If the weather remains favorable and no technical issues stop it, the New Shepard vehicle carrying six people will be lifting off today at 9:45AM Eastern time. It's Blue Origin's third ever crewed mission and the first time that a flight will be at full capacity with six passengers onboard. One of those passengers is Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard who's known for being the first American to go to space. She'll be making the trip with Good Morning America co-host Michael Strahan as guests of the Jeff Bezos-owned aerospace company.

The trip's paying passengers are technology-focused venture fund founder Lane Bess and his child Cameron Bass aka MeepsKitten on Twitch, Voyager Space CEO Dylan Taylor and engineer/Starfighters Aerospace volunteer pilot Evan Dick. Blue Origin NS-19 was supposed to make the trip to suborbital space on December 9th, but it was pushed back due strong winds.

The company launched its first crewed spaceflight in July, carrying Jeff Bezos and his brother above the Kármán line. In October it flew William Shatner into space for its second crewed flight. Mission NS-19 isn't only the third crewed Blue Origin flight this year, it's also one of the many across space agencies and private space companies, including SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. As Jennifer Levasseur, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, told The Washington Post, it's "the busiest year in human spaceflight." She added: "We're entering a new phase of activity that we've never, frankly, seen before. And it creates a lot of excitement."

You can watch the launch and the preparations before it below when broadcast begins at 8:15AM ET.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has blasted off with NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) satellite. First announced in 2017, the IXPE is the first satellite capable of measuring the polarization of X-rays that come from cosmic sources, such as black holes and neutron stars. 

The fridge-sized satellite has three telescopes that can track and measure the direction, arrival time, energy, and polarization of light. When data from all those telescopes is combined, NASA can form images that could give us more insight into how mysterious celestial objects — those that emit X-ray — work. For instance, they're hoping it can give us a more thorough look at the structure of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant with a neutron star rapidly spinning in its center.

By observing black holes, the IXPE will help scientists gain more insight and broaden humanity's knowledge on the regions of space we still barely know. It could provide clues on why they spin and how they gobble up cosmic materials, though it could also lead to new discoveries. Martin Weisskopf, the mission's principal investigator, said during a briefing: "IXPE will help us test and refine our current theories of how the universe works. We may even discover more exciting theories about these exotic objects than what we've hypothesized." 

SpaceX used a Falcon 9 rocket from a previous mission for this launch. If all goes well, the rocket's first stage will land on the company's drone ship "Just Read the Instructions" after ferrying IXPE to space.

Following October's news that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin spaceflight company planned to build its own commercial space station in low Earth orbit, NASA announced on Thursday it has selected the program for funding through a Space Act Agreement to further develop the the station's design. The funding is part of NASA’s Commercial LEO Development program, which aims to "develop a robust commercial space economy in LEO, including supporting the development of commercially owned and operated LEO destinations." 

Blue Origin

“We are pleased that NASA supports the development of Orbital Reef, a revolutionary approach to making Earth orbit more accessible to diverse customers and industries,” Brent Sherwood, Senior Vice President of Advanced Development Programs for Blue Origin, said in a prepared statement. The station would be an orbital "mixed-use space business park" that would offer any number of turnkey services as well as reduced operational costs for burgeoning low-g industries "in addition to meeting the ISS partners’ needs." 

Blue Origin is partnering with Sierra Space in this project with the former focusing on the architecture and infrastructure of the station — everything from its design and construction to managing lift logistics using the New Glenn heavy launch system — while the latter is tasked with developing the station's LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment). Boeing is also helping out, designing the operations-maintenance-science module and leveraging its Starliner crew capsule. Genesis Engineering Solutions is involved as well. It's working on a single person spacecraft that tourists and employees alike will be able to putter around in. 

Thursday's announcement, ironically, comes a the end of a year in which Blue Origin protested NASA's “fundamentally unfair” decision to award a lunar lander contract to rival SpaceX to the GAO, which quickly dismissed the claims. Blue Origin then sued NASA — literally, sued NASA —"in an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA's Human Landing System," a spokesperson for Blue Origin told Engadget in August. The company subsequently lost that suit as well but, hopefully, Thursday's deal will serve as a balm for Bezos' critically wounded ego.

Northrop Grumman

The Orbital Reef team hopes to have its first modules in orbit by the end of the decade with further expansions happening throughout the 2030s. But Orbital Reef isn't the only egg in NASA's commercial LEO basket. Northrop Grumman announced on Thursday that it too had signed a Space Act Agreement — to the tune of $126 million — to design a "free flying" space station that will be a permanent presence in LEO for at least 15 years.

"Our station will enable a smooth transition from International Space Station-based LEO missions to sustainable commercial-based missions where NASA does not bear all the costs, but serves as one of many customers,” Steve Krein, Northrop Grumman's vice president of civil and commercial space, said in a statement. The company plans to leverage its existing Cygnus spacecraft, its Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) and its Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), as the basis for the station's design. 

As part of its agreement with NASA, these development proposals will have to account for every aspect of the station's "commercialization, operations and capabilities," according to Northrop Grumman, "as well as space station requirements, mission success criteria, risk assessments, key technical and market analysis requirements, and preliminary design activities."

In mere hours, NASA will attempt to launch one of its most interesting missions in recent memory. At approximately 1:21AM ET, a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California carrying the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) craft. In about a year, NASA will attempt to intentionally crash DART into an incoming asteroid to see if it can alter its course.

The test will mark the first time humans have attempted to change the path of an asteroid. The binary system NASA will target as part of the test doesn't pose a threat to Earth, but what the agency learns from the mission could be vital in the future. NASA has identified at least 23 objects that could potentially collide with Earth over the next 100 years. And developing a feasible defense strategy is key to protecting humanity from that threat.

You can watch the entire launch unfold on NASA’s Live YouTube channel. Live coverage will start at 12:30AM ET on November 24th.

NASA’s oft-delayed James Webb Space Telescope has suffered yet another setback. While it was most recently scheduled to lift off on December 18th, it now won’t launch until December 22nd at the earliest. The delay is due to an incident that occurred while technicians were preparing to attach the telescope to the Ariane 5 rocket that will ferry it into space.

“A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band — which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter — caused a vibration throughout the observatory,” according to NASA. It’s now conducting additional testing to ensure the telescope wasn’t damaged during the incident. NASA says it will provide an update on the situation by the end of the week.

The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope has been plagued by delays. When development started in 1996, NASA expected to deploy the JWST in 2007. However, by 2005, it went back to the drawing board. The telescope was then deemed complete in 2016 but then delayed again due to its complex construction. It was only fully assembled in 2019 and then the pandemic caused yet another round of setbacks. Given the history of the JWST, you can understand why NASA wants to play it safe.

Since 2017, NASA has been in the process of testing to see whether crashing a satellite into an asteroid can change its course, enlisting the help of SpaceX on this endeavor in 2019. Today, the rocket company shared that it has completed a static fire test and is targeting November 21st as the launch date of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). 

At 10:21pm PT that day, NASA will "intentionally crash the DART spacecraft into an asteroid to see if that is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future," SpaceX said in a tweet.

A static fire test is one of several steps in getting a launch vehicle ready to deploy, and it checks engine startup performance, measuring things like pressure and temperature. With this stage complete, SpaceX and NASA look set to go ahead next week.

DART is targeting a binary asteroid with two bodies called Didymos (the Greek word for "twin"). Didymos B is 160 meters (about 174 yards) large, and orbits the larger Didymos A, which is 780 meters in size. The binary asteroid would have passed Earth safely in 2022 and again in 2024 — they weren't on track to make contact with our planet. 

But NASA has already identified at least 23 objects that could potentially collide with us over the next 100 years. Coming up with a defense strategy is key to protecting humanity should Armageddon ever be on the horizon. 

On Monday, astronauts on the International Space Station had to seek safety aboard their transport craft when the station passed uncomfortably close to a field of orbital debris. According to the Associated Press, US Space Command started tracking the space junk in the early hours of the morning. The situation saw the station pass the debris field every 90 minutes, forcing those on board to close and reopen several compartments multiple times throughout the day. The four American, one German and two Russian astronauts aboard the ISS will need to stay on alert for the next several days.

"Thanks for a crazy but well-coordinated day, we really appreciated all the situational awareness you gave us," US astronaut Mark Vande Hei told NASA mission control before he and the other crew members aboard went to bed at 12PM EST. "It was certainly a great way to bond as a crew, starting off our very first workday in space." Four of the astronauts arrived at the station late last week. 

Neither NASA nor the US government has said what created the debris field that put the ISS in danger. However, later in the day, the US State Department condemned a Russian missile test that destroyed one of the country’s own satellites and created more than 1,500 trackable pieces of orbital debris. “The test will significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station, as well as to other human spaceflight activities,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. “Russia’s dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long term sustainability of outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia’s claims of opposing the weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical.”

The State Department said the US would work with its allies to respond to Russia’s act. Per Reuters, the country has yet to comment on the incident.   

Along with their partners, NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency frequently move the International Space Station to avoid incoming space junk. They did that last week when the station was threatened by fragments of a Chinese satellite that was destroyed in a 2007 missile test.

NASA is once again struggling to keep the Hubble Space Telescope running. Wiredreports the Hubble team is slowly reviving its telescope following multiple instrument sync failures that prompted a switch to "safe mode" in late October. Engineers reactivated the Advanced Camera for Surveys on November 7th, but they'll need to verify the device's output this week before they enable any other affected components.

The problems began October 23rd, when NASA noticed that instruments weren't receiving sync messages from Hubble's control unit. Those communication problems continued for two days, prompting the emergency shutdowns. The space agency can't revive Hubble quickly — rapid power and temperature changes risk shortening the telescope's lifespan.

The failure is the second in 2021 to prompt an extended shutdown (the June payload flaw prompted NASA to invoke a month-long "coma" in July), and that's on top of previous problems. NASA had to restart Hubble's gyroscopes in 2018, for instance. The mounting problems suggest the 31-year-old observer is running out of time, and there's no Space Shuttle available if a hardware replacement is necessary.

Astronomers might not be too worried. The James Webb Space Telescope is due to launch December 18th and may serve as a spiritual successor to Hubble, even if it's not focusing on the same wavelengths. Hubble is also contributing to significant discoveries to this day. In that sense, Hubble is effectively signalling that it's ready to pass the torch.

NASA has officially adjusted its timeline for the Artemis III mission and won't be landing on the Moon in 2024. The agency is now aiming to land the first woman and next American man on the lunar surface in 2025 at the earliest, NASA administrator Bill Nelson has announced. NASA was originally targeting a 2028 launch date for its return to the Moon, but the Trump administration moved that date up by four years back in 2017. In a conference call with reporters, Nelson said "the Trump administration's target of 2024 human landing was not grounded in technical feasibility."

In addition to the unrealistic deadline, Nelson blamed Blue Origin's lawsuit against the agency for the delay. It had to put its contract with SpaceX on hold and pause work on the lunar lander that's meant to take astronauts to the surface of the Moon for a couple of times. NASA lost almost seven months of work on the lander as a result, which had cast doubts on the 2024 landing even before Nelson made his announcement. 

If you'll recall, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to develop a Starship-based lunar landing system back in April. The agency historically works with more than one contractor for each mission, but in this instance, it inked a deal with Elon Musk's company alone. Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin sued NASA over that decision, arguing that it wasn't given the chance to revise its bid for the project. 

Based on legal documents The Verge obtained in September, however, NASA felt that Blue Origin "gambled" with its proposed $5.9 billion lunar lander bid. The company allegedly set the price higher than necessary, because it assumed that NASA would award it a contract but negotiate for a lower price. The Federal Court of Claims ultimately ruled against Blue Origin a few days ago, dismissing its claims that NASA ignored "key flight safety requirements" when it awarded SpaceX the lunar lander contract.

Nelson's announcement comes shortly after NASA moved the uncrewed Artemis I flight test launch from this year to February 2022. That's assuming everything will go as planned — the Orion capsule and Space Launch System that will be used for the mission will still have to go through a battery of tests before NASA can schedule it for blastoff.

SpaceX's Crew-2 mission is ready to come back after half a year at the International Space Station. NASA has confirmed that Crew-2 will return starting November 7th at 11:10AM Eastern, when astronauts close the Endeavour capsule's hatch. The vehicle undocks at 1:05PM, and should splash down on November 8th around 7:14AM Eastern. You can watch live coverage starting November 7th at 10:45AM through NASA's YouTube channel, below.

Astronauts Akihiko Hoshide (JAXA), Thomas Pesquet (ESA), Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur (both from NASA) will have spent 199 days aboard the ISS, and will be coming back with both hardware and science experiments. Crew-2 has been a crucial mission for SpaceX on multiple fronts. It's not just additional proof that private spacecraft are a viable option for NASA operations — Endeavour is SpaceX's first reused Crew Dragon capsule. If all goes well, the company will have lowered the practical costs for ferrying people to space in the post-Space Shuttle era.

The ISS will be crowded for a little while. NASA and SpaceX currently expect to launch Crew-3 on November 3rd and dock that same day. Not that either outfit necessarily minds. The third ISS trip marks the start of a routine where NASA-oriented Crew Dragon flights are no longer rare. This is, effectively, the new normal.