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Commercial space goes deep

Mars. Photo: NASA

Commercial companies are setting ambitious goals and heading into deep space.

Rocket company Relativity Space and propulsion company Impulse Space have inked a deal to send the first commercial mission to Mars. It won’t be easy -- only two countries, the U.S. and China, have successfully deployed science missions on Mars, and roughly half of the spacecraft sent to the red planet fail.

We’ll talk with Relativity's Tim Ellis and Impulse's Barry Matsumori about the challenges and urgency in sending a commercial mission to Mars.

Then, another company is working with NASA to bring video conferencing to moon-bound astronauts. We’ll talk Cisco Webex's Jono Luk about connecting astronauts to Earth some 240,000 miles away from home.

 

Brendan covers space news for WMFE, everything from rocket launches to the latest scientific discoveries in our universe. He hosts WMFE's weekly radio show and podcast "Are We There Yet?" which explores human space exploration. Brendan is a native Floridian, born and raised in Broward County. He moved to Central Florida in 2005 to attend the University of Central Florida. He began working at WMFE as a college intern where he discovered his love for public radio.