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SpaceX to livestream Falcon Heavy Block 5 launch debut at 6:15pm ET today

SpaceX is half a day away from the planned launch debut of Falcon Heavy Block 5, a milestone that will also be the rocket’s second launch ever and first mission with a commercial payload.

First and foremost, Falcon Heavy’s job is to safely place the Saudi Arabian communications satellite Arabsat 6A into a high-energy geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) more than 35,000 km (~22,000 mi) above Earth’s surface. Despite the satellite weighing no less than 6000 kg (13,200 lb), Falcon Heavy will still have enough latent performance to attempt the recovery of all three of its new Block 5 boosters. With any luck, this will hopefully return SpaceX’s East Coast landing zones (LZ-1 and LZ-2) to successful operations after an anomaly in December 2018 caused Falcon 9 B1051 to landing a mile or so offshore.

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Blue Origin urging Air Force to postpone launch competition

COLORADO SPRINGS — Blue Origin wants the U.S. Air Force to wait until 2021 before picking the two companies it intends use for launching critical military satellites in the decade ahead.

The Air Force, however, aims to solicit proposals this spring and choose its two preferred launch providers in 2020 — perhaps a year or more before the new rockets that the Air Force is fostering at Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and Northrop Grumman make their first flights.

All three companies were chosen in October by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center to share $2.3 billion in so-called Launch Service Agreement (LSA) funding to support development of next-generation rockets capable of meeting the military’s satellite launch needs.

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Made In Space unveils small satellite interferometry tool

COLORADO SPRINGS – Made in Space unveiled a product April 8 to help customers conduct interferometry missions on small satellites.

Possible applications for the new product, Optimast-Structurally Connected Interferometer (Optimast-SCI) include space situational awareness and detection of near-Earth objects, Andrew Rush, Made In Space president and chief executive, told SpaceNews.

Traditional space-based interferometry missions bring along large deployable structures to separate their telescopes or other instruments. Hinges and mechanical systems on the deployable structures allow them to be folded in launch fairings and extended in orbit.

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This company wants to deliver a baby in space and prepare humanity for a life beyond Earth

What happens when Earth’s resources run out? Well, if science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that humanity will seek a new and habitable planet somewhere in the cosmos on which to keep the species going in perpetuity. When that day comes, we’ll need a viable way to procreate and deliver children in the vastness of outer space.

Enter SpaceLife Origin, a one-of-a-kind tech company that is seeking to make it possible for humans to give birth in the vacuum of space by 2024, a goal titled “Mission Cradle.” While that is its ultimate goal, SpaceLife is also striving to become the first company to “safe-guard human ‘Seeds-of-Life’ in space [Mission Ark] by 2020 [and] make embryo conception in space feasible [Mission Lotus] by 2021,” according to its official website.

The gallery below offers a glimpse at the patent-pending “Ark” designs. Vials of human DNA will be protected within the radiation-shielded spheres that are to be kept on Earth and satellites surrounding the planet. SpaceLife Origin describes this as an insurance policy for the continuation of mankind in case a catastrophe hits and we need to leave in a hurry.

SpaceX proves higher than necessary safety of Starlink constellation

In an electronic filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), SpaceX has demonstrated a higher than necessary safety for their Starlink constellation satellites in terms of collision risk with other objects in orbit in the scenario that a Starlink satellite becomes uncontrollable after launch.

The filing, in response to FCC questions, reveals SpaceX’s upcoming space-based internet project carries a collision risk 2.1 times less likely than the accepted NASA standard.

The filing occurred on 13 March 2019 in response to a series of FCC follow-up questions from previous approvals and relates to SpaceX’s upcoming deployment of the first batch of Starlink satellites into an initial operational orbit of 550 km.