Space Tourism

Russian actress Yulia Peresild, 37, and film director Klim Shipenko, 38, arrived at the ISS on Tuesday after a smooth take-off from Baikonur Cosmodrome. They are on a 12-day mission filming the first movie in orbit. The crew travelled in a Soyuz MS-19 spaceship and docked behind schedule.

Star Trek Actor William Shatner and Audrey Powers, Blue Origin’s Vice President of Mission and Flight Operations, will fly on board New Shepard NS-18, Blue Origin announced. A Russian actress, and a film producer will launch towards the ISS today along with a cosmonaut, to film segments for a movie.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has cleared Virgin Galactic to resume launches, Virgin Galactic said. The FAA carried out an investigation as the rocket plane deviated from its course while descending during July’s flight. The FAA barred Virgin from flying SpaceShipTwo until the investigation to determine the issues would not affect public safety was over.

Two out of four: Blue Origin announced that New Shepard’s 18th mission, NS-18, will carry four astronauts to space, including Dr Chris Boshuizen and Glen de Vries. Dr Boshuizen is a former NASA engineer and co-founder of Planet Labs while de Vries is the co-founder of Medidata. The two other astronauts will be announced at a later date.

António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, mentioned space tourism alongside corruption and loss of freedoms as cause for the ever-increasing gap between socioeconomic groups. Addressing the General Assembly, Guterres said “billionaires joyriding to space” led to the growing mistrust towards governments and the values of the UN.

SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, Resilience, touched down in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday. The spacecraft carried the four members of the Inspiration4 mission safely back to Earth after spending three days in LEO. SpaceX loaded the capsule onto its recovery ship in less than an hour so that the crew could exit.

SpaceX is launching four civilians into space on Wednesday, 8:00 pm ET from launch pad 39A, at NASA's Kennedy Center, Reuters reports. The three-day mission marks the first time to enter Earth orbit with exclusively private citizens. The news comes after billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos both conducted few-minute space flights during the summer.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) barred Virgin Galactic from flying SpaceShipTwo until the final mishap investigation from its July flight is over, Reuters reports. The FAA is investigating a deviation in the descent of the Virgin Galactic space plane to determine the issues would not affect public safety. Virgin Galactic rocket plane carried Richard Branson to space on 11th July.

Virgin Orbit is to become publicly traded on Nasdaq through a merger with SPAC NextGen Acquisition Corp. II valuing the company at US $3.2 billion. The SPAC trades on the Nasdaq under ticker “NGCA” until the end of the year. The shares will then convert to “VORB”, as the combined company will keep the Virgin Orbit name. The agreement is to raise US $483 million for the combined company.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Aerospace News Roundup 9 - 15 August 2021”, Part 2. There was just so much news this week that we decided to have a second episode for your listening and watching pleasure!