Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. I hope everyone has a great 4th of July this week. Go eat hot dogs.
Read my story from last week The reasons for Starliner’s additional delay and what this could mean for Boeing’s Starliner program will be discussed.
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The undisputed story this week is the massive $843 million contract NASA awarded to SpaceX to develop a vehicle that will deorbit the International Space Station. Once the station enters Earth’s atmosphere, it will burn up, but the contract is to make sure it’s done in a safe way for humans on the ground. Little is known about the US Deorbit Vehicle, as it’s being called, but a NASA official said it will be based on “Dragon heritage” hardware.
Check out my story about Starfish Space’s new deal with Intelsat. The GEO servicing market is still a few years away, but deals like this show it’s closer than the haters think…
There is an article from NASA titled “Fourth of July Holidays in Space” And folks — it’s just as delightful as the title. Apparently, there wasn’t a 4th of July celebration in orbit until 1982, and another one happened 10 years later! Now that we have the constant presence of NASA astronauts on the ISS, such celebrations have become an annual event. All I have to say is: God bless stars and stripes pants in space.
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