Crew Dragon resulted from a partnership between NASA and SpaceX over the last decade. Anticipating the space shuttle’s retirement, NASA worked with SpaceX and Boeing to privately develop launch systems to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit. When the final contracts were signed in 2014, it was expected that SpaceX and Boeing would each fly one mission a year. Boeing, however, has run into technical challenges with the development of its Starliner spacecraft, so Crew Dragon has had to perform double duty from the start.

“I think we’re incredibly grateful with the partnership that we’ve had,” Kathy Lueders, chief of human spaceflight operations for NASA, said during a post-launch news conference of the NASA-SpaceX team. “You know, when I first started in commercial crew, six or seven years ago, it would have been a dream to me that we would have flown these four missions back to back. Because it’s a really tough thing to do. So I’m incredibly proud of this joint team.”

The cadence is even more impressive considering that SpaceX also recently debuted an upgraded version of its Cargo Dragon spacecraft. Including crew and cargo missions, SpaceX has either launched or landed a Dragon spacecraft every month in 2021 except for February and March.

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The crew of China’s Shenzhou 13 mission completed their first spacewalk of their mission on board the Tiangong space station on November 7, 2021. One of the crew members venturing outside was Wang Yaping who became China’s first female astronaut to complete a spacewalk. She joined Zhai Zhigang for what was the first planned activity of China’s longest space flight yet, a six-month mission during which the crew will focus on station expansion.

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China’s astronauts complete spacewalk at new Tiangong space station https://sc.mp/dhg5

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The intrepid space explorer, who in 1969 became the world’s first beagle to land on the lunar surface — at least in the Peanuts comic strips drawn by the late Charles M. Schulz — is set to fly for real aboard NASA’s first Artemis mission in 2022. Snoopy, in plush form, will serve as the “zero-g indicator” on the Artemis I Orion spacecraft as it loops around the moon.

Snoopy made a similar journey more than 50 years ago, flying with “Charlie Brown” as the call signs for the lunar and command modules that flew astronauts on a final dress rehearsal before the first moon landing.

“I will never forget watching the Apollo 10 mission with my dad, who was so incredibly proud to have his characters participate in making space exploration history,” Craig Schulz, son of cartoonist and producer of “The Peanuts Movie,” said in a statement. “I know he would be ecstatic to see Snoopy and NASA join together again to push the boundaries of human experience.”

Running more than 30 minutes ahead of schedule, the SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts docked to the International Space Station at 6:32 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 11, less than 24 hours after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer opened the hatch of their Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance at 8:25 p.m. and participated in a welcome ceremony with their new Expedition 66 crewmates at 9 p.m.

On board to welcome them were fellow astronaut Mark Vande Hei, Expedition 66 Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos. Joining the welcome ceremony from Earth were Kathy Lueders, NASA associate administrator for Space Operations, NASA and Josef Aschbacher, ESA director-general.

The newest crew to the microgravity laboratory is the agency’s third crew rotation mission with SpaceX and will remain on board until April 2022 as a part of Expedition 66.

Up, up, and away!

Four astronauts went to space on November 10 as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Their destination is the ISS, where they’ll stay until 2022.

Alongside advances in space exploration, we’ve recently seen much time and money invested into technologies that could allow effective space resource utilization. And at the forefront of these efforts has been a laser-sharp focus on finding the best way to produce oxygen on the Moon.

In October, the Australian Space Agency and NASA signed a deal to send an Australian-made rover to the Moon under the Artemis program, with a goal to collect lunar rocks that could ultimately provide breathable oxygen on the Moon.

Although the Moon does have an atmosphere, it’s very thin and composed mostly of hydrogen, neon, and argon. It’s not the sort of gaseous mixture that could sustain oxygen-dependent mammals such as humans.