2021.09.29 | Dr Chris Boshuizen (aka @DrChrispyMusic), set to become only the third Aussie to fly to space

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 29 September 2021:

• Dr Chris Boshuizen, a former NASA engineer at the Ames Research Centre and co-founder of Planet Labs (now Planet), is set to become only the third Australian to go to space when he launches aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard 18 suborbital mission, which is scheduled for October 14.
• Soyuz MS-19 crewed mission to the International Space Station is scheduled for October 5. The three-person crew will include director Klim Shipenko, actor Yulia Peresild and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, hoping to be the first feature film to shoot scenes in space.  
• Construction of the launch pads at Equatorial Launch Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre has begun with formwork and concrete pours completed recently. Meanwhile, a NASA contingent has arrived at the Arnhem Space Centre in preparation for a historic sounding rocket launch campaign from the site next year.
• SpaceOz Pty Ltd has announced the development of the Space Centre Australia launch facility at Weipa, in far north Queensland, with initial construction expected in Q1 of 2022. If successful, Space Centre Australia will join Southern Launch’s Whalers Way Orbital Launch Facility in South Australia, Equatorial Launch Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre at Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory and the Queensland Government’s proposal for a launch facility at Abbot’s Point in Queensland, as sovereign space launch facilities in Australia.
• Round 3 of the Australian Government’s Moon to Mars Supply Chain Capability Improvement grants have been awarded to four local companies — Gilmour Space Technologies (Qld), Crytalaid Manufacture (Qld), Black Sky Aerospace (Qld) and Inovor Technologies (SA) — to improve their technical capabilities and help them enter new national and international markets.
• Space Machines Company and the CSIRO have partnered to test an innovative Australian printable solar cell technology in space. 
• Microsoft to build a set of satellite ground stations in Australia.
• Chinese satellite, Shiyan-10, fails in orbit after a successful launch but not before causing a great “UFO” mystery to unfold in the skies above parts of northern and eastern Australia.
• Planet Earth Episode 21: NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey successfully launch the next Earth observation satellite in the series — Landsat 9