BigSoccer IN SPACE!!! (The BigSoccer Space Exploration Thread)

Vladimir Aksyonov was born on February 1, 1935, in Gibiltsy, Russia, a town to the southeast of Moscow. His father was killed in the Great Patriotic War in 1944 during Soviet advances on the Eastern Front. His mother died in 1949, leaving him to spend his teenage years with his maternal grandparents.

The family moved to suburban Moscow in 1950, and he would eventually enter military pilot training. But he was cut in 1956 due to force reductions, so he instead apprenticed at OKB-1. After earning a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from a correspondence school in 1963, he became a civilian tester for OKB-1 and TsKBEM. He would finally get to become a pilot, flying microgravity simulation aircraft.

TsKBEM chose Vladimir as a civilian cosmonaut in 1973. His first mission was Soyuz 22 in September 1976, which used a spare Apollo-Soyuz spacecraft with a Hasselblad camera for high-quality Earth and astronomical observations.

He would later fly on Soyuz T-2, the first crewed Soyuz 7K-ST mission, in June 1980. During this mission, he carried out the first manual docking, guiding Soyuz T-2 manually to dock at Salyut 6 due to a failure in its new Argon docking computer, an issue that would plague future Soyuz-T missions.

Vladimir would subsequently spend 1983-1992 as deputy chairman of the Soviet Peace Fund. He retired from NPO Energia in 1988, and would instead work in various scientific organizations, as well as religious organizations after the fall of the Soviet Union.

He died in Moscow on April 9, 2024, aged 89. He left a wife and two children. He was buried at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery in Moscow.

 

Rocket Lab has delayed its next flight, the fourth launch for Kineis, from this afternoon due to an unfavorable collision avoidance report. They will announce a new launch date soon.

Meanwhile, the next commercial flight for SpaceX will be a pair of WorldView Legion satellites tonight at 6:41pm EST.

It will be lifted by B1086.4, which started as a Falcon Heavy side booster for the GOES-U launch, then was promptly converted for Falcon 9 use.

 

I would think that it would always be taken into account when planning launches. From what I've seen, they are able to track objects in LEO as small as 1 cm.

Anyway, the Electron launch for Kineis is already rescheduled, and is now planned for this afternoon at 3:43pm EST.

 

NASA astronaut Suni WIlliams just surpassed former astronaut Peggy Whitson's total spacewalking time of 60 hours and 21 minutes today. Suni is still outside in the vacuum of space removing radio communications hardware. Watch now on @NASA+... https://t.co/OD43nAlf5m pic.twitter.com/N5Mr0qQWJP

— International Space Station (@Space_Station) January 30, 2025

With an EVA Thursday, where she and Barry Wilmore removed faulty radio equipment, Sunita Williams has passed Peggy Whitson as the female astronaut with the most cumulative EVA time, at 62 hours, 6 minutes.

As of today, Suni is still 111 days short of the cumulative spaceflight record held by Whitson. In fact, as it stands, there's no other women in the overall top 50 for individual cumulative spaceflight time.

I was really loathe to get into this, but the elephant in the room is that President Donald Trump requested an expedited return for her and Barry Wilmore. NASA has stated they will get them down as safely as possible.

Of course, they are currently scheduled to return with SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts, currently penciled in for NET March 2025.

As it stands, the presumption is that they would return after the launch of SpaceX Crew-10, currently scheduled for March 25, 2025.

That still means they would be in space nine months longer than originally intended with Starliner CFT-1. Such extensions are not unheard of, but people with less knowledge of spaceflight, and more specifically logistics at the International Space Station, have been crying about them being "abandoned" or "stranded" since before Calypso left.

And yes, Calypso did land safely. But there were still additional problems during the return flight. They might've made it home safely in Calypso. But the last thing NASA wanted was the slightest elevation of risk.

And you can only imagine the outcry if they didn't make it home safely. I'm fairly sure, as far as NASA was concerned, the additional issues that cropped up likely justified them remaining on the ISS.

As it stands right now, Suni and Barry are safe on the ISS. There is no problem with supplies, especially since they removed two astronauts from Crew-9 to make room for them to return.

Still, it would not be unprecedented if Crew-9 left before Crew-10 arrived. That is entirely a decision that is up to NASA, Barry, and Suni.

Clarity on the matter will probably come once Jared Isaacman goes through his confirmation hearings, since he has been nominated to be the next NASA Administrator. So we shall see where this goes.

 

And speaking of that, there is news coming in on that aspect.

The original plan was for Starliner-1, the first Boeing crew rotation, to launch in February 2025, followed by SpaceX Crew-10 to launch in August with the new Crew Dragon C213 spacecraft.

The failure of CFT-1, however, resulted in SpaceX trying to rush development of C213, which was to have various improvements. The accelerated development cycle has led to issues with the new spacecraft's batteries.

Now SpaceX says C213 will not be ready for March. They are negotiating with Axiom and ISRO to delay Axiom Mission 4 and put Crew-10 in Crew Dragon Endurance instead.

This, obviously, would mean they won't get to name C213 after all.

But if the move is finalized, then SpaceX Crew-10 could be pushed forward from its current launch date NET March 25. Which means Crew-9, with Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, could return sooner. March 19 is being thrown around for Crew-9 to possibly return in this scenario.

 

Alfred Worden was born on February 7, 1932, in Jackson, Michigan. After graduating from high school, and timing out on a one-year scholarship to Michigan, he decided to enter a service academy. Passing the aptitude tests, he got the choice of Army or Navy. He chose Army, graduating right at the top 10% of the class of 1955 with a bachelor's in military science.

Wanting to fly, despite having no pilot experience, he chose to be commissioned in the Air Force. He also mistakenly believed he could be promoted faster in the Air Force. He would train at Tyndall AFB in Florida with the North American F-86D Sabre interceptor jet, and take part in Air Defense Command at Andrews AFB in DC, also flying the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger.

Al would take leave in 1961 to get his master's in aerospace engineering from Michigan, which he graduated with in 1963. He would work his way through various test pilot programs, including graduating second in his class from Empire Test Pilots' School in exchange with the Royal Air Force, eventually received the call from Chuck Yeager to go through Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards AFB, which he graduated from in 1965.

He would seek NASA next, and would be chosen with the Original 19 in 1966. This came after he had failed to enter with Group 3 due to lack of test pilot experience. During training, he was chosen by Chief Astronaut Alan Shepard to work on Block II of the Apollo CSM. He would ultimately be assigned as backup CM pilot for Apollo 9, putting him to fly in Apollo 15 in August 1971.

As an interesting note, Al is currently the recordholder as the human who was the most isolated from the rest of humanity during Apollo 15. As CSM Falcon had a higher orbit than other missions, he was 2,235 miles from LM Endeavour at times.

After the mission came the stamp cover scandal. Al felt he was scapegoated for the affair, and had to beg to keep any job at NASA. He also felt that he was being railroaded from future promotion in the Air Force. He was able to get aerospace research functions at Ames Research Center. He retired from NASA and the Air Force (final rank colonel) in 1975.

He tried to run for Congress in 1982, likely rubbing off on Jack Swigert's run in Colorado, but lost the Republican primary for Florida's 12th congressional district. He sued the US government in 1983 to get the Apollo 15 crew's allotment of postal covers out of impound, and they gave the covers up without a fight.

Al would involve himself with the Mercury Seven Foundation, now the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, and serve several executive roles in the private sector, ending with B.F. Goodrich in 1996. Like other astronauts, he would consult with various media, and also established a scholarship to send kids to U.S. Space Camp in 2019.

He died on March 18, 2020, at a nursing home in Sugar Land, Texas, while recovering from an infection, aged 88. Despite the date, the infection was not related to COVID-19. He was married three times, and survived by two daughters from his first marriage. His third wife pre-deceased him. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

 

There is a new asteroid threat to Earth.

First detected at the end of last year, 2024 YR4 has been determined to have an orbit that will cross extremely close to Earth in 2032.

Calculations of its possible approach by the B612 Foundation have given it a 2.3% chance of hitting Earth on December 22, 2032.

@b612foundation has taken the orbit and uncertainty of asteroid 2024YR4, sampled 10K trajectories from the current uncertainty, and propagated them forward. 2.3% of those hit the Earth on Dec.22, 2032. Here is where they hit. pic.twitter.com/DP21bMeIdT

— Ed Lu (@astroEdLu) February 7, 2025

The next step is for the James Webb Space Telescope to observe it and get a much better read on its orbit.

The object is currently estimated to be an average of 100m across. Depending on its composition and the angle of possible impact, it is estimated to have a peak impact force equivalent to an 8 Mt nuclear explosion. Enough to destroy a large city, though perhaps not as large as Tunguska. I'm not sure what the impact would be if it hit the ocean, but I can't imagine there wouldn't be some sort of tsunami threat.

If the risk analysis is corroborated, this could be a perfect chance to test planetary defense. Scientists have suggested that the best opportunity for a possible deflection mission would be by 2028.

 

.@NASA and @SpaceX are accelerating the target launch and return dates for the upcoming crew rotation missions to and from the @Space_Station.
The agency’s Crew-10 launch now is targeting Wednesday, March 12, pending mission readiness and completion of the agency’s certification… pic.twitter.com/H1MfvLafND

— NASA Space Operations (@NASASpaceOps) February 11, 2025

And the missions are beginning to move.

NASA has officially made the switch of SpaceX Crew-10 from Crew Dragon C213 to Resilience, and pushed its schedule forward. It is now set to launch on Wednesday, March 12, at 7pm EDT. This is pending standard flight readiness reviews.

This would be followed by SpaceX Crew-9 returning within a week afterward.

 

Sigmund Jähn was born on February 13, 1937, in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz, a German village that, until the next year with the beginning of Hitler's aggression, was on the border of Germany and Czechoslovakia. His father, who worked in a sawmill, was able to avoid conscription in the Wehrmacht.

Ending up in the Soviet sector, he was a book printer apprentice as a teenager. But an admiration for Fritz von Opel's exploits in rocketry, stoked by his father, led him to join the National People's Army, East Germany's analogue to the West German Luftwaffe. He would train as a fighter pilot, and at one point successfully ejected from a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17. In the mid-1960s, he would cross-train at the Gagarin Air Force Academy in suburban Moscow.

Sigmund would rise the rank of lieutenant colonel when he was chosen to be part of NPO Energia's Interkosmos program, training to fly a space mission for the Soviet Union. He would a fly a week-long mission to Salyut 6 on Soyuz 31 in August 1978 with Valery Bykovsky, after which they would return aboard Soyuz 29.

Weirdly enough, the hyper-sensitive East German government censored a photo of Jahn with his family and his newborn grandchild. They probably didn't want to have to answer questions on why a man age 41 was already a grandfather. (I didn't see why in my research.)

Following the mission, he was promoted to colonel, and would do the media rounds in East Germany and the Soviet Union. He also earned a doctorate in remote sensing from the Potsdam Physics Institute in 1983. He would spend the remainder of the existence of East Germany as the deputy commander of the National People's Army's pilot academy, Kommando Luftstreitkräfte.

Once the Berlin Wall fell, Sigmund chose to retire as a major general instead of join a unified Luftwaffe. Initially, he consulted for the German Space Agency (DLR). In 1993, he was hired by the European Space Agency to coordinate ESA projects with Roscosmos.

The person who recommended him? German astronaut Ulf Merbold, who in their childhood didn't live too far from Sigmund. The two actually met in 1984.

Sigmund retired from ESA in 2002, and moved to Strausburg. He died on September 21, 2019, aged 82. His wife died only a few days later. They left two children.

 

45 years ago today, the Solar Maximum Mission satellite was launched atop a Delta 3910 rocket from Pad 17A, Cape Canaveral.

Placed in a roughly 250-mile circular LEO, its objective was to try to ascertain solar physics specifically during that solar maximum.

But in November 1980, it developed issues with its reaction control system. NASA placed Solar Max in standby mode, and decided to use the Space Shuttle to try to repair it.

After the checkout of the Manned Maneuvering Unit, a tool NASA thought would be needed for such a task, on STS-41-B in 1984, they launched Challenger to catch up with Solar Max on STS-41-C in April 1984. Astronauts Pinky Nelson and James van Hoften would visit it over two EVAs.

Following a month of recertification, Solar Max resumed its mission. Late in its mission, it would discover ten sungrazer comets. It would be utilized until it re-entered the atmosphere on December 2, 1989.

 

I love you to the Moon, but not back - I'm staying there," 💙 Blue Ghost. We captured our first shots of the Moon following a successful Lunar Orbit Insertion. The lander will soon begin to circularize its orbit in preparation for landing on March 2. #BGM1 pic.twitter.com/2FclZ1hnvb

— Firefly Aerospace (@FireflySpace) February 14, 2025

On Valentine's Day, the Blue Ghost M1 lunar lander entered lunar orbit. It returned several photos of the Moon.

We appreciate the attention to detail Scott! LOI2 is not a time critical burn. We delayed it 24 hours so that our team has more time to plan the maneuver.

— Firefly Aerospace (@FireflySpace) February 18, 2025

The planned circularization burn, LOI-2, was delayed last night. Firefly plans on doing LOI-2 this evening instead. They suggested it was for mission planning purposes.

ispace @ispace_inc
RESILIENCE status:
Nominal; successful trajectory correction maneuver after flyby.
Distance from Earth: ca. 202,400 km
Current orbital phase: Low energy transfer, traveling at ca. 6,467 km/h
Next up: Saying goodbye to the Moon as the lander heads further and… pic.twitter.com/H1o4swjNN8

— AllenZ (@rondaz_4) February 17, 2025

As for RESILIENCE, the HAKUTO-R lunar lander reflight is taking the long way around. It completed a lunar flyby last Wednesday, and is now headed outbound on a really highly-eccentric Earth-bound orbit. Its apogee will be half-way to the Lagrangian points before its final trajectory to lunar orbit.

Its landing at Mare Frigoris is planned for May.

Meanwhile, IM-2 Athena is set to launch next Wednesday atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, at 7:02pm EST.

Hopefully, unlike IM-1, it won't suffer a propellant leak on the way there.

Blue Moon is still penciled in to launch in March, but we'll see how that shakes out.

 

Falcon 9 lands off the coast of The Bahamas for the first time! Welcome to space @VisitTheBahamas! pic.twitter.com/eidTYL5PYv

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 18, 2025

A Starlink launch last night led to a first-stage landing for booster B1080.16 on Just Read the Instructions parked in the territorial waters of The Bahamas.

The new location for landing will permit more efficient pathways for launching SSO missions from Cape Canaveral. The crewed Fram2 mission was mentioned among those, even though that particular mission is currently planned to expend B1063.24. But maybe that will change now.

 

The impact probability of asteroid 2024 YR4 has dropped to 0.004%. It's expected to safely pass Earth in 2032.

Read the full update: https://t.co/wirnWv6FYE pic.twitter.com/AKXma5eVoT

— NASA (@NASA) February 24, 2025

And there's your buzzkill...or is it?

Just like with 99942 Apophis before it, 2024 YR4's orbital path has been refined out of significant risk to impact Earth in 2032. The chances have been reduced to 0.004%.

However, its chances of striking the Moon during the December 2032 pass are now 1.7%. So there might be fireworks after all.

I doubt NASA will pinpoint exactly where it might strike on the Moon.

********

It is confirmed that Axiom Mission 4 will use Crew Dragon C213. And Peggy Whitson will again command the mission.

This should extend her lead for cumulative time in space for a woman by a couple weeks.

The big deal for this mission, and one of the last issues to negotiate swapping Resilience to SpaceX Crew-10 was that one of the astronauts will be one of ISRO's astronauts, Shubhanshu Shukla.

They will be joined by Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu and Polish astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski.

The Polish part of the mission is an ESA joint venture named Ignis. As part of the mission, he will bring the Polish flag brought to Salyut 6 by Polish Interkosmos cosmonaut Mirosław Hermaszewski with Soyuz 30 in July 1978. He will also be bringing some space-prepared pierogi.

The mission is penciled in for Q2 2025, pending completing preparation for C213. I guess Whitson will get the honor of naming the new spacecraft.

********

There have been rumors regarding the viability of Axiom for the past year.

In December 2024, Axiom announced that they will not be docking their segment initially to the International Space Station after all. They probably couldn't get it arranged to dock where originally planned at Harmony forward.

But with Axiom being involved in building NASA's lunar EVA suit, and the continuation of Axiom's missions to the ISS (there's still one more planned after Mission 4), such difficulties are likely not as bad as some claim.

The current plan for the Axiom Station is for it to begin launch in 2027. Difficulties with New Glenn have likely contributed to delays. Hopefully, the coming Blue Moon Pathfinder mission, currently planned for late Spring, will bring some clarity on that part.

Now, its finctional block, the Payload-Power-Thermal Module (PPTM) will launch first, and connect temporarily to the ISS. Once the first habitat module, Hab-1, launches, PPTM will detach from the ISS and move to Hab-1, creating the independent station at that point.

********

This means the first commercial independent space station is looking to be Vast's Haven-1 station.

Its launch is currently penciled in for May 2026, and it's still planned to be carried atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The first crew, currently undetermined, will follow in June 2026.

 

Right now, I have a mystery illness.

This morning, I tested profoundly negative for both Flus and Covid. Flu is the likely culprit, as that's been going around my family in the first two months of this year. But we'll see in the morning.

I'm definitely not 100% right now, but this is nowhere near as bad as the initial 24 hours when I had Covid in the beginning of 2022.

Part of me is hoping to take off the rest of this week, so I'll be ready for the Blue Ghost M1 landing, still on for early Sunday morning. But another project I'm planning is going to come in July.

For the 50th anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz, I want to go much more in detail on the mission than my original write-ups. That write-up, in July 2013, was one of the first "full" mission write-ups I did for this thread. But is paltry compared to other write-ups I've done since.

 

I ended up with Flu A. Thus far, just like Covid three years ago, the worst part was literally before I actually tested positive. I also learned how not to deal with a fever when you have MS like I do.

Have I mentioned here that I have multiple sclerosis? *looks back in the thread* Apparently not. Well, now you know. It's not like it's some big secret I keep.

Hoping to get back to work early next week, but officially I have off through Monday to at least see through my prescription of Tamiflu.

********

The Moon is so close, we can taste it!

New footage from @Firefly_Space shows their lunar lander's view from 60 miles (100 km) above the Moon. Blue Ghost will land at Mare Crisium, on the near side of the Moon, on March 2, no earlier than 3:34am ET (0834 UTC). pic.twitter.com/EBZyXHEerL

— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) February 26, 2025

The main thing to look forward to right now is the landing attempt for Blue Ghost M1 at Mare Crisium. It's still set for early Sunday morning, with the earliest opportunity being 3:34am EST.

If Firefly Aerospace pulls this off, it will finally win a decade-long race for a commercial outfit to successfully place a robotic lander on the Moon. And hopefully show the way forward for the other outfits of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

********

The eighth flight test of Starship is currently set for Monday evening at 6:30pm EST.

The upper stage, Ship 34, is the first Block 2 Starship. It will change forward flap composition and positioning. It will also have more powerful Raptor 3 engines, and will be 10 feet taller.

It will attempt the Starlink dispenser test with four Starlink simulator satellites.

 

“Contact light, engine stop!”
Congratulations FireFly Aerospace for Blue Ghost’s Mission 1 successful Moon landing today!
It also marks a new milestone in the collaborations between NASA and private Space companies, as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)… pic.twitter.com/Y5psA3qSu9

— Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) March 2, 2025

Project Artemis has begun in earnest.

Blue Ghost Mission 1 landed at Mare Crisium at 3:34am EST this morning. The landing was described as "like clockwork", with no contingencies being triggered, and only two unplanned hazard avoidance maneuvers on the way down.

Would you look at that view! #BlueGhost captured its first image on the Moon that embodies everything this bold, unstoppable Firefly team has worked so hard for over the last 3+ years. And we’re just getting started! Find out what's next for #BGM1 https://t.co/oEJhJu7KHx pic.twitter.com/NsdljgQOpu

— Firefly Aerospace (@FireflySpace) March 2, 2025

Firefly focused its live link on telemetry and payloads that were specifically activated for the landing sequence, so they did not show live video of this first landing. The first photo transmitted after landing was taken during the final descent.

Blue Ghost M1's final descent involved a nine-minute burn of its main engine and all RCS motors. When it reached a velocity of 50 km/h, the main engine cut off, and it took a minute to descend the final 250 metres, cutting off the RCS motors when the contact sensors on the landing pads were activated.

The lander is currently completing on-site commissioning, and bringing all payloads online.

 

Blue Ghost’s shadow seen on the Moon’s surface! We’ll continue to share images and updates throughout our surface operations. #BGM1 pic.twitter.com/iP7fWOSths

— Firefly Aerospace (@FireflySpace) March 2, 2025

Just in, our #GhostRiders downlinked another incredible Moon shot following a successful touchdown! Image shows the Moon's surface and Earth on the horizon. Blue Ghost's solar panel, X-band antenna (left), and LEXI payload (right) are also in view. #BGM1 pic.twitter.com/UIMB0ON3k3

— Firefly Aerospace (@FireflySpace) March 2, 2025

 

While Blue Ghost M1 continues its work on the Moon...

Steve Altemus on the design of the Nova-C landers (IM-2 Athena) $LUNR pic.twitter.com/RoOChZByFl

— the space cpa (@thespacecpa) March 7, 2025

Intuitive Machines succeeded at tipping over yet another lunar lander.

IM-2 Athena landed yesterday at 12:30pm EST at Mons Mouton. It was the southernmost landing yet attended, located hundreds of miles southwest of Copernicus crater.

It then tipped over yet again, just like IM-1 Odysseus.

While the engineers are saying this is a viable design, the results say otherwise.

Contact was lost with Athena about five hours ago. It never got to deploy any of its three on-board rovers.

RESILIENCE is still on its high-orbit approach, and is currently scheduled to attempt its landing at Mare Frigoris on June 6.

 

Walter Hohmann was born on March 18, 1880, in Hardheim, Germany. His father was a doctor, and he spent some of his childhood in South Africa. He eventually returned to Germany, and got a degree in civil engineering from Munich Tech in 1904.

Although he made his bread in civil engineering, working municipal works in Hannover, Vienna, and Breslau (modern-day Wroclaw, Poland), he was always drawn to astronomy. After an older cousin sent him some astronomy texts while he was working in Breslau, he began to devote much of his free time to the physics required for spaceflight.

One of his most important points of research was how to travel between the planets. His solution was simple: why waste enormous amounts of fuel trying to go there directly, when you can use gravity to your advantage?

The result was postulating what became the Hohmann transfer, a minimal-energy method to change an object's orbit. He would earn a doctorate in physics from North Rhein-Westphalia Tech Aachen in 1920.

His work got the attention of Verein fur Raumschifffahrt (VfR), the rocketry club in Berlin, and he became a leading member. His theorems were published in newsletters by Willy Ley. When VfR was dissolved and the Nazi Party got involved in rocket development, Walter retired to Essen, near his hometown, and distanced himself as far as possible from further involvement in rocketry.

But being in a major industrial area of Germany did his stress levels no favors. Constant bombing during World War II resulted in declining health, and he died 80 years ago today, a week short of his 65th birthday. He left a wife and two children.

 

#BlueGhost signing off with one final message from the Moon. Thank you for the unforgettable journey. 💙 #BGM1 pic.twitter.com/IsMzy6VyYz

— Firefly Aerospace (@FireflySpace) March 16, 2025

As the Sun set on Mare Crisium yesterday, Blue Ghost M1 completed its experiments, and switched to "Monument Mode".

Essentially, a more dramatic version of safe mode.

While the mission is officially over, I would not be surprised if it were roused in two weeks when the Sun rises again. So as it keeps watch, so shall we.

But it will definitely go down as the first completely successful commercial lunar lander.

********

All the hugs. 🫶

The hatch of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft opened March 16 at 1:35 a.m. ET and the members of Crew-10 entered the @Space_Station with the rest of their excited Expedition 72 crew. pic.twitter.com/mnUddqPqfr

— NASA's Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) March 16, 2025

Closer to Earth, SpaceX CRS-10 finally docked with the International Space Station yesterday morning. The mission launched Friday night after a final delay caused by a ground equipment issue on Wednesday.

 

SpaceX Crew-9 splashed down last night at 5:57pm EDT in Apalachee Bay, roughly 60 miles south of Tallahassee.

WOW! Dolphins are providing the welcoming committee for Dragon Freedom! pic.twitter.com/Ncvz7jfh49

— NSF - NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) March 18, 2025

The spacecraft was greeted by a pod of dolphins.

Within 6 hours later, the crew was back in Houston.

Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are finally home. Long after they deserved to be.

********

Witness the sunset from the Moon - our final gift from #BlueGhost Mission 1! We’re honored to share these breathtaking views of the lunar horizon glow with the world as our mission concludes. The @NASA team is excited to analyze these images further and share more of the… pic.twitter.com/sltowc2ePO

— Firefly Aerospace (@FireflySpace) March 18, 2025

This is the final image sent by Blue Ghost M1, an image of the lunar sunset.

But Firefly has indeed noted that they will attempt to contact the lander on sunrise in about two weeks.

So we'll see if this mission is truly over. Though any further science would entirely be a bonus.

 

105 years ago today, Robert Goddard got his first rocketry grant, a $3,500 donation from Clark University in Massachusetts. He would also receive $2,000 from the U.S. Navy.

His grant proposal included hypotheses on liquid hydrogen and solar-powered ion thrusters, with the notion of using them to get to Mars in as little as seven weeks. Publicly, he would be working on solid-fueled cartridge rocket motors.

His experiments would lapse three years later without a funding renewal. He was still three years away from his revolutionary liquid rocket.