Welcome back to TechCrunch Space! Mark your calendars, folks – because Boeing and NASA have announced plans to launch the first crewed Starliner mission on May 1st.
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SpaceX is currently working towards certifying a second launch pad for sending astronauts to space. This will help alleviate launch site congestion and allow the company to increase the number of human missions they can send into space. As an initial step, SpaceX recently used this second launch pad to send an uncrewed Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, with the next step being crewed missions.
Last Thursday, Rocket Lab successfully launched its fourth mission from Virginia, carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on their Electron rocket. This marks the final mission Rocket Lab has been contracted to perform for NRO since 2020. A replay of the launch can be watched here.
What we’re reading
I’ve always wondered how the rise of NewSpace companies has impacted hiring and retention at established organizations like NASA. This insightful piece from Bloomberg explores this very question and reveals a more complex situation than one might expect.
This week in space history
On March 30, 1982, the space shuttle Columbia landed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Its successful eight-day mission saw astronauts Jack R. Lousma and C. Gordon Fullerton return home.
