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Story of the week

SpaceX has launched its most public and aggressive offensive against regulators to date, with a blog post published Tuesday urging more expeditious launch licensing — lest the country lose its place as the leader in the global space race. 

Recent delays in particular are not based on new safety concerns, SpaceX claims, but “superfluous environmental analysis” related to multiple aspects of the launches, like the sonic booms and SpaceX’s water deluge system. For example, the FAA recently approved additional 60-day analyses over the sonic booms and the jettisoning of a piece of hardware called the hot-stage into the Gulf of Mexico during flight, two issues that the company says have been “exhaustively analyzed.” 

These consultations “could indefinitely delay launch without addressing any plausible impact to the environment,” SpaceX says.

Launch of the week

A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off in the early hours last Tuesday morning carrying a private astronaut crew led by billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. Two of the four astronauts made history on Thursday when they performed the first-ever commercial spacewalk. It’s an incredible moment for private human spaceflight, but especially for SpaceX’s ambitions to eventually settle a colony on Mars. The SpaceX-made spacesuits worn by the Polaris Dawn crew are likely the first iteration of what will eventually be worn by those future settlers.

SpaceX and the Polaris Dawn crew have completed the first commercial spacewalk!

“SpaceX, back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world.” — Mission Commander @rookisaacman during Dragon egress and seeing our planet from ~738 km pic.twitter.com/lRczSv5i4k

— Polaris (@PolarisProgram) September 12, 2024

After a five-day mission, which included traveling to the highest point that any crew has traveled since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, Polaris Dawn has come home. The crew splashed down off the coast of Florida at 3:37 EST a.m. Sunday.

The crew was all smiles as it emerged from the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule a short time later.

Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew splash down off the coast of Florida, completing the @PolarisProgram's first human spaceflight mission pic.twitter.com/Sobt66zxnL

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 15, 2024

This week in space history

On September 17, 1976, NASA unveiled the very first space shuttle to the world. The Enterprise rolled out of Rockwell International’s Palmdale, California, facility to a large crowd, including invited guests and the media. The general public got to have a look the following day. The agency put Enterprise through a gamut of tests to prepare future shuttles for flight to space.