the federal aviation administration faa on tuesday again delayed completing a final environmental
assessment of the proposed spacex starship spacecraft and super heavy rocket program in
boca chica texas until june 13th that review known as a programmatic environmental assessment pea is
gauging the environmental impacts of spacex's starbase site in south texas where the company
builds and tests its giant starship vehicle the faa released a draft pea last september saying
at the time that the final report would likely be done by the end of the year but the agency
has repeatedly pushed the deadline back saying it needs more time to consult with other government
departments and analyze the thousands of public comments submitted in response to the draft in
late april the faa extended the target date to may 31st for a decision saying it was working toward
issuing the final programmatic environmental assessment after several delays the agency said
in april spacex had made multiple changes to its application that required additional faa analysis
spacex won't be able to launch the first orbital starship super heavy mission without a passing
grade from the final pea and that's not the only regulatory box that needs to be checked
the completion of the pea will not guarantee that the faa will issue a launch license
faa officials wrote in an email that announced the latest pea delay
spacex's application also must meet faa safety risk and financial responsibility requirements
nasa has tentatively scheduled the next attempt to fuel the space launch system and go through
a practice countdown for june 19th two weeks after the vehicle returns to the launch pad
at a may 27 briefing nasa officials said they were wrapping up work on the rocket in the vehicle
assembly building at the kennedy space center the rocket returned to the vab a month ago after three
attempts to complete a wet dress rehearsal wdr at launch complex 39b in the first half of april
cliff lanham senior vehicle operations manager for nasa's exploration ground systems program
set a call to stations for the rollout is scheduled for the evening of june 5th
the rollout will start at around midnight eastern june sixth that is about six hours
later than the first rollout in march which he said is intended to make it less likely
thunderstorms will interfere with the rollout that would set nasa up to make its fourth wdr attempt
no earlier than june 19th depending on weather and any potential range constraints he said
nasa hopes this fourth attempt will be successful filling both the core stage and the upper stage
with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants and going through a countdown
that stops just before the core stages engines would ignite however tom whitmire deputy associate
administrator for common exploration systems development said the agency will had a little
schedule this time around to make sure if we have to do more than one withdress rehearsal attempt
we're ready to support that whitmire and lanham said they felt confident workers had fixed the
problems experienced during the april wdr attempts including replacing a helium check valve in the
upper stage and tightening flange bolts on an umbilical believe to be the source of a hydrogen
leak all the things we've seen so far have been very positive in terms of the actual performance
of the hardware whitmire said while the sls was back in the vab barely keyed the contractor that
runs the nitrogen gas distribution system at the center completed an upgrade to increase the amount
of gas available for sls operations an issue that cropped up during the earlier wdr attempts
that upgraded system completed a 34-hour test that exceeded the requirements for sls
said john blevins nasa sls chief engineer nasa also used the vehicle's time to perform some
work that was scheduled for after the wdr that included opening up the orion spacecraft and
installing some of the payloads it will carry on the uncrit artemis one mission and removing
instrumentation on the sls used to measure the loads on it during the first rollout
our work lanham said will really help us from the standpoint of the volume of work that will
need to be done after wdr to get the vehicle ready for launch he didn't give an estimate of how much
time nasa saved by doing that work early but noted doing it now avoided delays from non-conformances
technicians encountered it allows us to lessen the demand on our resources when we do get back
in the vab and i feel lessen the risk on our overall schedule for rolling back out for launch
he said agency officials have previously stated they will wait until after the wdr is complete
to set a formal launch date for artemis one but whitmire reiterated recent statements by officials
including nasa administrator bill nelson that nasa hopes to launch the mission in august nasa
has published launch windows for the mission of july 26 through august 10th excluding august 1st
2 and 6 as well as august 23rd through september 6 excluding august 30th 31 and september 1st
blue origin aims to conduct its fifth human space flight this weekend
ns-21 the next mission of blue origin's new shepard suborbital vehicle is now targeted
for saturday june 4th company representatives announced today may 31st ns21 is scheduled to
launch from blue origins west texas site on saturday during a window that opens at 9 00
a.m eastern daylight time ns-21 was originally supposed to launch on may 20th but blue origin
delayed things after discovering a potential issue with one of new shepard's backup systems
the company has not disclosed what exactly that issue was
new shepard is a reusable rocket capsule combo that sends people and payloads on brief trips
to suborbital space during each roughly 11 minute mission passengers get to experience a few minutes
of weightlessness and see the curve of earth against the blackness of space six people will go
up on ns-21 including science communicator katya kazurita who will become the first mexican-born
woman to reach space and evan dick who will be the first ever repeat new shepherd crew member
evan dick an engineer and investor also flew on the ns-19 mission which launched last december
as its name suggests ns-21 will be the 21st space flight for new shepard overall
but it will be just the fifth crewed mission for the system
following flights in july october december of 2021 and march 31st of this year
yesterday spacex has moved booster 8's massive aft section to the high bay
and that wraps up today's episode we did also like to take the time to thank
you for your continuous support of spacex community and if you like to show us that
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