week is it Ryan? Now we all know the differences pros and cons of both liquid and sorry propellant engines but have you ever thought of matching the two together to get the best of both worlds? Well I certainly hadn't but BlueShift Aerospace they certainly had. If you've never heard of BlueShift no worries because for the time being they've only been testing this the Stardust 1.0 sounding rocket although they do have higher aspirations if you see what I did there. Prior to the launch on the last day of January there were two failed launch attempts the first of which happened after the rocket igniter fired but an oxidiser valve decided not to open and the second of which failed to launch after an igniter failed to well ignite. It was third time lucky however as we got to see the pure power of that hybrid engine. The CEO of BlueShift Sasha Derry has said that the company are capable of building full rockets acquiring customers and going after a niche market in a unique way which they will have to do in order to secure the roughly $650,000 they need to be able to launch their next rocket Stardust 2.0 out of Maine before the end of the year. BlueShift also have two vehicles planned after that being Stardust Rogan Reg Dwarf the former being a larger suborbital launch vehicle and the latter being an orbital vehicle capable of placing up to 30 kilos into orbit. The most famous vehicle that uses a hybrid engine Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2 has suffered extensive delays meaning that BlueShift's confidence to go orbital by 2024 is a welcome addition to the hybrid engine market. This truly is a very exciting time for the future of rocket propulsion. If you can't mind back to last week Jared spoke about the SLS green run test that didn't go to plan cutting off just 67 seconds into the planned 485 second test. Well NASA have come forward and said that they will be performing another static fire of the big orange rocket. And as a few of you did point out I was incorrect about the number of times that the core stage of the space launch system can be fueled. I said it could only be fueled nine times but that was specifically for the operations that are happening at the Stenus Space Center. That's where the green run is taking place. Now in total the space launch systems core stage can be refueled 22 times and green run part two is on track for a late February test. There now is a likely chance that SLS's first launch will be delayed yet again past the end of this year which wouldn't look too good on the program but I'm pretty sure everyone in the community is welcoming this move as it is better to be safe than sorry. Let's get into some launches then only a couple to talk about this week starting with that SpaceX launch I mentioned earlier Transporter 1. Lifting off out of Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during its 22 minute launch window which commenced at 1500 UTC on January the 24th the B1051 booster forced its way through the cloud carrying the second stage for two minutes and 36 seconds before letting go and beginning its journey back down to the Atlantic Ocean. First set of deployments occurred around T plus 58 minutes and 50 seconds which was port C4 carrying 36 Superdust satellites for planet and C1 which was carrying 17 spacecraft upon Kepra's port. Finally at one hour 31 minutes and 42 seconds the 10 Polar Stying satellites were released setting another spaceflight record the most total number of satellites deployed on a single launch being 143. After the launch of Transporter 1 B1051 safely returned to port Canaveral with the Sun just on the horizon. The second and last orbital launch of the last seven days came from China more specifically the Jiquan Satellite Launch Center which saw a long March 4th sea take to the skies carrying the Yaogan 3102 satellites to orbit and here are our coming launches. Just before we head out for today I want to make sure that all of our supporters get a quick shout out because the amount of support we get from our incredible community is truly amazing. Our escape velocity orbital suborbital and ground support citizens all contribute to ensure that Station 204 can stay up on orbit and that this data connection between me and you can actually happen and if you want to help us spread our message you can head over to youtube.com forward slash tmro today just as little as one dollar a month. Well that's it for this edition of tomorrow news make sure to stick around though as I hope next week we'll have a bit more data of the hop of the Stinger steel pipe so I still don't have an actual line so I guess goodbye we'll do to a location closer to the equator.