Hey and welcome again to TechCrunch Area. Mark your calendars, everybody: Boeing and NASA are planning to conduct the primary crewed Starliner mission on Might 1.
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SpaceX is within the ultimate phases of certification of a second astronaut launch pad, which might ease congestion on the launch website and assist the corporate enhance the variety of people it sends into house. As an preliminary step, the corporate used that second platform to launch an unmanned Dragon capsule to the Worldwide Area Station. Subsequent step: the crew.
![SpaceX Dragon in SLC-40](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/dragon-slc-40.jpeg)
Picture credit: SpaceX (Opens in a brand new window)
Rocket Lab accomplished its fourth launch from Virginia final Thursday, with an Electron rocket carrying a secret payload for the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace. That is the fifth and ultimate mission that Rocket Lab will carry out for NRO below a contract the corporate was awarded in 2020. Watch the relaunch right here.
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/rocket-lab-NRO.jpeg)
Picture credit: Rocket laboratory (Opens in a brand new window)
What we learn
I’ve all the time secretly puzzled how the rise of NewSpace corporations will influence recruitment and retention at locations like NASA — so I used to be actually excited to see this story from Bloomberg precisely that query. The state of affairs is a bit more sophisticated than it may appear at first look.
![NASA Vehicle Assembly Building, Kennedy Space Center](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/GettyImages-956253178.jpg)
Picture credit: NASA
This week in house historical past
On March 30, 1982, the house shuttle Columbia landed on the White Sands Missile Vary in New Mexico. The shuttle was carrying astronauts Jack R. Losma and C. Gordon Fullerton, who have been returning house after a profitable eight-day mission.
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/GettyImages-1867579365.jpg)
Area Shuttle Columbia, STS 3, after climate prevented it from touchdown at Edwards Air Power Base in California, landed at White Sands Missile Vary in New Mexico with its T-38 escort plane, on March 30, 1982. Picture credit: Photograph by Buddy Mays/Getty Photographs.