“NASA chose the H135 because Airbus was able to meet all the NASA mission requirements which include personnel movements, airborne law enforcement roles, aerial firefighting, weapons training, and overwater operations,” said Dave Ramsey, NASA’s Chief of Flight Operations at the Kennedy Space Center. “The H135 provides a modernized airframe that performs well in the Florida environment and will serve to protect NASA assets and personnel for years to come.”

Birds of a Feather will be our 2nd attempt at a guided re-entry of Electron's first stage. It follows on from our first successful attempt in Dec last year. We'll have live footage from the 1st stage, so fingers crossed we get some good views. Here's a view from our last mission.
 

 

"Shortly after stage separation, the booster began to use its reaction control thrusters to reorient itself for reentry. The stage reached apogee at about 4 minutes and 45 seconds into the flight.

The reorientation maneuver was completed at about the T+6 minute 30 second mark. At this point, the booster was positioned at the correct angle of attack for its descent into the atmosphere.

About a minute later, the booster hit “the wall” – a dense region of the atmosphere where the booster experiences a sudden deceleration from supersonic to subsonic speeds. Rocket Lab managed to successfully maneuver an Electron first stage through this tough reentry phase during Electron Flight 10, which launched in December 2019.

After passing through “the wall”, the Electron booster continued to descend towards the ocean, with splashdown occurring about 9 minutes after liftoff. The stage was not expected to survive."

B1051 is still in excellent shape. The landing legs did their job. Appears to be approx. 5ft lower than normal. Incredible when you think of the force the landing legs must absorb.

SpaceX plans to complete construction of flight spacecraft 4—now the first operational mission spacecraft—3 months earlier than originally planned. SpaceX and program officials identified two reasons why this acceleration may be possible. First, they told us there will likely be manufacturing efficiencies that could allow SpaceX to meet the accelerated schedule for its first operational mission. Program officials said the spacecraft design for the first operational mission is the same as the other spacecraft, and that this would be SpaceX’s fourth time building the spacecraft. Second, SpaceX officials said they modified their facilities and brought in additional resources.

Boeing officials estimate that the crew module refurbishment process will take 4 months. Boeing conducted its uncrewed test flight in December 2019. Allotting 4 months for the refurbishment process means that Boeing will not be able to support an operational mission before April 2020, assuming the crewed test flight is completed by then as well.
 
Boeing continues to address technical risks identified by program officials. This includes a risk that the initiators that trigger separation events, such as the separation of the crew and service module prior to reentry, may generate debris and damage the spacecraft. In June 2019, we found that Boeing had identified a solution to contain the debris that was sufficient for its test flights.11 Since our last report, program officials said that a number of problems were found in recent testing and that the independent engineering technical authority noted that the current initiator containment design is not acceptable for the crewed flight test. Program officials told us that they accepted this risk for the uncrewed flight test, but that additional testing will need to occur before the crewed flight test.

Before they can fly an operational mission, the contractors may need additional time following their crewed test flights to update and complete the astronauts’ training. NASA officials said that it is not possible to know how much time will be needed to incorporate lessons learned from the crewed test flights into the training plans. However, NASA officials estimated that the program and the contractors could need 3 to 6 months after their crewed test flights to update and finalize training before the first operational missions. NASA officials said they and the contractors would need this time to incorporate lessons learned from the crewed test flight into the training program, complete astronaut training, and prepare for the first operational mission flight readiness review.

This includes a risk that the initiators that trigger separation events, such as the separation of the crew and service module prior to reentry, may generate debris and damage the spacecraft.

the independent engineering technical authority noted that the current initiator containment design is not acceptable for the crewed flight test. Program officials told us that they accepted this risk for the uncrewed flight test, but that additional testing will need to occur before the crewed flight test