SpaceX and Boeing prepare for commercial crew mission tests

Commercial space flight gets a new boost with SpaceX and Boeing gearing up for launch abort tests in the coming week. The tests are done to validate escape systems for crew members of Crew Dragon and Starliner spacecraft. Both of these companies plan to send astronauts to the International Space Station by the first half of the next year.

Boeing is planning to run a pad abort test for Starliner on the 4th of November while SpaceX is planning a ground-test firing of the Crew Dragon’s abort engines on November 6th.

Robocorp announces $5.6M seed round to bring open-source to RPA

Led by Benchmark, Robocorp announced $5.6 Million in seed funding. The round also saw participation from Slow Ventures, Firstminute Capital, Bret Taylor, president, and chief product officer at Salesforce and Docker CEO Rob Bearden.

Robotic Process Automation or RPA helps automate tedious manual tasks within organizations, Robocorp, a San Francisco based startup, hopes to bring open-source to RPA. “We actually have a unique angle on RPA, where we are introducing open-source and cloud-native technology into the market and focusing on developer-led technologies,” said Robocorp
Co-Founder and CEO Antti Karjalainen.

Space Cargo Unlimited launches wine into space to age for 12 months

European startup Space Cargo Unlimited announced that it has sent a shipment of wine to the International Space Station. The twelve bottles of wine have been sent to study how the aging process reacts to space. The test will also have implications for the study of microgravity’s impact on manufacturing processes.

During the 12-month testing period, wine samples of the same batch will be aged on Earth. Once the space wine is returned, the company expects to analyze the differences. Unfortunately for wine connoisseurs, there is no news on whether or not the bottles will be sold.

We will be sure to let our readers know if tasting opportunities present themselves.