From Pole to Pole with Fram2, Artemis 2's New Emblem, Lunar Energy Solutions

Transcript

Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your source for the latest space exploration news. I'm your host Anna, and we have a busy episode for you today with some truly fascinating developments from across the cosmos and our ongoing efforts to explore it. We'll be taking you on board with the SpaceX Fram2 astronauts as they make history orbiting Earth from pole to pole, and share their remarkable views from space. Then we'll look at NASA's newly unveiled Artemis 2 mission patch as the agency prepares to return humans to lunar orbit. SpaceX has also achieved a significant milestone with their Super Heavy booster, bringing us closer to full rocket reusability. Plus, we'll explore how moon dust could become a power source for future lunar settlements, and dive into SpinLaunch's ambitious plans to deploy hundreds of satellites with a single launch.

So strap in for a journey through the latest and greatest in space exploration, right here on Astronomy Daily.

First up, let's get an update on a story we've been covering this week. The SpaceX Fram2 mission is making headlines as the first-ever crew to orbit Earth from pole to pole, giving us a completely new human perspective of our planet. Now in their third day aboard the Crew Dragon Resilience, the four-person crew has been sharing breathtaking footage of their journey, including unique views of the Arctic and Antarctica that no human has witnessed firsthand until now. In videos posted to social media, mission commander Chun Wang and his crewmates captured incredible moments circling the globe every 90 minutes. One particularly striking clip shows the spacecraft flying over Florida's Space Coast, where they were able to zoom in on their own launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. You can hear the excitement in their voices as they exclaim, "I can see our launch pad from here!" followed by Wang's enthusiastic response, "It is our launch pad! Oh my god!"

The historic crew consists of Maltese cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang who's funding the mission, along with three spaceflight rookies: Jannicke Mikkelsen of Norway, Rabea Rogge of Germany, and Eric Philips of Australia. They launched aboard Resilience on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex-39A this past Monday. Wang shared details about their experience, describing the Falcon 9 liftoff as surprisingly smooth. The crew has been keeping busy with various activities, including ham radio transmissions, capturing X-ray images, and even hosting a movie night where they rewatched their own launch. They've documented spectacular sights including massive storm systems swirling over ice-covered regions and what they identified as Norway's Svalbard Islands.

During a video call shown in their latest footage, medical officer Eric Phillips spoke with his son in Los Angeles, mentioning they would be splashing down "tomorrow," indicating a return to Earth on Friday. This aligns with the mission's scheduled duration of three to five days. When Resilience does return, it will mark another milestone as the first of SpaceX's crewed missions to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off California's coast, representing a shift in the company's recovery operations away from Florida. The world will be watching as these pioneering polar explorers complete their historic journey and bring home unprecedented perspectives of our planet.

After five decades without a moon-bound crew insignia, NASA has officially unveiled the Artemis 2 mission patch, representing humanity's long-awaited return to lunar exploration. Revealed just yesterday, this emblem will be worn by the four astronauts scheduled to journey around the moon no later than April 2026. The distinctive patch shares the same outline as NASA's broader Artemis program emblem, featuring the letter "A" with a red trajectory line forming its crossbar - symbolizing the path between Earth and our lunar neighbor. What makes this patch particularly meaningful is its central artwork depicting "Earthrise," the iconic image first captured by Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968 when humans initially ventured to lunar orbit. According to the crew's official description, "The scene of the Earth and the moon represents the dual nature of human spaceflight, both equally compelling. The moon represents our exploration destination, focused on discovery of the unknown. The Earth represents home, focused on the perspective we gain when we look back at our shared planet and learn what it is to be uniquely human."

The patch notably designates the mission as "AII," signifying not just the second major Artemis flight but what the crew describes as "an endeavor of discovery that seeks to explore for all and by all." This inclusive message reflects the historic nature of the crew itself, which consists of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman serving as commander, Victor Glover as pilot, Christina Koch as mission specialist, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen also as mission specialist. Hansen's inclusion is particularly significant as he'll become the first non-American to travel to the moon. He's already revealed his personal mission patch featuring Indigenous art, honoring Canada's original explorers. Artemis 2 will mark several historic firsts: the inaugural crewed test flight of NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, humanity's first lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, and possibly the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. The astronauts will journey more than 600,000 miles as they loop around the moon before returning home, paving the way for future Artemis missions that aim to establish a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface.

Next up. While SpaceX continues working through challenges with Starship's upper stage, the company has just reached a remarkable milestone with the rocket's massive first stage booster. Yesterday morning at their Starbase facility in South Texas, SpaceX successfully test-fired a previously flown Super Heavy booster for the first time ever, with a spectacular eight-second burn that sent a dramatic plume of orange exhaust across the launch site. This particular booster, designated Booster 14, first launched in January, reaching the edge of space before returning to Earth. Now it's poised to fly again, with SpaceX confirming it will power the next Starship test flight. Of the booster's 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines, 29 are flight-proven, making this a significant step toward what SpaceX describes as their ultimate goal of "zero-touch reflight."

The Super Heavy booster is truly an engineering marvel. Standing taller than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet positioned vertically, it generates nearly 17 million pounds of thrust – twice the power of NASA's legendary Saturn 5 rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon. It's arguably the most complex rocket booster ever constructed, and certainly the largest. What makes this rapid turnaround particularly impressive is the contrast with SpaceX's first Falcon 9 booster reuse back in 2017. That process required nearly a year of thorough inspections, refurbishment, and cross-country transportation between facilities. Booster 14, meanwhile, is on track to fly again less than three months after its initial launch.

Unlike the Falcon 9, which uses landing legs to touch down at a separate location, Super Heavy is caught by mechanical arms at the launch tower as it returns – a technique SpaceX calls the "chopstick catch." This approach eliminates the need for landing legs and potentially allows for much faster turnaround between flights. The speedy reuse progress is especially noteworthy given Super Heavy's scale and complexity compared to Falcon 9. With 33 engines instead of 9, there are theoretically more potential failure points, yet SpaceX has achieved seven consecutive successful Super Heavy launches and has recovered three boosters in four recent attempts. This rapid progress with booster reusability is crucial for SpaceX's ambitious Starship program, especially considering NASA's reliance on the system for future Artemis lunar landings. When fully operational, multiple Starship launches will be required to refuel lunar landers in orbit before they can journey to the Moon, making quick and reliable reuse absolutely essential.

Moon dust is quickly becoming one of space exploration's most versatile materials. In an exciting new breakthrough, scientists have now demonstrated that lunar regolith – the technical term for the dust and fragmented material covering the Moon's surface – can be transformed into functioning solar cells. A team led by Felix Lang from the University of Potsdam in Germany has successfully turned simulated lunar dust into solar panels, potentially solving a critical power generation challenge for future lunar settlements. "From extracting water for fuel to building houses with lunar bricks, scientists have been finding ways to use moon dust," Lang explained. "Now, we can turn it into solar cells, too, possibly providing the energy a future moon city will need."

The process is surprisingly straightforward. The researchers melted simulated lunar regolith to create what they call "moonglass," which can be accomplished on the Moon simply by focusing natural sunlight to achieve the necessary high temperatures. This moonglass is then combined with perovskite, a crystalline material commonly used in solar cells that absorbs sunlight and excites electrons to generate electric current. Manufacturing solar cells on the Moon offers significant advantages over transporting Earth-made panels. Traditional solar cells incorporate glass that adds considerable weight to launch payloads, dramatically increasing costs. By using local lunar materials, scientists estimate they could reduce transport weight by an impressive 99%. The moonglass-based cells have another unexpected benefit. Standard glass tends to brown in space, reducing efficiency as it blocks incoming sunlight. However, moonglass already has a natural brown tint from impurities in the regolith, which actually prevents further browning. It's also more resistant to space radiation, a critical factor in the harsh lunar environment.

While the current efficiency of these moonglass solar cells sits at around 10% – considerably lower than the 30-40% efficiency of premium space-based solar panels – Lang's team believes they can improve this to 23% by removing certain impurities. Even at lower efficiency, the ability to mass-produce these cells directly on the lunar surface makes them extremely practical. "You don't need ultra-efficient 30% solar cells; you just make more of them on the Moon," Lang noted. This approach could be particularly valuable at the lunar south pole, where permanent sunlight and nearby water ice deposits make it an ideal location for a sustainable Moon base. Some challenges remain, including how low gravity might affect the moonglass formation process and how perovskite solvents might behave in vacuum conditions. To address these questions, the research team proposes a small-scale lunar mission to test the solar cells in actual lunar conditions – potentially unlocking a power source that could sustain humanity's long-term presence on our celestial neighbor.

Finally today. In the realm of space innovation, SpinLaunch is turning heads with its ambitious plans for a new broadband satellite constellation called Meridian Space. What makes this project particularly revolutionary is the company's vision for deployment: they aim to launch up to 250 microsatellites in a single mission – a feat that would shatter the current record of 143 satellites launched at once, set by SpaceX's Transporter-1 mission in 2021. This satellite network recently secured $12 million in funding from Kongsberg NanoAvionics to develop and commercialize these specialized spacecraft. According to their timeline, we could see the first on-orbit demonstrator as early as 2026. The flat, stackable design of these satellites is key to fitting so many on a single launch vehicle, with images showing them neatly arranged atop one another.

Eirik Lie, president of Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace, has emphasized that the Meridian Space constellation will provide "significantly higher broadband capacity in a satellite constellation compared with what is available on the market today." Meanwhile, David Wrenn, SpinLaunch's CEO, noted that NanoAvionics' modular satellite platforms offer "a reliable foundation to scale our constellation quickly and confidently." What truly sets SpinLaunch apart, however, is their unconventional approach to reaching orbit. The company is developing a massive 108-foot-long spinning arm that works as a centrifuge, accelerating launch vehicles to tremendous speeds before literally flinging them skyward. Once these vehicles reach sufficient altitude, they ignite their engines, dramatically reducing the fuel and hardware required to achieve orbit.

This isn't just theoretical technology. NASA has already partnered with SpinLaunch, signing an agreement in 2022 for a demonstration that successfully launched experiments from NASA, Airbus, and Cornell University to suborbital space using this centrifuge method. While it remains unclear whether SpinLaunch will use their own revolutionary system to deploy the first Meridian Space demonstrator or opt for a traditional rocket launch, their approach represents a fundamental rethinking of how we access space – potentially making satellite deployment more economical and environmentally sustainable than ever before.

That wraps up today's edition of Astronomy Daily. From the historic pole-to-pole orbit of the Fram2 mission to SpaceX's breakthrough in Super Heavy booster reuse, we've covered some remarkable developments in humanity's ongoing exploration of space. The Artemis program continues to progress toward returning humans to the lunar surface, while innovative approaches to utilizing moon dust for solar power could revolutionize our future presence there. And SpinLaunch's ambitious satellite deployment plans show how rapidly space technology continues to evolve. I'm Anna, and I've been your host for this cosmic journey. Whether you're fascinated by the technical achievements of rocket reusability, intrigued by the possibilities of lunar settlements, or simply love gazing at our planet from space, I hope today's stories have captured your imagination.

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