Spaceflight news

— Europa Clipper might not fly on SLS (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Ball Aerospace successfully completes green-fueled smallsat mission. (smallsatnews.com)

— Blue Origin delivers its lunar lander mockup. (spacenews.com)

— SpaceX sets a reuse record. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Brian Kostka via email: there was an "iron lung" on Skylab!

This week in SF history

— 25 Aug, 2003. Launch of Spitzer Space Telescope (wikipedia.org) (irsa.ipac.caltech.edu)

— Next week in 1977: Top-heavy but retired.

Spaceflight news

— Lucy on track for 2021 launch (americaspace.com)

— Rocket Lab increases performance (spacenews.com) (PDF: rocketlabusa.com)

— NASA to coordinate smallsat rideshares (spacenews.com)

— Heat management becomes a new bottleneck in the smallsat era (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Dragon’s first commercial crew mission (spacenews.com)

— A new industry seeks standardization (spacenews.com)

— Ingenuity recharges its batteries on its trip to Mars (phys.org)

Questions, comments, corrections

— “Fun paper Friday” (HT Andrew Z: frontiersin.org)

— ROSCOSMOS’ Chibis suit (blogs.nasa.gov)

— Csaba via email: reactors vs. RTGs, the highest flying bird, and 1976 splashdown vs 1975.

Interview -- Caty Pilachowski, Professor of Astronomy at Indiana University

— WIYN Telescope (wikipedia.org)

— IU Faculty profile (astro.indiana.edu)

— twitter.com/iuastro

This week in SF history

— 11 August 1962: Launch of Vostok 3 (russianspaceweb.com)

— Next week in 2003: A flame-retardant spacecraft.

Spaceflight news

— Mars Perseverance and Ingenuity on their way to Mars (spaceflightnow.com) (americaspace.com)

— SHERLOC calibration target includes spacesuit samples (collectspace.com)

— Crew Dragon is coming home (arstechnica.com)

Short & Sweet

— Airbus to build Mars sample return mission’s orbital element (spacenews.com)

— Cause of Rocket Lab’s recent launch failure has been identified (spaceflightnow.com)

— Hayabusa2 releases details on its extended mission (hayabusa2.jaxa.jp)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Andrew via email: Nuclear reactor on Moon (designdevelopmenttoday.com)

— Also from Andrew: Winged Gemini (woodtv.com)

— Alex via email: Michigan Spaceport (woodtv.com)

This week in SF history

— August 8, 1989: Launch of STS-28 (americaspace.com)

Spaceflight news

— Progress MS-15 encounters KURS docking issue (rocketrundown.com) (russianspaceweb.com) (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

— Astra will make another attempt at orbit (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/Astra)

— LauncherOne failure update (spacenews.com)

— NASA still has concerns with Starliner (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— twitter.com/amyinorbit: STS-93 wasn’t aborted (youtube.com)

This week in SF history

— July 30 1980: Svetlana Savitskaya selected in the second group of female cosmonauts (en.wikipedia.org) (americaspace.com) (spacefacts.de) (spacefacts.de)

— Next week in 1989: listen in for an audio clue

Spaceflight news

— Dream Chaser trunk, Shooting Star, finds its own life (americaspace.com) (sncorp.com) (space.com)

Short & Sweet

— Hayabusa2 now has a sample return date! (spaceflightnow.com)

— Florida’s Mk 2 Starship is being scrapped. (teslarati.com)

— Crew Dragon planned to return in early August. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: the closest images ever taken to the Sun (americaspace.com)

Interview-- Kathryn Crowe, NASA Human Landing System Deputy Lead for Integrated Performance

— twitter.com/kat_cr

— Linkedin.com

— Artemis (nasa.gov)

— Contractors on HLS (twitter.com/dynetics) (twitter.com/spacex) (twitter.com/blueorigin)

This week in SF history

— 23 July 1999: Launch of STS-93 (waynehale.wordpress.com) (astronautix.com) (spacefacts.de) (nasaspaceflight.com) (nasa.gov)

— Next week in 1980: “get to work” on Soyuz

Spaceflight news

— Starliner has more work to do (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com)

— Starship construction update (HT Andrew Z: wccftech.com)

Short & Sweet

— X-ray space telescope’s launch date delayed. (spaceflightnow.com)

— Cost overruns result in changes to Europa Clipper instruments. (spacenews.com)

— NASA has new planetary protection directives. (spacenews.com)

— NASA doesn’t own a Falcon 9. (americaspace.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Mentioned in the intro: 360° video front he first F9 landing (HT Andrew Z: twitter.com/PPathole)

This week in SF history

— July 15, 1975. The start of Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (wikipedia.org) (astronautix.com)

— Next week in 1999: Pumpkin in a paper bag

Spaceflight news

— Perseverance launch slips again (spacenews.com)

— Centaur has been repaired (twitter.com/thesheetztweetz)

Short & Sweet

— Rocket Lab suffers second-stage failure and loss of vehicle. (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/RocketLab)

— ULA receives its first BE-4. (spacenews.com)

— First indigenous-owned ground station to be built in Australia (satnews.com)

Interview: John Z. Kiss, Professor of Biology and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina Greensboro

— twitter.com/jzk60

— linkedin.com

— UNC bio and publication list (biology.uncg.edu)

— Read more

— Exploratory study ahead of sending Arabidopsis on CLPS (content.sciendo.com)

— Feature article on Dr. Kiss’ work (researchmagazine.uncg.edu)

— TedX talk “Someday We Will Live on Mars) (youtu.be)

— Seedling Growth-2 (youtube.com)

— Seedling Growth-3 (nasa.gov)

This week in SF history

— 7 July 1998: first orbital launch from a sub (en.wikipedia.org)

— Based on R-29RM (en.wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1975: How long does it take an astronaut to flip a patch upside-down? 7.5 hours.

Spaceflight news

— Demo-2 and spacewalks (spacenews.com) (americaspace.com)

— Suborbital Crew (spacenews.com)

— SpaceShip Two news (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— ISRO opens up spaceflight to the private sector. (deccanchronicle.com)

— ULA completes wet dress rehearsal ahead of Perseverance launch (americaspace.com) (HT Andrew Z: twitter.com/TJ_Cooney)

— SpaceX plans a booster recovery for a military satellite. (spacenews.com)

— Canadarm3 contract signed (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 4 July, 2005. Deep Impact strikes comet Tempel-1 (en.wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1998: Low slung rocket

Spaceflight news

— Astrobotic to deliver VIPER rover to Moon (spaceflightinsider.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Some instruments will fly on earlier CLPS payloads (geekwire.com) (nasa.gov)

— Crew Dragon Endeavour is still nominal. (teslarati.com)

Short & Sweet

— Another trickle of Boeing Artemis HLS information (HT deltaV: washingtonpost.com)

— Small launch company Astra to make new orbital attempt. (spacenews.com)

— NRO awards Rocket Lab with back-to-back launches. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: Crew Dragon reuse: (spacenews.com) (HT Ben Hallert: spaceflightnow.com)

This week in SF history

— June 25, 1997: Progress M-34 collides with Mir (history.nasa.gov) (books.google.com) (astronautix.com) (PDF: spaceflight.nasa.gov) (youtube.com)

— Ben Hallert’s excellent photoshop (twitter.com/chairboy)

— Next week in 2005: Smarter than a deformed copper disc

Spaceflight news

— Loverro misconduct update (wsj.com via marketscreener.com)

— Kathy Lueders selected to lead HEO Mission Directorate (twitter.com/JimBridenstine) (arstechnica.com)

Short & Sweet

— InSight’s mole is fully underground (livescience.com) (reddit.com/r/InSightLander) (twitter.com/InSightImageBot)

— Northrup Grumman received contract to develop Gateway module (spaceflightnow.com)

— Raytheon gets a DARPA contract. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Ben Hallert: Demo-2 things (twitter.com/chairboy) (twitter.com/chairboy)

This week in SF history

— 1977 June 15: First shuttle SRB drop test from NB-52 Balls 8 (PDF: commons.erau.edu) (youtube.com)

— Next week in 1997: Full of menace, like a shark