This Week In Spaceflight

Currently Playing: Is Starship Actually Replacing SLS? | This Week in Spaceflight

This week, NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft have rolled out to Launch Complex 39B for Artemis II while Administrator Jared Isaacman and senior officials float sweeping changes to the program, from accelerating CLPS lunar lander missions to a monthly cadence and considering flatter equatorial landing sites for early crewed flights to potentially letting Starship perform Trans-Lunar Injection for Orion. Blue Origin reveals Project Sunrise, a proposed constellation of 51,600 orbital AI data centers in sun-synchronous orbit, as it ramps up New Glenn second-stage production and prepares for rapid reusability. Rocket Lab lands its largest contract ever—a $190 million deal for twenty hypersonic test flights supporting the Pentagon’s MACH-TB program—while we also cover Innospace’s root-cause analysis of its recent Hanbit-Nano failure, HyImpulse’s new SaxaVord launch agreement, Mitsubishi’s three-engine H3 static fire, Hubble catching Comet K1 (ATLAS) breaking apart in real time, and TransAstra’s plan to capture and mine a house-sized near-Earth asteroid. Plus the latest space traffic update as Starlink crosses the 10,000-satellite mark in orbit. ⚡ Become a member of NASASpaceflight's channel for exclusive discord access, fast turnaround clips, and other exclusive benefits. Your support helps us continue our 24/7 coverage. Click JOIN above to get started.⚡ 🤵 Hosted by Elysia Segal. 🖋️ Written by Alejandro Alcantarilla Romera & Martin Smith. 🎥 Footage from: Max Evans, Jerry Pike, D Wise, Space Coast Live, SpaceX, NASA, Firefly Aerospace, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Intuitive Machines, Google Earth, Rocket Lab, Innospace, HyImpulse, JAXA, NASA/ESA/D. Bodewits (Auburn)/J. DePasquale (STScI), NASA/ESA/R. Crawford (STScI), NASA/JPL-Caltech, International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Bolin, NASA Goddard, Trans Astronautica Corporation, CCTV, Roscosmos. ✂️ Edited by Ryan Caton. 💼 Produced by Kevin Michael Reed (@kmreed). 🔍 If you are interested in using footage from this video, please review our content use policy: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content-use-policy/ #SpaceNews #Artemis #Starship #NASA #Moon #LunarReturn #SLS LDAPAABJRG2UMCU3