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Transcript/ScriptThe Week in Space (TV)
HEADLINE: Juggernaut SpaceX Poised to Shatter Launch Record
TEASER: Company averages about one liftoff every seven days
PUBLISHED AT: 7/21/2022 at 3:45pm
BYLINE: Arash Arabasadi
CONTRIBUTOR:
DATELINE: Washington
VIDEOGRAPHER: AP/ NASA/ SPACEX/ Gabriel Brammer (University of Copenhagen), Janice Lee et al. (PHANGS-JWST collaboration)/ gbrammer / Twitter
SCRIPT EDITORS: Reifenrath, MAS
VIDEO SOURCE (S): AP/ NASA/ SPACEX/ Gabriel Brammer (University of Copenhagen), Janice Lee et al. (PHANGS-JWST collaboration)/ gbrammer / Twitter
PLATFORMS (mark with X): WEB __ TV X RADIO __
TRT: 2:33
NOTE:
VID APPROVED BY: MAS
TYPE: TVPKG
UPDATE: ))
((INTRO))
[[A private spaceflight company launches its way into history. Plus, a look back at the start of what is now a tenuous stellar partnership, and we remember the first manned mission to the moon. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.]]
((mandatory cg SPACEX))
((NARRATOR))
We begin this week on a launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where private spaceflight company SpaceX blasted back into the record books. The Falcon 9 rocket carried another 53-satellite batch for the company’s Starlink broadband internet service. According to Space Flight Now dot com, SpaceX now has more than 25-hundred satellites in orbit. Sunday’s liftoff marked the company's 31st launch this year, matching its number for all of 2021 — that's a rate of about one every seven days.
((nats, liftoff!))
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
It also came just days after this launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There, SpaceX carried cargo to the International Space Station, or ISS, after officials scrapped the original launch in early June due to a leak in the ship’s propulsion system.
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((NARRATOR))
SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule carried more than 2,600 kilograms of supplies, including a NASA climate instrument to be mounted outside the ISS. The mission marked the 25th flight to the space station under SpaceX’s commercial resupply services contract with NASA.
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
In other news, it was this week in 1969 that NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins took the greatest road trip of all time when they left Planet Earth on a course for the moon. Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the lunar surface, offering the most epic of commentaries:
((mandatory cg NASA))
“It’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
((mandatory cg NASA))
((NARRATOR))
NASA hopes for more moon magic this summer, with test launches planned as part of its Artemis program to return astronauts to the lunar surface.
((NARRATOR))
Also this week in history, Cold War adversaries the United States and Soviet Union joined forces in 1975 for the first ever international space partnership. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, as it was called, examined the compatibility of the nations’ docking systems. Over the next two days, two Soviet cosmonauts and three American astronauts conducted five experiments and traded souvenirs.
((Mandatory courtesy: GABRIEL BRAMMER (UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN), JANICE LEE ET AL. (PHANGS-JWST COLLABORATION)
((NARRATOR))
Finally this week, another amazing image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. This image of spiral galaxy NGC 628 is a composite built by the University of Copenhagen’s Gabriel Brammer, who created it from raw data NASA made available.
((mandatory cg gbrammer / Twitter))
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Brammer tweeted, “Let’s just see what JWST observed yesterday… Oh, good god.” That about sums it up. Arash Arabasadi, VOA News.
NewsML Media TopicsArts, Culture, Entertainment and Media
NetworkVOA
Location (dateline)Washington D.C.
Embargo DateJuly 21, 2022 16:22 EDT
BylineArash Arabasadi, VOA News.
Brand / Language ServiceVoice of America - English
