TechCrunch Newsletters - Max Q - SpaceX's Starship flies high

Monday, December 14, 2020 • By Darrell Etherington

This is it! This week is TC Sessions: Space, our first dedicated space event, with a killer lineup of speakers and guests. We’ll be talking to NASA’s Kathy Leuders about the agency’s progress in human space exploration this year, and the forthcoming Artemis program, and lots more besides.

The all-digital event happens on December 16 and December 17, and you can grab tickets right here, with a temporary discount that expires in just over a day. Most of the newsmakers we feature here will be there, including Lockheed Martin, Rocket Lab, Amazon, and many more.

SpaceX flies Starship to record heights

SpaceX has flown its in-development Starship spacecraft higher than ever before. The company flew a prototype of the rocket to around 40,000 feet, before executing a critical ‘belly flop’ maneuver that the reusable vehicle will use to land after launching future missions. It all worked surprisingly well – until it came in for a harder than expected landing, resulting in an explosion. Still, at this stage, more is going right than anyone expected.

SpaceX flies Starship to record heights image

Image Credits: SpaceX

NASA and Boeing set late March for do-over crew vehicle flight test

You may have forgotten since SpaceX hogged the spotlight this year, but NASA has another partner for its commercial crew private human spaceflight project: Boeing. The partners announced last week that they’d aim to re-do the critical Orbital Flight Test (OFT), an uncrewed demonstration mission for their Starliner CST-100 capsule, no earlier than March 29 next year.

Virgin Galactic test flight ends before reaching space

Virgin Galactic was set to make a trip to suborbital space for the first time from its New Mexico commercial spaceport, which is where its paying customers will fly from once they’re ready. The flight ended before attaining space, however, when the SpaceShipTwo Unity spacecraft’s rocket engines failed to light due to a system error. The company will have to figure out what happened and do this again, likely moving its first commercial flight even further out.

Virgin Galactic test flight ends before reaching space image

Image Credits: Virgin Galactic

Orbex raises $24 million to build reusable rockets in the UK

One of the launch companies trying to get started outside the U.S. is Orbex, which touts a renewable, eco-friendly fuel as one of its main virtues. The company raises another $24 million last week, as it continues to work towards launch of its first rocket, the Orbex Prime, with test flights planned for next year.

Blue Origin's moon lander team submits its proposal to NASA

Blue Origin’s ‘National Team,’ which includes Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper, has submitted its ‘Option A’ proposal to NASA for the human lander system it wants to build to carry astronauts to the Moon starting as early as 2024. The combined effort has a strong pedigree in human spaceflight and past NASA missions, so it stands a pretty good chance of winning out.

Blue Origin's moon lander team submits its proposal to NASA image

Space manufacturing startup Varda raises $9 million

Varda, created by SpaceX vets, aims to create products in space that can be used back here on Earth. The company raised $9 million from investors including Founders Fund, and will create uncrewed manufacturing facilities first with an eye to staffing them up once that becomes viable.