Nearly three years ago, OFT-1 aimed to accomplish the same goals as OFT-2. Although the Atlas V rocket inserted the Starliner capsule into a perfect trajectory, the capsule’s navigational systems believed “it was in an orbital insertion burn.” Despite this failure, mission control was able to safely return Starliner to Earth. Over the coming months, inspectors found that the capsule had encountered two critical software issues.

Comprehensively inspecting and fixing the navigation system for a complex spacecraft is no easy task, which is one of the reasons why a second orbital test has been so delayed. Unrelated issues forced Boeing to scrub the intended second launch in August 2021. Now that Starliner is back and presumably better than ever, this launch will test the complex imaging system required to dock to the ISS, along with the rest of the Starliner spacecraft.

WHAT’S NEXT? — If OFT-2 is successful, Boeing can finally progress toward moving astronauts to the International Space Station. Currently, NASA’s only ride to the ISS is through SpaceX’s Crew Dragon program, which has seen four flawless Commercial Crew missions to the space station, two other crewed launches to the ISS, and one orbital all-civilian mission. Pending a successful test, Starliner could see crewed use by the end of 2022.

Space today is a three-horse race with the US, China, and SpaceX in the lead. Russia’s Roscosmos is falling back while ESA, Japan’s JAXA, and India’s ISRO are trying to make a run.

“There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it,” US President Joe Biden said after Russia’s war in Ukraine upended global geopolitics. Far from Earth, that transition is already happening.

Just like in the era of Sputnik and Apollo more than half a century ago, world leaders are again racing to achieve dominance in outer space. But there’s one big difference: Whereas the US and the Soviet Union hashed out a common set of rules at the United Nations, this time around the world’s top superpowers can’t even agree on basic principles to govern the next generation of space activity.

Scientists were looking at how humans in southeast Asia today have some genes of an ancient human species mostly recorded in Siberia.

When researchers simulated the exhaust from a Falcon 9 rocket launch, they found that it releases high concentrations of CO2 in the upper atmosphere.

Raptor one “only” had 185 tons. SpaceX engineers are pushing boundaries 💯 Check out the full webcast with the Starship update via the link in our bio. Credit @spacex #spacex #space #raptor2 #raptor #starship #mars

SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell says that the company now expects Starbase to be ready for Starship’s first orbital launch attempt as early as June or July, pushing the schedule back another month or two.

To accomplish that feat, SpaceX will need to more or less ace a wide range of challenging and unproven tests and pass a series of exhaustive bureaucratic reviews, significantly increasing the odds that Starship’s orbital launch debut is actually closer to 3–6 months away. While SpaceX could technically pull off a miracle or even attempt to launch hardware that has only been partially tested, even the most optimistic of hypothetical scenarios are still contingent upon things largely outside of the company’s control.

Both revolve around the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which – in SpaceX’s case – is responsible for completing a ‘programmatic environmental assessment’ (PEA) of orbital Starship launches out of Boca Chica, Texas and issuing a launch license for the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. In some ways, both tasks are unprecedented, but the bureaucratic processes involved are still largely the same as those SpaceX has successfully navigated over the last two decades.