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• Jeff Foust
Virgin Galactic has named its updated Delta-class suborbital spaceplane Apeiron and moved the vehicle to Spaceport America, where it is expected to begin test flights ahead of commercial service. The company now expects commercial flights to start in the second quarter of 2027.
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Virgin Galactic has named its updated Delta-class suborbital spaceplane Apeiron and moved the vehicle to Spaceport America, where it is expected to begin test flights ahead of commercial service. The company now expects commercial flights to start in the second quarter of 2027.
Joshua Kutryk is scheduled to venture outside the International Space Station on Oct. 29, marking the first spacewalk by a Canadian astronaut in more than seven years. The event will be broadcast live, according to the report.
Four volunteers who spent more than a year living and working in a simulated Mars mission are due to leave their habitat on Saturday, Oct. Separately, analog astronaut Michaela Musilova led low-visibility underwater “spacewalks” to test astronaut safety and communications protocols—using terrestrial simulations to examine challenges crews may face during space missions.
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Voyager will manage Interstellar Lab’s BioPod EDEN ISS experiment, which will study plant growth in microgravity. The work is intended to inform future space agriculture, linking an ISS research project with technologies for growing plants beyond Earth.
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NASA said the designs and flight plans for its two commercial crewed Moon landers have changed as the agency works toward a 2028 landing. The agency will decide which provider lands astronauts first, according to a report, making the revised plans relevant to both providers’ development schedules.
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Commander Dr. Musilova and her crew spent several days living and working 22 feet underwater in Florida as aquanauts, simulating a space mission. The exercise uses an underwater environment to prepare people for the demands of human space missions.
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Australia has submitted a counteroffer to the European Space Agency over the cost of sending astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg on a mission to the International Space Station. The proposed funding has drawn domestic criticism, with the government accused of haggling over the price of the historic mission.
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