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From capturing precious asteroid samples and exploring volcanic moons to navigating mysterious toxic blobs and portraying fictional Space Force battles, October was a captivating month in spaceflight and space exploration, as these images attest.
Blue Origin has revealed a life-sized model of its upcoming lunar cargo lander, Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1), achieving a significant step in its plans to facilitate cargo transport to the Moon’s surface.
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In recent updates on NASA’s Artemis program, all four core stage engines have been installed onto the booster of the second Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, but a production issue has temporarily slowed work on the third.
When it comes to the inaugural crewed launch of Starliner, it increasingly feels as though Boeing and NASA are chasing the proverbial carrot on a stick. The latest delay pushes the earliest available launch date to April 2024, a month later than planned, in what’s a seemingly never-ending succession of postponements.
NASA’s plans to retire the International Space Station and replace it with commercial projects are not kaput, they’re just changing. Wrinkles are now appearing in Blue Origin’s plans for Orbital Reef, while Northrop Grumman’s unnamed space station project might not even happen.
Once among the star companies championing a deal to create a private successor to the International Space Station, talks between Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Sierra Space regarding the Orbital Reef project now appear to be souring.
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