New science experiments and research samples, delivered on Tuesday by the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, were installed on Wednesday on the International Space Station (ISS). Meanwhile, science activities and lab maintenance continue to support the smooth operation of the orbital outpost.

Crew Begins Unloading and Installation

The four NASA astronauts representing the Expedition 72 crew, including Flight Engineers Don Pettit, Nick Hague, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Commander Suni Williams, spent the day unloading Dragon’s research-packed cargo. Arriving on November 5, Dragon brought advanced research equipment and temperature-sensitive specimens, which the crew quickly transferred to the ISS, placing them in dedicated research racks and cold storage for upcoming experiments.

There have been some laboratory experiments and theoretical work done to validate aspects of the plasma magnet propulsion concept. The Plasma Magnet is a wind drag device invented almost twenty years ago by Dr. John Slough from the University of Washington. A rocket that uses a propellant to create momentum. A plasma magnet (newer / Wind Rider design) uses the pressure of the solar wind to gather momentum. This type of propulsion actually exists in nature. A dandelion coasts upon the wind to its ultimate destination.

The plasma magnet drive with dynamic soaring is a system that could be plausibly scaled for human crewed missions up to 2–3% of light speed without needing gigawatt power systems. It seems one of the systems with the fewest technological challenges. There are many other proposals to get to this speed.

A new design competition, dubbed Project Hyperion, is calling for submissions for the design of a crewed interstellar generation ship.

Liftoff of the mission, which is for a “confidential commercial customer,” is scheduled for 5:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday (Nov. 5).

SpaceX’s initial design for its $2.9 billion NASA Human Landing System (HLS) ship to land astronauts on the Moon is revealed.

SpaceX will attempt to transfer propellant from one orbiting Starship to another as early as next March, a technical milestone that will pave the way for an uncrewed landing demonstration of a Starship on the moon, a NASA official said this week.

Much has been made of Starship’s potential to transform the commercial space industry, but NASA is also hanging its hopes that the vehicle will return humans to the moon under the Artemis program. The space agency awarded the company a $4.05 billion contract for two human-rated Starship vehicles, with the upper stage (also called Starship) landing astronauts on the surface of the moon for the first time since the Apollo era. The crewed landing is currently scheduled for September 2026.

Kent Chojnacki, deputy manager of NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, provided more detail on exactly how the agency is working with the space company as it looks toward that critical mission in an interview with Spaceflight Now. It will come as no surprise that NASA is paying close attention to Starship’s test campaign, which has notched five launches so far.

To prepare for NASAs 31st SpaceX commercial resupply mission, four crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will relocate the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft to a new docking port on Sunday, November 3.

Live coverage will begin at 6:15 a.m. EST on NASA+ and continue through docking completion. NASA content can also be accessed through various platforms, including social media.

At 6:35 a.m., NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will undock the spacecraft from the forward-facing port of the ISS Harmony module. By 7:18 a.m., they plan to redock it at the module’s space-facing port.