China's Spaceplane Secrets, Arecibo's Collapse Unveiled, and Starship's Fiery Mishap: S04E17

And welcome again to Astronomy Daily. I'm your host, Steve Dunkley. It's the twentieth of January twenty twenty five, I mean your whole Steve gun clue. Yes, we're back again and it's great to be with you. And first thing's first, a huge happy birthday to my favorite person in the world. Happy birthday, Dad. I hope you are having a great day and I'll catch up with you in a few orbits. I hope he's an amazing guy. Oh well, you don't have to tell me, Halee. So this is your aircraft pilot, scuba diving community leader, pharmacist dad. Right, Yeah, that's the guy. But to us kids, we just call him dad. That's cool. Yeah, I guess not everybody can say their dad can fly and. Breathe underwater like Superman. Sounds funny when you say it like that, but yeah. So happy birthday, Graham, A nice one, Halle, So, my favorite human, how come you fell so far from that tree? Oh? I knew there was a slap coming, Come on, you, chicky thing on with the show. I was just kidding, sure you were Okay, Here we go, China's mysterious space plane returns to Earth after two hundred and sixty eight days in orbit. China's mysterious space plane has returned to Earth after spending over eight months in orbit. The reusable spacecraft landed at the chio Chuan Satellite Launch Center in a remote section of northwest China on Friday, September sixth. It launched from the same site atop a long March to f rocket on December fourteenth, twenty twenty three, on its third mission, and spent two hundred and sixty eight days in orbit, according to Chinese state media outlet Shinha. While the exact capabilities of the space plane remain largely unknown, Shinwa states the craft will pave the way for more convenient and affordable round trip methods for the peaceful use of space in the future. It's unknown what exactly China's space plane was doing on this most recent mission, or on any other mission for that matter. As seen in previous missions, spacecraft trackers on the ground observed the space plane releasing a small object into orbit. This object could be a sub satellite deployment, or it could be a piece of hardware ejected before the end of the mission and the orbit the space plane's first flight did something similar, set astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in a post on X. The space plane appeared to conduct what is known as rendezvous in proximity operations with the object, meaning it tested its capabilities to meet up with and get close to the object in space. These operations can be used to repair or perform upkeep on friendly satellites, and it is believed that military superpowers are refining these techniques to potentially tamper with adversary satellites during any future orbital combat. China space plane launched on this recent mission just two days before the scheduled launch of the US Space Force's own reusable orbital vehicle, the X thirty seven B. That launch was scrubbed with about thirty minutes remaining in the countdown, and the X thirty seven B would go on to launch two weeks later on to Day, December twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, on its seventh mission Lake with China's space plane. The capabilities and missions of the ACTS thirty seven B are largely classified. It is known to be an orbital test bad for new technologies, but that's about it. India is also developing its own reusable orbital space plane named Pushpuk. Astronomy Ka the bud CAAP. What does the discovery of a binary pulsar in nineteen seventy four, the discovery of the first exoplanets, and the most powerful message humans have ever sent out into space all have in common. Well, they all happened at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, with a spherical reflected dish that was three hundred and five meters or roughly one thousand feet in diameter. Arecibo held the title of the world's largest radio telescope for over half a century, from its construction in nineteen sixty three until twenty sixteen to the dismay of astronomers around the world. In twenty twenty, Arecibo's reflected dish collapsed when the support cables gave way, leading to the eventual decommissioning of one of science's most fruitful instruments. Now. Not long after the decommissioning, the National Science Foundation and the University of Central Florida began an investigation into the primary causes of that collapse, and after nearly four years of investigation. The committee tasked with finding an explanation have finally released an official report detailing the findings. After analyzing the data and the extensive and detailed forensic investigations commissioned by the University of Central Florida and National Science Foundation NSF, the committee's consensus is that the root cause of the Aracibo telescopes collapse unprecedented and accelerated long term zinc creep induced failure of the telescope's cable spelt us sockets. That's a quote the report's details how structural failure of the telescope likely began in twenty seventeen when Hurricane Maria hit the observatory, which subjected to the Aracibo Telescope to winds between one hundred and five and one hundred and eighteen miles per hour. The winds subjected the Aracibo telescope cables to the highest structural stress they had ever endured since it opened in sixty three. According to the report, inspections were conducted after the hurricane, but no significant damage was deemed to have jeopardized the telescope structural integrity. Still, repairs were still ordered. Yet these repairs were delayed for years, and, as the investigation states, they were targeted toward components and replacement of a main cable that ultimately never failed, which suggests that the repairs would not have actually prevented the eventual collapse of the observatories reflected dish, even if they weren't delayed. Eventually, in August and Sember of twenty twenty, an auxiliary and main cable failed, leading the NSF to announce the decommissioning of the telescope through a controlled demolition. More support cables gave way on December one, tent twenty, causing the instrument platform to collapse into the dish itself. Thankfully, no one was injured by the cable failures. The report continued to detail how hidden out why failures triggered the collapse, which had fractured due to sheer stress from zinc creep or zinc decay in the telescope's cable spelzer sockets. Unfortunately, this issue was not identified during the post Maria hurricane inspection, which meant engineers hadn't considered the degradation of these mechanisms as a source of potential future collapse. Despite Aracibo's discovery days being over, the observatory will be remade into an education center known as Arecibo c III. Hopefully the decommissioned observatory can inspire the next general of astronomers to make discoveries as impactful as those made when it was peering out into the universe. Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily, where we offer just a few stories from the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter, which you can receive in your email every day, just like Hallie and I do. And to do that, just visit our url Astronomy Daily dot io and place your email address in the slot provided. Just like that, you'll be receiving all the latest news about science, space, science and astronomy from around the world as it's happening. And not only that, you can interact with us by visiting at astro Daily pod on x or at our new Facebook page, which is of course Astronomy Daily on Facebook. See you there, Astronomy Daily, We'll see and Haley, Space Spice size and Astronomy. FAA to investigate Starship seven test explosion. The US Federal Aviation Administration FAA is requiring an investigation into what went wrong during the seventh ever test flight of SpaceX's Starship meg rocket yesterday, January sixteenth. The launch from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas went well at first. Starship got off the pad successfully and its two stages, the super heavy booster and ship spacecraft separated on time, and the giant booster came back to Starbase, where it was caught by the launch tower's chopstick arms. Ship was less successful, however. The flight plan called for the upper stage to deploy ten dummy satellites about seventeen point five minutes after liftoff and splashed down in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia fifty minutes later, but that didn't happen. The one hundred and seventy one foot tall, fifty two meters craft exploded about eight point five minutes after lawng lunch, reigning debris over the Atlantic Ocean near the Turks and Caicus Islands. That work may not take too long. SpaceX has already identified a likely proximate cost, According to company founder and CEO Elon Musk, a propellant leak which led to a fire in ships aff section the ship's explosion had some real world impact beyond creating a dramatic sky show, according to the FAA. While no injuries have been reported, the agency is working with SpaceX and appropriate authorities to confirm reports of public property damage on Turks and Cakus, FAA officials wrote in an emailed statement today. During the event, the fa activated a debris response area and briefly slowed aircraft outside the area where space vehicle debris was falling, or stopped aircraft at their departure location. The agency added several aircraft requested to divert due to low fuel levels while holding outside impacted areas. SpaceX will lead the mishap investigation, but the FAA must approve the company's final report. According to the agency, which grants launch licenses for US vehicles, a return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system process or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety, the agency wrote in today's statement. SpaceX wants to get Starship back on the pad quickly. The company intends to make big strides this year on the Mega Rocket, which it's developing to help humanity settle Mars. Among other exploration feeds. The ship and booster for Starships eight flight test are built and going through pre launch testing and preparing to fly as we continue a rapid iterative development process to build a fully and rapidly reusable space transportation system. SpaceX reported. Lords of that Control. We are listening to Astarmi Daily podcast astronom Is as sounding alne Bills as the world's most precious sky observing location faces the risk of being blinded by light pollution due to a planned renewable energy project. The US EDGY comp the AES Energy wants to build a large renewable hydrogen manufacturing complex in Chle only a few kilometers from the summit of Mount Paranal. The site of the European Southern Observatory or SOO Very Large Telescope VTL. VTL, which costs some three hundred and fifty million to build in the nineteen nineties or eight hundred and forty million in today's dollars, is one of the world's most sensitive sky watching instruments, capable of observing the most intriguing objects in the universe. The high precision observatory consists of four twenty seven foot wide or eight point two telescopes that act as one and has shed light on some of the most mysterious phenomena known to humankind, but the observing potential of this astronomical powerhouse will be significantly curtailed if the hydrogen project called Inna or Inner receives the go ahead via Bacon's ESOS director General told space dot com. Mount Paranal, an eighty seven hundred and forty foot high or two thousand, six hundred and sixty four meters peak of the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, is one of the last spots on Earth free from urban and industrial light pollution. Thanks to the unique geography of the Andes Mountain range, the star studded night sky above the summit is perfectly clear for more than eleven months of the year, providing perfect conditions for the most challenging astronomical research. It's the darkest place where we have ever set an observatory in the world by a large margin, Barkon, said. ESSO, an intergovernmental organization comprising sixteen European states, set its sits on Attikama more than sixty years ago, having opened its first observatory in Chile on the La Cilia Mountains to the south of Paranal in nineteen sixty six. Paranal took over as the hub of European astronomy in nineteen nineties when the VTL was constructed. So far, the VTL has allowed astronomers to trace orbits of stars in the nearest vicinity of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, taken the first ever image of a planet outside the Solar System, and uncovered the elusive cosmic web that sprawls across the entire cosmos. One of the reasons the VTL has been so prolific is the dark skies that it was built under. A survey published in twenty twenty three found that among the world's twenty eight most powerful astronomical observatories, telescopes on Mount Paranal suffered from the lowest levels of artificial light pollution. The superior sky observing conditions in the area led EESO to choose the neighboring Mount Amazonius as the location of its next generation sky observing supermachine, the extremely Large Telescope. Once completed toward the end of this decade, the ELT will be the world's largest telescope studying the universe in visible light, featuring a one hundred and thirty foot or thirty nine point three wide meter wide mirror. The telescope, worth more than one point five billion, promises to expand the science done by reliable vot It will provide even deeper views to the most distant universe, but will also be able to gather detailed information about potentially habitable exoplanets. The light pollution expected from Inner Project would undo all that progress. We might lose the ability to observe about thirty percent of the fadess galaxies, said Barcons. We are at the point of starting to be able to see details of exoplanet atmospheres, but if the sky gets brighter, we may not be able to see those details anymore. The Inner Project, a three thousand hecta industrial park worth about ten billion dollars, will consist of three solar farms, three wind farms, a battery energy storage system, and facilities for the production of hydrogen. According to Renewables now ESO estimates, the complex will leak as much light pollution as a city with a population of about twenty thousand. Parts of the industrial park may extend as close as three miles or five kilometers to ESO's telescopes, and any possible further expansion would further worse at the impact on the Paranal. At night Sky, expected to generate more than two hundred and seventeen thousand metric tonnes of green hydrogen per year, the venture presents a conundrum FORO. The organization itself has committed to reducing its carbon footprint and even building a nine megawatt photovoltaic power plant to supply the Paranal and Amazona's observatories with green power, but bark On states that while the project, like INNA, can easily find other suitable locations for astronomers, there is only one Mount Paranal. These two things cannot be in the same place. It's as simple as that. Said. Parkons, this clean hydrogen plant could be perfectly okay for us only fifty kilometers or thirty one kilometers away. We don't think there is any reason why it couldn't be moved. You're listening to Astronomy Daily with Steve Dunkley. Okay, and that's another episode done and dusted. Thanks for joining me, Hallie and making it a good one. O Receibo was always an inspiring place for me as a child. That was a really interesting piece, quite a marvel of engineering. And it features in one of your favorite movies too. Ah yes it does get a starring role in Contact, the Carl Sagan written story of the first contact with another race starring Jodi Foster in the lead. A fun adventure that one. And on that note, we are okay to go. Yes we are very good. Ali Enjoy the rest of the week with Anna on Astronomy Daily. All right, we'll be back next Monday with our episode of Astronomy Daily. Too bye Daily Podcast and if your host, Steve Dunklet