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Starship Goes Orbital, M64's Hidden Stars & China's Sea-Launch Record
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
SpaceX targets September 22 for Starship's first orbital flight carrying 26 operational Starlink satellites — a leap from test vehicle to cargo carrier in a single mission. Plus Webb pierces M64's dust, a classified Space Force launch, and China's Gravity-1 breaks sea-launch records.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
James Webb just showed us something that Hubble never could. The Black Eye Galaxy, M64, has a dark band of dust so thick that visible-light telescopes have only ever seen its outline.
The bigger operational story right now is Starship. SpaceX has announced a September twenty-second launch window from its Texas facility for Flight Fourteen, and this one is categorically different from everything before it.
On the national security side, a SpaceX Falcon Nine lifted a classified U.S. Space Force payload from Vandenberg Air Force Base after a one-day scrub on Tuesday. The booster landed on the droneship designated OCISLY.
China's Gravity-1 rocket launched nine satellites from a sea platform off Shanghai, adding the Qianfan constellation and a test satellite to orbit. The flight set records for sea-launch payload mass and altitude.
A Russian Progress cargo spacecraft also lifted off to resupply the International Space Station with food, fuel, and equipment. Progress ninety-six is routine by design.
Two things to track from here. Webb's M64 results will likely feed into broader analysis of dust-obscured galaxies, and the methodology will be applied elsewhere.
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