NASA awards $843M contract to SpaceX to develop the vehicle that will deorbit the International Space Station.
TechCrunch Space Weekly Newsletter

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By Aria Alamalhodaei

Monday, July 1, 2024

 

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. I hope everyone has a fantastic July 4 this week. Go eat a hot dog.

Read my story from last week on the causes of Starliner's additional delay and what it might mean for Boeing's Starliner program.

Story of the week

Image Credits: NASA

The indisputable story of the week is the massive $843 million contract NASA awarded to SpaceX to develop the vehicle that will deorbit the International Space Station. Once the station enters the Earth's atmosphere, it will burn up, but the contract is to ensure this is done in a manner safe to humans on the ground. There are scant details about the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, as it's being called, but one NASA official did say it would be based on "Dragon heritage" hardware. Read More

 

What we're reading

Image Credits: Starfish Space

Check out my story about Starfish Space's new agreement with Intelsat. The GEO servicing market is still a few years away, but deals like this one show that it is much closer to being realized than the haters might think... Read More

 

This week in space history

NASA astronauts Jack D. Fischer and Peggy A. Whitson on July 4, 2017. Image Credits: NASA

NASA has an article titled "Fourth of July Holidays in Space" and folks -- it's as delightful as the title makes it sound. Apparently, there wasn't a July 4 celebration on orbit until 1982, and the second took place 10 years later! Now that we have a continuous presence of NASA astronauts on board the ISS, such celebrations are an annual event. All I have to say is: God bless stars-and-stripes pants in space. Read More

 

Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com or send me a message on Signal at 512-937-3988. You also can send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop instructions and links to encrypted messaging apps.

 
 
 
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