NASA is still willing to fund unusual concepts in its bid to advance space exploration. The agency is handing out $175,000 initial study grants to 14 projects that could be useful for missions in and beyond the Solar System. The highlight may be TitanAir, a seaplane from Planet Enterprises' Quinn Morley that could both fly through the nitrogen-and-methane atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan and sail its oceans. The "flying boat" would collect methane and complex organic material for study by sucking it in through a porous leading edge.

A project from UCLA's Artur Davoyan, meanwhile, could speed up missions to the outer edge of the Solar System and even interstellar space. His design (shown at middle) would propel spacecraft by producing a "pellet-beam" of microscopic particles travelling at very high speed (over 74 miles per second) using laser blasts. The concept could dramatically shorten the time it takes to explore deep space. Where Voyager 1 took 35 years to reach interstellar space (the heliopause, roughly 123AU from the Sun), a one-ton spacecraft could reach 100AU in just three years. It could travel 500AU in 15 years.

Artur Davoyan

Other efforts are sometimes similarly ambitious. MIT's Mary Knapp has proposed a deep space observatory that would use a swarm of thousands of tiny satellites to detect low-frequency radio emissions from the early universe, not to mention the magnetic fields of Earth-like exoplanets. Congrui Jin from the University of Nebraska in Lincoln has envisioned self-growing habitat building blocks that could save space on missions to Mars, while Lunar Resources' Peter Curreri has devised pipelines that could shuttle oxygen between Moon bases.

These are all very early initiatives that aren't guaranteed to lead to real-world tests, let alone missions. However, they illustrate NASA's thinking. The administration is funding the projects now in hopes that at least one will eventually pay off. If there's even partial success, NASA could make discoveries that aren't practical using existing technology.

Robot delivery firm Ottonomy has unveiled a new Ottobot model called the Yeti with a new automated package delivery mechanism. That could allow it to do last mile drop-offs directly to a locker or remove the need for someone to receive a package, TechCrunch has reported. 

As shown at the end of Ottonomy's latest video, the Yeti uses a simple tilting mechanism and rollers to dispense the packages. That would allow it to drop packages onto a doorstep or transfer them to a locker, making it fully independent from humans. It may also allow for easy returns, as TechCrunch noted. 

The Brooklyn-based firm operates in multiple cities including Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Oslo and Madrid, with plans to expand across north America and Asia. It recently unveiled the Ottobot 2.0 with modular delivery bins, a navigation engine that merges data from lidar and cameras, and a new four-wheel drive "crab mode" system for extra maneuverability in tight spaces. The company works in partnership with Verizon in the US.

Amid the pantheon of Greek gods, few are more revered than Artemis, Goddess of the hunt, chastity, and the moon; Mistress of Animals, Daughter of Zeus and twin sister to Apollo. Famed for her pledge to never marry, feared from that time she turned the peeping Acteon into a stag and set his own hunting dogs upon him, Artemis has stood as a feminist icon for millenia. It seems only fitting then that NASA names after her a trailblazing mission that will see both the first woman and first person of color set foot on the moon, ahead of humanity’s first off-planet colony.

In fact, NASA has been naming its missions after Zeus’ progeny since the advent of spaceflight. There was the Mercury Program (the Roman spelling of Hermes) in 1958, then Gemini in ‘68 followed by Apollo in ‘73. NASA took a quick break on the naming convention during the Shuttle era but revived it when it formally established the Artemis program in 2017. Working with the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and a slew of private corporations, NASA’s goal for Artemis is simple: to re-establish a human foothold on the moon for the first time since 1972, and stay there.

NASA is building a coalition of partnerships with industry, nations and academia that will help us get to the moon quickly and sustainably, together,” then-NASA director Jim Bridenstine said in 2020. “Our work to catalyze the US space economy with public-private partnerships has made it possible to accomplish more than ever before. The budget we need to achieve everything laid out in this plan represents bipartisan support from the Congress.”

“Under the Artemis program, humanity will explore regions of the moon never visited before, uniting people around the unknown, the never seen, and the once impossible,” he continued. “We will return to the moon robotically beginning next year, send astronauts to the surface within four years, and build a long-term presence on the Moon by the end of the decade.”

Red Huber via Getty Images

Just as Artemis the Goddess grew out of earlier pre-Hellenistic mythology, Artemis the Program was born from the ashes of the earlier Constellation program from the early 2000s which sought to land on the moon by 2020 — specifically the Ares I, Ares V, and Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle that were developed as part of that effort. In 2010, then-President Barack Obama announced that the non-Orion bits of Constellation were being axed and simultaneously called for $6 billion in additional funding as well as the development of a new heavy lift rocket program with a goal of putting humans on Mars by the mid-2030s. This became the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and formally kicked off development of the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket NASA has built to date.

The Artemis program was helped further in December of 2017 when former President Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1 (SPD 1). That policy change, “provides for a US-led, integrated program with private sector partners for a human return to the moon, followed by missions to Mars and beyond” and authorized the campaign that would become Artemis two years later. In 2019, then-Vice President Mike Pence announced that the program’s goals were accelerating, the moon landing goal pushed up four years to 2024 though its original goal of Mars in the 2030s remained unchanged.

“The directive I am signing today will refocus America’s space program on human exploration and discovery,” Trump said at the time. “It marks a first step in returning American astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972, for long-term exploration and use. This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprints — we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars, and perhaps someday, to many worlds beyond.”

Bang, zoom, straight to the moon

NASA

Now, we know NASA can put people on the moon — it’s the keeping them there, alive, that’s the issue. The moon, for all its tide-inducing benefits here on Earth, is generally inhospitable to life, what with its general lack of breathable atmosphere and liquid water, weak gravity, massive temperature swings and razor-sharp, statically-charged dust. The first colonists will need power, heat, atmosphere, potable water — all of which will have to either be brought from Earth or extracted locally from the surrounding regolith.

Complicating matters, the Moon, at 230,000 miles away, is about a thousand times farther than the International Space Station, and getting a crew with everything they need to survive for more than a few days is going to require multiple trips — not just from Earth orbit to the moon but also from lunar orbit down to the surface and back. But high-risk, high-reward logistical nightmares are kind of NASA’s whole deal.

As such, the Artemis program is split between the SLS missions, which will eventually bring the human crew to the moon, and the support missions, which will bring everything else. That includes robotic rovers, the Human Landing System, as well as moonbase and Gateway components along with all of the logistical support and infrastructure that they will require.

Artemis SLS missions

The SLS missions are built around NASA’s new Deep Space Exploration System, which comprises the SLS super heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Orion Spacecraft and the Exploration Ground Systems at Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

NASA

NASA’s deep space exploration system

The Space Launch System is the single most powerful rocket humanity has built and, given its modular, evolvable design, will likely continue to be for the foreseeable future. Its initial configuration, dubbed Block 1, consists of just the core stage with four RS-25 engines and two, five-segment solid rocket boosters. Once the SLS breaks atmosphere, its Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage takes over for in-space propulsion.

Those RS-25’s are the same engines that flew on the Space Shuttle. Aerojet Rocketdyne of Sacramento, California is updating and upgrading 16 of them for use in the modern era — bringing them up to standard for use with the SLS — with a new engine controller, new nozzle insulation, and 512,000 pounds of thrust. Altogether, the core stage will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust and be capable of pushing 27 metric tons (22,000 sqft) of cargo out to the moon at speeds in excess of 24,500 miles per hour. The Artemis 1 mission that launched in November, as well as the next two Artemis missions, are slash will be powered by Block 1 rockets.

NASA

Block 1B rockets will include an Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) built by Boeing and composed of “four RL10C-3 engines that produce almost four times more thrust than the one RL10B-2 engine that powers the ICPS,” per NASA. That additional engine will enable the space agency to haul 38 tons of cargo out of Earth’s gravity well. This updated block will provide NASA a bit more flexibility in its launches. A 1B rocket can be configured to lift the Orion spacecraft or cargo loads into deep space as easily as it can be for hauling large cargoes to the moon or Mars. NASA plans to lift unwieldy portions of the moonbase and Gateway into space with it.

The SLS’ final form (for now) will be Block 2. Standing more than 30 stories tall, weighing the equivalent of 10 fully-loaded 747’s, the block 2 blasting 9.2 million pounds of thrust (20 percent more than the Saturn V) to push 46 metric tons of stuff (taking up as much as 54,000 square feet) into deep space. Once that configuration comes online, NASA expects it to take on much of the heavy lifting (sorry not sorry) in delivering crews and cargo to the moon.

Orion spacecraft

Riding atop the SLS’s multi-ton controlled explosions is the Orion Spacecraft, the first crew capsule designed for deep space exploration in more than a generation. Designed and built with help from the ESA, the Orion sandwiches a four-person crew cabin in between a services module that holds all of the important life support, navigation and propulsion systems, and a Launch Abort System (LAS) that will forcibly eject the crew capsule from the larger launch vehicle if a catastrophic failure occurs during takeoff.

The 50-foot tall LAS weighs 16,000 pounds and is designed to engage within milliseconds of a launch going sideways, lifting the crew cabin away from the rest of the SLS at Mach 1.2 using the 400,000 pounds of thrust produced by the abort motor. Its attitude control motor provides another 7,000 pounds of thrust to keep the capsule upright during escape while the jettison motor will separate the LAS from the cabin once clear, the latter deploying a parachute ahead of its upcoming water landing.

The LAS actually predates Orion by four years. The LAS was first integrated into a Delta IV and flown at the White Sands test facility in New Mexico in 2010 while the (uncrewed) Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 didn’t take off for its four-hour, two orbit jaunt until 2014.

The Orion main cabin is just under 16 feet tall and just over 16 feet in diameter. Its four wing solar array produces 11kW of power and the attached service module holds enough air and water to keep the crew alive, if a bit panicked and sir-crazy, for up to three weeks.

Exploration ground systems

Handout via Getty Images

Located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Artemis program’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) is tasked with developing and enacting the facilities and operations necessary to conduct SLS missions. That includes the Vehicle Assembly Building, the Launch Control Center, the Firing Rooms, Mobile Launchers 1 and 2, the Crawlers that haul rockets out to the launchpads, and also the launchpads — specifically Launch Pad 39B. Teams have been working to modernize many of those facilities and NASA notes that it, “has successfully upgraded its processes, facilities, and ground support equipment to safely handle rockets and spacecraft during assembly, transport, and launch.”

NASA already has five main Artemis launches scheduled. The uncrewed Artemis I, again, successfully launched in November. Artemis II, which will carry four live astronauts for the first time but only loop around the moon, launches in 2024. Artemis III will go up in 2025 and is expected to be the first to actually set down on the moon. Artemis IV is slated for 2027 and will deliver half of the lunar Gateway (as well as debut the EUS) while Artemis V is set to deliver the other half of the Gateway in 2028. From there, NASA has some thoughts on Artemis missions VI (2029) through X (2033) but has not finalized any details as of yet.

Artemis support missions

“We need several years in orbit and on the surface of the moon to build operational confidence for conducting long-term work and supporting life away from Earth before we can embark on the first multi-year human mission to Mars,” Bridenstine said in 2020. “The sooner we get to the moon, the sooner we get American astronauts to Mars.”

NASA

But before we can build confidence in our ability to survive on Mars, we need to build confidence in our ability to survive on the moon. The Artemis support missions will do just that. The Capstone Mission ("Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment"), for example, successfully launched a 55-pound cubesat in June to confirm NASA’s math for the much larger Gateway’s future orbital path. While in orbit, the Capstone will communicate and coordinate some of its maneuvers with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which has been circling the moon since 2009.

In 2023, NASA also plans to launch the VIPER robotic rover to the moon’s South Pole where it will search the lowest, darkest, coldest craters for accessible water ice. Finding a source for H2O is of paramount importance to the long-term viability of the colony. In space, water isn’t just for drinking and bathing — it can be split into its component atoms and used to fuel our oxidizing rockets, potentially turning the Moon into an orbital gas station as we push farther out from Earth. The rover, and others like it, will be delivered to the surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

It wasn’t until the mid 1990s that NASA even confirmed the presence of water ice on the moon and only two years ago did they discovered ice accessible from the moon’s surface. “We had indications that H2O – the familiar water we know – might be present on the sunlit side of the moon,” Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, said at the time. “Now we know it is there. This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration.”

Similarly, any habitat established on the surface will need an ample supply of electricity to remain online. Solar charging is one obvious choice (that lack of atmosphere is finally coming in handy) but NASA has never been one to underprepare and has already selected three aerospace companies to develop nuclear power sources for potential deployment.

Gateway

NASA

In addition to a surface installation, NASA plans on putting a full-fledged space station, dubbed the Lunar Gateway, into orbit around the moon where it will serve much the same purpose as the ISS does today. Visiting researchers will stay aboard the pressurized Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module where they’ll have access to research facilities, remote rover controls and docking for both Orion capsules from Earth and HLS (Human Landing System) landers to the moon’s surface. A 60kW solar plant will provide power to the station, which also serves as a communications relay hub with the planet. The station’s position around the moon will also provide a unique astronomical perspective for future research.

The Gateway will very much be an international operation. As NASA points out, Canada’s CSA is providing “advanced robotics” for use upon the station, the ESA is supplying a second living module called the International Habitat (IHab) as well as the ESPRIT communications module and an array of research cubesats. Japan’s JAXA will kick in additional habitat components and assist with resupply logistics.

Human Landing System and rovers

From the Gateway, astronauts and researchers will ferry down to the moon’s surface to collect samples, run experiments and conduct observations aboard the Human Landing System, a reusable lunar lander program currently being operated out of Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

NASA selected SpaceX’s Starship for its initial landing system in April 2021, awarding the company $2.9 billion to further the vehicle’s development. The agency then awarded SpaceX with another $1.15 billion this past November as part of the Option B contract modification. The extra money will help fund planned upgrades to the spacecraft, which is being modified from the base Starship design for use on and around the moon’s surface.

“Continuing our collaborative efforts with SpaceX through Option B furthers our resilient plans for regular crewed transportation to the lunar surface and establishing a long-term human presence under Artemis,” Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA HLS program manager, said in November. “This critical work will help us focus on the development of sustainable, service-based lunar landers anchored to NASA’s requirements for regularly recurring missions to the lunar surface.”

Researchers, however, will not be content to travel nearly a quarter million miles just to set down on the moon and look out the lander’s windows. Instead, they’ll be free to wander around the surface safely ensconced in spacewalk equipment supplied by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace.

“With these awards, NASA and our partners will develop advanced, reliable spacesuits that allow humans to explore the cosmos unlike ever before,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in June. “By partnering with industry, we are efficiently advancing the necessary technology to keep Americans on a path of successful discovery on the International Space Station and as we set our sights on exploring the lunar surface.”

Those researchers won’t be on foot either. Just as the Apollo astronauts famously bounced around on NASA’s first-gen lunar rovers, the Artemis missions will use new Lunar Terrain Vehicles. The unpressurized buggies are currently still in development but NASA expects to have a finalized proposal ready by next year and have the LTVs ready for surface service by 2028.

The Artemis Base Camp

When not in use, the LTVs will be parked at NASA’s Artemis Base Camp at the lunar South Pole, alongside a pressurized version designed for longer-duration expeditions. The surface habitat itself will be able to support up to four residents at a time and provide communications, equipment storage, power and, most importantly, robust radiation shielding (and there’s the downside of not having an atmosphere). A site hasn’t yet been officially selected, though mission planners are looking for areas near the region’s permanently shadowed craters where water ice is expected to be most easily accessible (aside from the negative 280 degree temperatures and perpetual darkness).

“On each new trip, astronauts are going to have an increasing level of comfort with the capabilities to explore and study more of the moon than ever before,” Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for human spaceflight at NASA Headquarters, said in 2020. “With more demand for access to the moon, we are developing the technologies to achieve an unprecedented human and robotic presence 240,000 miles from home. Our experience on the moon this decade will prepare us for an even greater adventure in the universe — human exploration of Mars.”

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution today asking countries not to conduct direct-ascent anti-satellite tests (ASAT) that create space junk. The US spearheaded the measure after the International Space Station (ISS) had a close call last year with more than 1,500 pieces of debris from a Russian ASAT.

The measure doesn’t ban the development or testing of ASAT systems, but it discourages conducting them in a way that creates space debris. Although since it came from the UN General Assembly and not the Security Council, it isn’t legally binding.

In addition to creating navigational hazards for astronauts, space junk also reflects sunlight to Earth’s surface, interfering with ground-based telescopes. Moreover, researchers expect orbital debris to increase by magnitudes over the next decade as internet-broadcasting mini-satellites, like SpaceX’s Starlink, grow in popularity.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who chairs the White House National Space Council, tweeted praise today for the passage. “Back in April, I announced the United States will not conduct destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests, and I called on other nations to join us. Today, 155 countries voted in favor of a UN resolution, helping establish this as an international norm for space.”

Of the four countries that have conducted ASATs — United States, China, India and Russia — only the US voted in favor today. In addition to Russia and China, nations voting no included Belarus, Bolivia, the Central African Republic, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua and Syria. Nine more nations abstained: India, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Madagascar, Pakistan, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Togo and Zimbabwe.

The US military has unveiled the B-21 Raider, its first new stealth bomber in 30 years. Northrop Grumman, which developed the aircraft, first showed us a silhouette of the plane covered by a shroud way back in 2015. Now, the Pentagon has officially presented the B-21 at an event at Northrop Grumman's plant in Palmdale, California, but most of its details still remain a secret. Prior to the event, though, the company called it the "world’s first sixth-generation aircraft," which means it's a lot more technologically advanced than the military jets in service today.

According to ABC News, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during the event that "no other long range bomber can match [the B-21's] efficiency." Austin also said that "fifty years of advances in low observable technology" have gone into the aircraft and that even the most sophisticated air defense systems will have a hard time detecting a B-21 in the sky. 

The aircraft was designed using next-generation stealth technology so that it can remain undetectable even to advanced radars and air defense systems, Northrop Grumman said in a previous announcement. A Northrop Grumman official also said that the B-21 can fly in full stealth mode every day, according to Air and Space Forces Magazine, unlike the current model that needs hundreds of hours of maintenance between missions. The aircraft will use a cloud-based digital infrastructure that's cheaper and easier maintain, and the military can also roll out rapid upgrades for separate components so that it's always protected against evolving threats. 

Northrop Grumman is currently working on six B-21 units, which are in various stages of production, but the Air Force is expected to order at least 100 of them. The military will start testing the stealth bomber in California sometime next year before the first units go into service by mid-2020s.

For the second time this year, the uncontrolled remnants of a Chinese Long March 5B came crashing to Earth. On Friday morning, US Space Command confirmed pieces of the rocket that carried the third and final piece of China's Tiangong space station to orbit had re-entered the planet’s atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean, reports The New York Times. The debris eventually plunged into the body of water, leaving no one harmed.

The episode marked the fourth uncontrolled re-entry for China’s most powerful heavy-lift rocket following its debut in 2020. Unlike many of its modern counterparts, including the SpaceX Falcon 9, the Long March 5B can’t reignite its engine to complete a predictable descent back to Earth. The rocket has yet to harm anyone (and probably won’t in the future). Still, each time China has sent a Long March 5B into space, astronomers and onlookers have anxiously followed its path back to the surface, worrying it might land somewhere people live. On Friday, Spain briefly closed parts of its airspace over risks posed by the debris from Monday’s mission, leading to hundreds of flight delays.

As he did earlier this year following China’s Wentian mission, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson criticized the country for not taking the appropriate precautions to prevent an out-of-control re-entry. “It is critical that all spacefaring nations are responsible and transparent in their space activities, and follow established best practices, especially, for the uncontrolled re-entry of a large rocket body debris — debris that could very well result in major damage or loss of life,” he said.

Space debris landing on Earth isn’t a problem unique to China. In August, for instance, a farmer in rural Australia found a piece of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that landed on his farm. However, many experts stress that those incidents differ from the one that occured on Friday. “The thing I want to point out about this is that we, the world, don’t deliberately launch things this big intending them to fall wherever,” Ted Muelhaupt, an Aerospace Corporation consultant, told The Times. “We haven’t done that for 50 years.” China will launch another Long March 5B rocket next year when it attempts to put its Xuntian space telescope into orbit.

Bioprinted body parts could prove vital to future medical treatments, and scientists are going to great lengths to test it — in a very literal sense. NASA, Redwire and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center for Biotechnology (4DBio3) are sending a new 3D printer to the International Space Station, Redwire's BioFabrication Facility, to bioprint a human knee meniscus in orbit and study the result on Earth. Ideally, this will lead to treatments for the meniscal injuries that US soldiers all-too-frequently face.

Redwire hopes to 3D print whole organs in space, although it characterizes this as a "long-term" goal. The company is also using NASA's Advanced Plant Habitat for a project to identify genes for space-friendly plants. Another investigation will use a NASA furnace to create and demo passive cooling for electronics in low gravity.

The BFF printer will fly to the ISS aboard a supply rocket launching as soon as November 6th from NASA's Wallops Island spaceport. The mission will carry three extra payloads.

This isn't NASA's first spaceborne 3D printer. Last year, NASA carried a Redwire printer to the ISS to demonstrate printing lunar soil. That technology could one day help Moon colonists build habitats without carrying an abundance of supplies from Earth. The bioprinter is more immediately practical, of course. If the research pans out, doctors could replace damaged body parts without resorting to donations or inorganic implants.

It’s been a busy week for NASA in the days leading up to Halloween. In the spirit of the season, the agency recently released a new image of the Eagle Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope where the Pillars of Creation look like a ghostly hand. By coincidence, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory managed to capture a similarly spooky image of the sun.

On Wednesday, the agency shared a capture of the sun “smiling.” As The Guardian points out, more than a few Twitter users were quick to point out how the star looks like a carved pumpkin in NASA’s image. There’s a bit of interesting science behind the resemblance. “Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space,” according to NASA. The sun is constantly sending out solar winds. At times, these geomagnetic storms have been known to knock power out here on Earth, as was the case in part of Canada in 1989.

This isn’t the first time the Solar Dynamics Observatory has captured an interesting image of the sun. In 2016, NASA released an animation of the sun doing a somersault. The capture was the result of a seven-hour maneuver the SDO completes once a year to take an accurate measure of the star’s edge.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted new rules to address the growing risk of "space junk" or abandoned satellites, rockets and other debris. The new "5-year-rule" will require low-Earth operators to deorbit their satellites within five years following the completion of missions. That's significantly less time than the previous guideline of 25 years. 

"But 25 years is a long time," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. "There is no reason to wait that long anymore, especially in low-earth orbit. The second space age is here. For it to continue to grow, we need to do more to clean up after ourselves so space innovation can continue to respond."

Rosenworcel noted that around 10,000 satellites weighing "thousands of metric tons" have been launched since 1957, with over half of those now defunct. The new rule "will mean more accountability and less risk of collisions that increase orbital debris and the likelihood of space communication failures."

However, some US representatives don't necessarily agree with the decision. Members of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology said in a letter that such decisions are often taken by NASA. By acting unilaterally, the FCC "could create uncertainly and potentially conflicting guidance" for the space industry. They asked the FCC to explain the decision to Congress, saying "this would ensure that procedural measures such as the Congressional Review Act are not necessary."

NASA has said there are "23,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the Earth." It noted that China's 2007 anti-satellite test "added more than 3,500 pieces of large, trackable debris and many more smaller debris to the debris problem."

Boeing is starting to overcome one of its larger hurdles in recent memory. CNBCnotes the aircraft maker has delivered its first 787 Dreamliner in over a year, supplying American Airlines with one out of the nine vehicles it expects to receive in 2022. Boeing paused manufacturing in May 2021 as the Federal Aviation Administration reviewed how the company inspected planes following a string of manufacturing problems.

The company had to halt deliveries multiple times in less than a year after detecting potentially dangerous production problems, such as fuselage spacing. The FAA only cleared Boeing to resume deliveries on Monday. Dreamliner handovers have been on hold for most of the past two years between the manufacturing defects and a pandemic that dramatically curbed passenger flights.

There's a strong incentive to put the 787 Dreamliner into customers' hands. The flaws and ensuing production cuts will cost Boeing $5.5 billion, and that's on top of serious 737 Max issues that led to crashes killing 346 people. Boeing has a tarnished reputation, and these deliveries could help it (slowly) mend its image while capitalizing on an air travel revival.