Linders fly less times a year. A change with the agreement is the cadence of Soyuz missions. While Roscosmos had flown soy missions to the ISS every six months, missions will start with Soyuz MS-27 in April eight months at the station. Neither NASA nor Roscosmos offered a reason for a change, which means that Roscosmos will fly over a period of two years: three instead of four. I assume this is a cost -saving measure. (submitted by Ellpeatea)
Falcon 9 sets of reuse record. SpaceX noted a new Rocket Reuse Record with his Midnight Starlink flight on Sunday evening from Florida, SpaceFlight reports now. The Falcon 9 Rocket booster with the tail number 1067 was launched for a record setting 27th time, so that his position as a flight leader under the SpaceX fleet is further confirmed.
I approach 500 launches … it supported the launch of 27 Starlink V2 mini satellites on the way to a low earth. The 27th outing for B1067 comes almost four years after it has launched its first mission, CRS-22, on 3 June 2021. The three most recent missions were all to support SpaceX's Starlink Satellite Constellation. The Starlink 6-73 mission was also the 460th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket to date. (submitted by Ellpeatea)
The real story behind the Space Shuttle legislation. Last week two American senators from Texas, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz submitted the “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act” to move Space Shuttle Discovery From the current location at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museums Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to Houston. After the senators had announced their bill, the collective reaction of the space community was initially shock. This was quickly followed by: Why? Ars spoke with different people in the background, both of the political and the space balls, to get an idea of what really happens here.
Bill is not going anywhere … The short answer is that it is all political, and the timing is due to the re -election campaign for Cornyn, which is confronted with a stiff drain against Ken Paxton. The legislation is a 'message account' in DC language. Cornyn is behind this and Cruz just agreed to go with it. The goal in Cornyn's campaign is to use the bill as a way to show Texans that he is fighting for them in Washington, DC, against evil there. Presumably he will blame the Obama government, although afterwards it is quite clear that there were no political machinations behind the decision not to assign Space Shuttle to Houston. Space Center Houston, which would be responsible for hosting the shuttle, was not even told about the legislation before it was submitted.
Next three launches
April 18: Long 4 March unknown load | Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China | 22:55 UTC
April 19: Falcon 9 | NROL-1445 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 10:41 UTC
April 21: Falcon 9 | CRS-32 | Cape Kennedy Space Center, Florida | 08:15 UTC
