Space Exploration

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it needed two more months to complete the environmental review of SpaceX Starship orbital launches from the Boca Chica facility in Texas. The FAA was unable to meet the original deadline of 31st December due to the high volume of comments submitted.

The US $10B space observatory has flown beyond the orbit of the Moon after completing the second of the three required mid-course correction burns, NASA reported. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on Christmas Day to begin its 29-day deployment process. About half an hour later, it automatically deployed its solar panel to start generating its own power.

Two Shenzhou-13 astronauts conducted a six-hour spacewalk on Sunday to install equipment outside Tiangong space station’s Tianhe module, the China Manned Space Agency reported. This was the fourth spacewalk conducted since the launch of the Tianhe core module in April this year.

Ariane 5 has launched the giant James Webb Telescope into its transfer orbit. The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on Christmas day, and the telescope separated successfully at an altitude of close to 1500 kilometers 27 minutes into the flight.

During a recent core stage power test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft engineers identified an issue with one of the RS-25 engine flight controllers, NASA reported. The issue will cause delays in the launch of the Artemis I mission. The flight controller communicates with SLS, provides precision control as well as internal health diagnostics.

The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs announced that five new countries joined the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) with the approval of the UNGA. Angola, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Panama and Slovenia took the number of member countries to 100.

The European Space Agency (ESA) prepares the post-ISS era and Europe´s continued presence in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and solicitates private companies to work and collaborate with ESA on commercial concepts. ESA launched a project called SciHab (Science and Habitation), “an orbital human-tended platform with a modular design and open to commercial services”, the agency said.

No SPAC mergers with space companies in November, but a blockbuster round of US$1.4 billion for Sierra Space. We also had ‘traditional’ public listings by Telesat and Mynaric (of ADSs). It was also an interesting month on the M&A front with deals including Redwire / Techshot, Inmarsat / Viasat, Planet / VanderSat, and Rocket Lab / Planetary Systems Corp

NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission launched yesterday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA reported. The joint project with the Italian Space Agency will examine exploding stars and black holes, among other space objects.

Roscosmos and Space Adventures has launched and successfully docked the Soyuz MS-20 space tourism mission with two space tourists on board, NASA reported. The spacecraft docked with the ISS’ Poisk module six hours after launch. The crew of three, including two Japanese space tourists will stay on the Space Station for 12 days.