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Hiya, and welcome again to TechCrunch Area. In case you missed it, Boeing and NASA determined to maintain Starliner docked to the Worldwide Area Station for the remainder of the month. The company is aiming to finish a key evaluate within the first week of August, at which level they’ll decide on when to carry the spacecraft (and the 2 astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams) house.
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Story of the week
Falcon 9 is again. Nearly two weeks after the rocket skilled an anomaly that derailed a routine Starlink launch, regulators have given SpaceX the all-clear to resume launches of probably the most dependable rocket in historical past.
What we’re studying
Over at Ars Technica, Eric Berger has an essential story about one of the vital urgent points within the house trade: NASA’s new mounted value contracting fashions are nice for SpaceX and actually, actually difficult for everybody else.
This can be a large difficulty, as a result of NASA says it desires to stimulate extra competitors, however merely nobody else can compete on value the best way SpaceX can. Right here’s Berger:
Briefly, just one firm — SpaceX — is flourishing in NASA’s industrial house ecosystem.
That isn’t an excellent place for the house company to seek out itself in, so there are many questions for NASA and policymakers. Do they cave to conventional house contractors and return to cost-plus contracts for many companies? (Sluggish and costly.) Do they flip over lots of their spaceflight features to SpaceX? (Not fascinating or politically sensible.) Do they proceed to hope and await different corporations to make the subsequent step? (The early returns should not nice.)
The push towards industrial house appears admirable. However NASA wants a method, possible involving fewer necessities and extra monetary assist, to assist us get there.
This week in house historical past
Beep beep! (Simply kidding, there aren’t horns on lunar rovers.) On July 30, 1971, astronauts drove a rover on the moon for the primary time. I don’t find out about you, however I’m very, very excited to see the designs for the subsequent technology of lunar rovers from Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab.
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