The Discussion: Jeni talking exoplanets and aliens at Cardiff Museum and we take a no spoiler look at the Neil Armstrong biopic, First Man.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• Commercial spaceflight update
• New Zealand’s Rocket Lab build a new launch site in the US
• The winners & losers in USAF’s launcher funding competition
• China’s Long March 5 rocket failure induces delays
• The death of the Kepler space telescope
• Russian Soyuz failures risk human access to space
• Hubble dead? Don’t believe the hype
• OSIRIS-Rex begins its final manoeuvres to land on an asteroid

Main news story: Europe and Japan’s Bepicolumbo mission to Mercury.

The Interview: Jeni interviews Bethan James, astronomer & astrophysicist currently working as an ESA/AURA Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on the Hubble instrument team.

Q&A: Listeners’ questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we take a look USAF’s rocket funding decision:

Why wasn’t SpaceX funded in the latest US military space funding round while Blue Origin was? Mark De Vrij, UK.