Now Playing
New Glenn Explosion: NASA Lunar Timeline, Shenzhou 23 & SpaceX IPO
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded on the launch pad, sending shockwaves through NASA's 2028 moon base program and narrowing the agency's options to a single provider. Plus: China extends crewed missions, SpaceX IPO advances, NASA Psyche's Mars flyby, and a possible atmosphere beyond Neptune.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket exploded on the launch pad in Florida Thursday, and the consequences reach well beyond one company's testing calendar. This is a direct hit to NASA's lunar program timeline, and the question now isn't whether there's damage, it's how much.
One day before the explosion, NASA had formally awarded lunar rover development contracts to four companies: Blue Origin, Astrolab, Lunar Outpost, and Firefly Aerospace. The contracts are worth hundreds of millions and target the 2028 outpost missions.
While the U.S. lunar program absorbs this disruption, China launched Shenzhou twenty-three Thursday carrying three astronauts to its space station for a year-long crewed mission. Previous Chinese missions ran several months.
SpaceX, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction from Blue Origin. The company successfully launched a Cargo Dragon to the International Space Station Thursday, carrying six thousand five hundred pounds of supplies and research equipment.
AST SpaceMobile is one of the companies now rerouting around the Blue Origin failure. The firm plans to launch three satellites in June using alternative providers after the New Glenn setback disrupted earlier plans.
And finally, a study suggests a small world beyond Neptune may hold a thin atmosphere, potentially only the second trans-Neptunian object known to have one. It challenges existing models of atmospheric loss on distant icy bodies.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.