Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is getting ready to launch its third long-duration crew mission (Crew-3) for NASA this weekend.
The Hawthorne, California-based aerospace company is slated to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts aboard on Sunday, Oct. 31, at 2:21 a.m. Eastern time from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A backup window opens on Nov. 3 at 1:10 a.m.
The mission will carry NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer to the International Space Station, where they’re slated to arrive the following day, Nov. 1, for a six-month science mission.
SpaceX will attempt to land the rocket’s first stage on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Crew-3 marks the company’s fifth human spaceflight mission overall since May 2020.
Here’s what else L.A.-area tech companies got up to this week:
- FaZe Clan Inc. will go public via a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company B. Riley Principal 150 Merger Corp. (Nasdaq: BRPM) in a proposed business combination that values the L.A. gaming, lifestyle and media platform at approximately $1 billion.
- ABL Space Systems has closed a $200 million expansion of its Series B investment round, bringing the El Segundo rocket company's total funding to $420 million and its valuation to $2.4 billion.
- Skyrise Inc. has raised $200 million in Series B funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Monashee Investment Management, bringing the Los Angeles aviation startup’s total financing to $250 million. With its automation technology FlightOS, the company aims to enable anyone to fly any aircraft as safely as the best pilots.
- Culver City’s Pragma Platform Inc. has raised a $22 million Series B funding round led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners for its backend game engine.
- Santa Monica-based Dronebase Inc. has raised another $20 million led by Euclidean Capital for its aerial data analytics platform that provides aerial drone services.
- HiveWatch Inc., a Los Angeles technology company that aims to help companies keep their people and assets safe, has closed $20 million in additional growth funding led by former Twitter CEO and COO Dick Costolo and Adam Bain of 01A.
- Salted Inc., a Los Angeles-based platform for developing and scaling quick-service restaurant brands, has added $16 million in Series A funding to continue expanding nationwide.
- Xeal Energy, which provides electric vehicle charging solutions for apartments, condos and workplaces, has raised $11 million to expand its digital token payment system so that users don’t need to be connected to Wi-Fi to charge their vehicles.
- Chicago celebrity shoutout startup Cameo has made its first acquisition, scooping up Represent, an L.A. startup that sells T-shirts and other merchandise from celebrities.
