January 03, 2025

This Week in Space 142: 2025 in Space

1 hour 13 minutes

On episode 142 we're talking about 2025 in space! It's going to be an exciting year, kicking off with the first launch attempt for Blue Origin's New Glenn heavy booster and another test flight of Starship. Then we'll see a new asteroid sampling mission from China, the first test flight of Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander to the moon, and the launch of the first-ever private robotic mission to Venus by Rocket Lab. There's a lot more in store, so be sure to join us for this jam-packed episode!

Headlines:

- NASA's Parker Solar Probe makes its closest, fastest, and hottest flyby of the Sun yet, flying through the corona and withstanding 1800°F temperatures

- Blue Origin's massive New Glenn rocket is finally on the pad with plans to launch in early January after many years of development

- China announces their crewed lunar lander and crew capsule are ready, raising concerns about a new space race to the Moon

2025 in Space:

- SpaceX aims for up to 25 Starship launches—and landings—in 2025 if they can secure FAA approval, with flight 7 featuring Starlink satellite deployment tests coming within weeks

- Jared Isaacman, billionaire and private space mission funder, expected to be nominated as the new NASA administrator under the incoming Trump administration

- Several commercial and international robotic missions to the Moon are planned, some of which will help fill the void left by NASA's canceled VIPER rover

- The future of NASA's expensive and long-delayed Mars sample return mission is in question as China aims to complete its own by 2027

- Colorado and Alabama are vying to be the home of U.S. Space Command as it potentially reorganizes under the new administration

- Vast Space aims to be the first to launch a private space station module in 2025 without NASA funding, providing a potential ISS replacement

- The European Space Agency's Space Rider, a reusable robotic space transportation system, set to launch in 2025 for various orbital experiments and satellite deployment/retrieval

- China's ambitious Tianwen-2 mission to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid and visit a main-belt comet in the 2030s launches this year

- Japan's Destiny+ mission will visit asteroid Phaethon, the source of the Geminid meteor showers, propelled by novel ion engines

- Rocket Lab plans to launch a small, privately financed probe to Venus to look for signs of life and organic molecules in the atmosphere

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

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