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Hello everyone and welcome to 2021. It's been a while since we were on the airwaves but as we all know, space news certainly hasn't been quiet over the lead up to the new year so I thought I'd give you all a quick fire round up, however quick that may end up being. And then for funsies, we'll drop into the first two weeks of January to see what's been happening. So if you like what we do here, we wouldn't mind it if you pressed the subscribe button and maybe even rung the notification bell and we also wouldn't mind it if you strapped yourself in, as this is your Tomorrow News for the week of January 24th, 2021. SN8 finally took to the sky, flapping the Elanorons all the way back down until a Raptor failed to relight and we got this harder than wanted landing, but it was certainly a lot further than even Elon Musk himself thought it was fly. I think everyday astronaut really says it best. During December, SpaceX also managed to launch two more missions, being this one, the SiriusXM7 mission, as well as this, the NROL-108 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, rounding off their record-breaking 25 launches from the Cape they had in 2020. On average, that was nearly one launch of a Falcon 9 every two weeks. That's just incredible. We also had the first launch of a new vehicle during December, that is of China's Long March 8. Debuting out of the Wenchang launch base located on Hainan Island, it dropped its expended boosters into the South China Sea and not overpopulated areas. Long March 8 also has plans to have a reusable first stage, similar to the Falcon 9. Ariane Space was also getting in on the act of some late year launches, with their launch of the Soyuz STA carrying the CS-2 satellite. A Canadian astronaut will join three NASA astronauts aboard the Artemis 2 mission, also known as the first crewed Artemis mission around the moon. This mission is slated for 2023, so unless we get any other nationalities orbiting the moon before then, this Canadian, whoever it may be, will be the first non-American to orbit our moon. We also got news of three crew that will be flying on Crew 3, being NASA astronauts Roger Chari and Tom Marshburn, as well as ESA's Matthias Maurer. Chari will also end up being the first rookie to command a NASA mission since STS-2, all the way back in 1981, unless you just count Joe Engel's X-15 flight 50 miles up, which counts him as an astronaut in the eyes of the US Air Force, so we have to go back even further, and then the last technically proper rookie would have been Jerry Carr on Skylab 4, all the way back in 1973. This also puts Chari in the cool club of James McDivitt, rookie commander of Gemini 4, Frank Borman, rookie commander of Gemini 7, and Neil Armstrong, the rookie commander of Gemini 8. A fourth member is yet to be announced, but remember, Crew 1 was initially supposed to have two crew members, and it did end up with four, so that's it. December 2020 wrapped up in only roughly 350 words, although there was some rumor going around about this aerospace company buying out a rocket engine manufacturer. No rumor mill here, Ryan. Two aerospace giants in the United States are currently on a course to intercept, and that would be Lockheed Martin moving to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne. Announced on December 20th, Lockheed Martin will be dropping $4.4 billion in cash for that acquisition. Aerojet Rocketdyne is primarily a manufacturer of propulsion systems. The RL-10 used on the upper stages of United Launch Alliance's Atlas V, Delta IV, and upcoming Vulcan Centaur are manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne, as is the RS-68A engine used on the first stage of the Delta IV, the AJ-10, which will be used as Orion's main engine via the European Orion Service Module, and the mighty RS-25 that powered the space shuttle for three decades and will be used on the upcoming space launch system. Lockheed Martin justifies the acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne by saying that they were already involved in key parts of the supply chain and that they're going to be taking on the expertise in propulsion and hypersonic technology. So not only would Lockheed Martin now be flying the Orion capsule atop the space launch system, it'll be a major player in powering it to orbit as well. The acquisition isn't officially official just yet. Aerojet Rocketdyne stockholders, they have to approve of the acquisition, and the United States government may have to look over it as well, specifically the Department of Justice. They may have to give their blessing for the two large aerospace corporations to become one. Now, if everything goes smoothly and there's no problems, Lockheed Martin is expecting all of that integration to finally occur by mid-2021. But it wasn't just acquisitions that Aerojet Rocketdyne has been up to lately. We just had the much-awaited green run of the space launch system's core stage. Oh man, ain't that a thing of beauty seeing four RS-25s light up like that. Mock diamonds are an engineer's best friend. But as for awe-inspiring as the power-on display was... It passes through at 60. Get into our first gimbal profile. VGG is at C. Gotcha. And we got a shutdown. All personnel, shutdown looks like it all goes to page 656. Page 656, please. The mood at the end of the day was disappointment. The test was planned for a total of 485 seconds. That's actually just a little bit shorter than the RS-25s on the space shuttle during launch would be operating for. It was expected that if they did reach 250 seconds of burn, that would provide enough data to make a definitive decision as to whether the green run had successfully met its objectives. But no, it wasn't even close. 67 seconds, that's all they got. On the surface, it was an abysmal performance by a, rightly so, heavily criticized launch vehicle program. But a few days later, when NASA started to hand out the deets as to what actually happened during the green run test, it started to not look as bad as was initially thought. A reservoir for hydraulic fluid and hydraulic pressure for a core stage auxiliary power unit dropped below acceptable limits for a few milliseconds, which caused the flight computer running the test to shut down one second into the beginning of a sequence that would gimbal the engines, which that gimbal requires the core stage auxiliary power unit to operate, which also due to conditions with that power unit, it had shut down as well. A flash was seen around a thermal protection blanket, and that's still being studied, but that blanket after the run showed the expected indicators of engine operation. It's not exactly a chilly area to be surrounded by four fully operational RS-25s. Ultimately, NASA's overall explanation was a simple one. It's a test of actual flight hardware, and there's a strong desire to keep that flight hardware safe. Everything in operation on the test stand is going to be lofting Artemis 1 after all. So to keep that hardware safe, certain parameters and limits are going to have their safety margins set lower than they actually will be in flight. NASA set those limits of where problems could happen at an extremely conservative level to preserve the hardware for actual flight. With the problems found and components beginning to be refurbished, NASA now has to ask itself a very difficult question. Do you run a second test of the core stage, a green run part two? This would eat into time that is critical for NASA's plans to get Artemis 1 off of the launch pad by the end of this year. This would also bring up another issue. The core stage for the Space Launch System is rated to be fueled nine times. You've already had a wet dress with it, and now the green run, so you've got seven more opportunities to load it up with liquid hydrogen propellants and its oxidizer of liquid oxygen. Do you play the safe road, perform green run part two, and now only have six opportunities to tank the vehicle when on the launch pad? Or do you say 67 seconds is enough data and roll the dice, giving you seven tanking opportunities? And that is a big deal because scrubs are a reality in this business. STS-61C in 1986 and STS-73 in 1995 endured six scrubs before finally launching on the seventh try. Let's say that you are in charge of the program here. What are you going to do? Are you going to send the core stage off to the Kennedy Space Center so it can start preparations for Artemis 1, or are you going to keep it on the test stand, get everything ready to go, and have a green run part two and get that data that you really want? Let us know in the comments below. Retired Space Shuttle Program Manager, the legendary Wayne Hale, who if you are a space fan you should really be following him on Twitter. He advocated for a second green run, noting that schedule is secondary, safety remains primary. And I feel like too, yeah you got to get that full green run static fire in. That data is just way too important for you to toss it out and not have to worry about it. Which data from static fires may explain some interesting things that SpaceX has recently done, right Ryan? The new year hasn't halted SpaceX's progress down in Boca Chica with SN9 doing three static fires in just three hours. At 19.28 Coordinated Universal Time the first of the tests ignited for only a short period of time, with this duration being carried over for the next test at 21.22 UTC as well as the third test at 22.36. It isn't looking too good at the moment however for a flight as Raptor number 44 has been removed from the underside of SN9 and many in the community do not believe that a launch will come before the start of February. We also don't know when Raptor 44 will be replaced on the vehicle but I suspect it'll be within the coming days. SN10 is getting ready to be rolled out as it waits patiently in the highway perhaps in favour of SN9 for the next flights and SN11 has also gained its nose flaps. SpaceX have also made another investment recently with it being rather large physically but probably very helpful in the long run. This is one of the offshore platforms which has been officially dubbed Phobos to keep with the whole Mars theme. This now pretty much solidifies that Starship C launches are going to happen as rarely in this modern age of SpaceX do they invest in something like this and then not use it or they're planning to do something else with it but I doubt it. Phobos is currently in Mississippi which as you can see is a little way away from Boca Chica. Phobos is currently in Mississippi which as you can see is a little way away from Boca Chica so my best guess at the moment is that they're going to be removing a lot of the stuff they don't need on it before they take it over to Texas. The Federal Communications Commission or FCC have just granted SpaceX permission in order to launch Starlink satellites on polar orbits. Now this, this is big. In all of the promotional material SpaceX has posted today especially on the maps it is clear that Starlink coverage cannot reach the poles however with a polar orbit this would now be possible. So once all the satellites are up and running SpaceX could genuinely say that you can get an internet connection anywhere on the face of the Earth. That's just bonkers to think about and something else bonkers to think about is that there are now more than 1,000 Starlink satellites in orbit courtesy of the latest Starlink launch but hold your horses because we've got a few that happened beforehand. The new year got off to a blasting start with the first launch only on the eighth day of the year at 0115 UTC. The B1060 booster carried Turksat-5A into the edges of the Earth's atmosphere before the second stage took over for its ride all the way to its geosynchronous orbit where it currently resides and hopefully soon it'll be able to start its role as a communications satellite for the country of Turkey. Just read the instructions for the target for the landing of B1060 which lit up the Atlantic sky while slowing for a nice smooth touchdown. For the second launch of the year Virgin Orbit gifted us a little treat with the first successful flight to orbit of Cosmic Girl, the Modified 747 took off out of the Mojave Air and Space Port at 1838 UTC on January the 17th with Launcher 1 actually being released one hour and one minute later at 1939 UTC. January the 20th not only saw a new president but also two launches with the first of which being the launch of Electron at 0726 UTC. There was only one payload on board, GMS-T, which was released approximately one hour and 10 minutes after the launch. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck simply tweeted perfect orbit, payload deployed, hello 2021. A four and a half hour wait to 1302 UTC then saw the second launch of the day, the Starlink launch I mentioned earlier. The record has been set yet again for the fastest booster turnaround with just one month and seven days between this launch and B1051's most recent SXM-7. Just read the instructions was also the home to this yarning being just the eighth of this booster. So not only do we get one new record but we also get two. So not only do we get one new record, the fastest booster turnaround ever, we get a second, the most flown booster ever. But sadly something that you only get one segment of is your upcoming launches. And just before we head out today I want to give a big thank you to firstly our Escape Velocity citizens, our orbital citizens, our suborbital citizens and last but definitely not least our ground support citizens who all help support the show, keep station 204 on orbit whenever it is safe to return and spread the message of what we do here at Tomorrow. Well there you go, that was the first episode of the new year and how fitting that the first episode I get to lead is nearly my one year anniversary of my first appearance on Tomorrow. But for the time being, until the next one, I don't have an outro on.