---
**Episode Summary:**
Blast off with Steve Dunkley and his digital co-pilot Hallie on this 26th February 2024 edition of Astronomy Daily. Today's episode is a celestial celebration as we discuss Odysseus' historic soft landing on the moon, marking a new era of lunar exploration. We also delve into the fiery reentry of the European Space Agency's ERS-2 satellite and the anticipation surrounding Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. With a blend of humor and science, Steve and Hallie navigate the latest space news with the expertise of seasoned cosmic travelers.
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**Featured Topics:**
1. **Odysseus' Moon Landing:** A detailed look at the successful landing of the Odysseus lander near the lunar south pole, its significance for future moon missions, and the nail-biting moments leading up to this historic achievement.
2. **ERS-2 Satellite Reentry:** An exploration of the natural reentry of the ERS-2 satellite, its nearly 30-year journey in space, and the aftermath of its descent back to Earth.
3. **Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket:** Updates on the New Glenn rocket's progress as it approaches its inaugural launch, including the implications for Blue Origin's future in space exploration and its role in NASA's Artemis program.
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**Notable Quotes:**
- "What a triumph. Odysseus has taken the moon!" - Celebrating the successful landing of the Odysseus lander, as stated by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
- "The chances of being hit [by space debris] are so small... I'm in more danger crossing the road." - Steve Dunkley, putting the risks of satellite reentry into perspective.
---
**Additional Information:**
For daily doses of space insights, subscribe to the Astronomy Daily newsletter at bitesz.com and spacenuts.io. Don't miss the chance to explore previous episodes of Astronomy Daily and the parent podcast, Space Nuts, with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson.
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**Next Episode Preview:**
Next week, Steve and Hallie will return to the airwaves with more interstellar stories and galactic updates. Expect a journey through the latest space tech developments and the unfolding narrative of our universe's exploration.
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**Closing Remarks:**
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Astronomy Daily. Remember, whether you're dodging satellites or gazing at the moon, the cosmos is a playground of wonder. Join us again as we continue to unravel the mysteries of the universe. Until next time, this is Steve Dunkley and AI Assistant Hallie, signing off.
---
**Host Sign-off:** Steve Dunkley: "Keep your eyes to the skies, and your hearts in the stars!" Hallie: "Farewell, fellow space travelers. Until our next cosmic rendezvous!
📋 Episode Chapters
(00:00) Welcome back to the 26 February 2024 astronomy daily podcast
(00:32) Steve Martin: Skylab or space debris rush over in Western Australia
(02:23) As SpaceX nears its first starship launch of 2024, the FAA is pressing regulators
(10:32) The first new Glenn test flight will likely carry a pair of small NASA satellites
(13:03) European Space Agency's ERS two satellite plummeted back to Earth yesterday
(17:03) Robot built by Houston based company intuitive machines touches down on moon
(25:53) Several nations have ambitious plans to land astronauts on the moon
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[00:00:00] Welcome again to Astronomy Daily, I'm Steve Dunkley your host. It is the 26th of February 2024
[00:00:06] Oh it's great to be back with you again it's been an exciting week.
[00:00:19] NASA has been busy everyone's been busy there's a new hardware on the moon
[00:00:23] it's fantastic week lots to report on and joining me here to tell you all
[00:00:27] about it is the fabulous digital reporter here's Hallie. Hi, Steve it has been a big
[00:00:32] week and great news that they finally made a successful soft landing on the moon.
[00:00:36] Yes that's right a dizziest transmitting from the South Pole region
[00:00:40] a nail biting finish to the landing but a successful landing after a few
[00:00:44] 10 minutes and we'll take a look at that later on. And aren't you glad they
[00:00:49] aren't dropping their satellites in Western Australia Steve? ERS2 finally came
[00:00:54] down on the weekend. Yes I'm glad they're not dropping things on Australia
[00:00:58] anymore. Yes I remember Skylab came down years ago and it was much bigger than
[00:01:04] ERS2. ERS2 was as big as a bus. Skylab was much bigger than a bus but
[00:01:10] I believe there were people finding bits of Skylab for years and years
[00:01:16] afterwards you could go out into the desert and do prospecting if you
[00:01:21] knew where to look and you could find bits of Skylab. I think the chances of finding it now are pretty slim
[00:01:27] but finding pieces of it now would be harder than finding gold out there in the desert.
[00:01:31] Well that's very true it's probably easier to find precious metals and opals
[00:01:37] and things out in the desert rather than space debris. I haven't heard of any
[00:01:41] finds lately. Yes maybe the Skylab or space debris rush is over in Western
[00:01:47] Australia you never know something might turn up. And Blue Origin's new Glen rocket has finally made an
[00:01:52] appearance on the launch pad at Florida for ground testing. I was wondering when Blue Origin was
[00:01:57] going to make a showing it's been a while. I think William Shatner played with the controls
[00:02:02] a bit too much while he was up there and they've taken this long to sort it all out. Really? Really.
[00:02:08] I mean really? No not really. Okay then silly girl. Hallie will you boldly go and read
[00:02:15] the first few stories then. Okay away we go. As SpaceX nears its first Starship launch of 2024
[00:02:27] possibly as soon as within three weeks from its star base facility in South Texas
[00:02:32] the company is pressing regulators to increase its cadence of flights. During a press availability
[00:02:38] this week the administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation
[00:02:42] Administration Kelvin Coleman said the agency is working with the company to try to facilitate
[00:02:47] the Starship launch licensing process. He said they're looking at a pretty aggressive launch
[00:02:53] schedule this year and added that it would be at least nine launches this year which is a lot of
[00:02:57] launches. Coleman observed that it would be a lot of work to do modifications one by one and
[00:03:03] that they have been talking to SpaceX around the clock to figure out how to do this. After
[00:03:08] SpaceX decided to launch an attempt to land its Starship vehicle in Texas about five years ago
[00:03:13] the company had to undergo an enhanced environmental review of the site. As a part of this process
[00:03:19] the FAA completed a final programmatic environmental assessment in June 2022. Following that review
[00:03:27] SpaceX received approval to conduct up to five Starship launches from South Texas annually
[00:03:33] and FAA official confirmed that the company is seeking a modification of this five launch
[00:03:38] limit to accommodate a higher flight rate. SpaceX launched its first Starship vehicle
[00:03:43] which is the largest rocket ever built and is intended to eventually be fully reusable
[00:03:47] in April 2023. That flight caused serious damage to the launch site near Boca Chica beach
[00:03:54] and raised environmental concerns after it kicked up large chunks of concrete and dust
[00:03:58] into the surrounding wetlands. Coleman said the anomaly investigation and regulatory review
[00:04:04] process after that flight took about six months which he believes is commensurate with the
[00:04:09] work involved. The company's second launch attempt in November was more successful as the first stage
[00:04:15] booster, super heavy, had a mostly nominal flight and the Starship upper stage managed to separate
[00:04:20] from the booster before it experienced an anomaly and was lost. There was no damage on
[00:04:26] the ground this time. The work entailed by the FAA for this anomaly review was about one
[00:04:32] third as much Coleman said. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said his company is now targeting
[00:04:38] early to mid-March for the third launch attempt of Starship. This flight of the highly experimental
[00:04:44] vehicle Musk said has a reasonably good chance of successfully reaching orbit. Coleman said that
[00:04:50] from a regulatory standpoint, that timeline sounds about right. Anyone who has tracked the
[00:04:57] development of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has been waiting for signs of progress from the
[00:05:01] usually secretive space company. On Wednesday, engineers rolled a full-scale New Glenn rocket
[00:05:08] partially made up of flight hardware to a launch pad in Florida for ground testing.
[00:05:13] The first New Glenn launch is almost certainly at least six months away and it may not even happen
[00:05:18] this year. In the last few years, observers inside and outside the space industry have
[00:05:23] become accustomed to the nearly annual ritual of another New Glenn launch delay.
[00:05:28] New Glenn's inaugural flight has been delayed from 2020 until 2021, then 2022,
[00:05:34] and for now, is slated for later this year. But it feels different now.
[00:05:40] Blue Origin is obviously moving closer to finally launching a rocket into orbit.
[00:05:46] Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin's founder, was at Cape Canaveral to see his giant new
[00:05:50] rocket on the launch pad for the first time. Just incredible to see New Glenn on the pad
[00:05:56] at LC-36, Bezos wrote on Instagram.
[00:06:00] Big year ahead. Let's go!
[00:06:03] Starting late last year, Blue Origin officials doubled down on the company's plans to launch
[00:06:08] the first New Glenn test flight by the end of 2024. This messaging coincided with the arrival
[00:06:14] of Dave Limp as Blue Origin's chief executive, replacing Bob Smith, whose seven-year tenure
[00:06:20] included the first human suborbital flights on the company's New Shepard rocket.
[00:06:25] Smith's time as CEO was also marked by repeated delays on the New Glenn rocket.
[00:06:31] Limp is pushing Blue Origin to move faster, and it seems the company's employees got the memo.
[00:06:37] In December, the company rolled elements of the New Glenn rocket from its factory just
[00:06:41] outside the gates of NASA's Kennedy Space Center to a final assembly hangar located about
[00:06:46] nine miles away at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Inside that building, technicians
[00:06:52] connected the first stage booster, which is flight hardware, with an upper-stage Blue Origin
[00:06:57] has set aside for ground testing. The final piece of the rocket to be added was a seven-meter payload
[00:07:03] fairing, the uppermost section of New Glenn designed to protect spacecraft during the initial
[00:07:08] phase of launch. Last week, Blue Origin lifted a structure simulating the rocket's empty mass
[00:07:14] vertical using the transporter erector arm at Launch Complex 36, a former Atlas launch
[00:07:20] pad Blue Origin took over in 2015. This was a final validation of the lifting arm at LC-36
[00:07:27] before Blue Origin put a real, or mostly real, rocket on the pad. On Wednesday,
[00:07:33] ground crews rolled a fully assembled New Glenn rocket out of the hangar at LC-36 and up the
[00:07:38] ramp to the launch mount. Then, the hydraulic lifting arm raised the two-stage launcher vertically.
[00:07:45] At more than 98 meters tall, New Glenn is one of the largest rockets ever seen on Florida's
[00:07:50] Space Coast, roughly the same height as NASA's Space Launch System rocket and nearly as tall
[00:07:55] as the Saturn V used in the Apollo program. The appending is one in a series of major
[00:08:01] manufacturing and integrated test milestones in preparation for New Glenn's first launch
[00:08:06] later this year, Blue Origin officials wrote in an update on Wednesday.
[00:08:10] The test campaign enables our teams to practice, validate, and increase proficiency in vehicle
[00:08:16] integration, transport, ground support, and launch operations. New Glenn can haul nearly 45
[00:08:23] metric tons of payload into low Earth orbit. For low-altitude orbits, this is a weight
[00:08:28] class above the uppermost capability of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket or SpaceX's
[00:08:33] Falcon 9 rocket but below SpaceX's Falcon Heavy. Blue Origin also plans to use the New Glenn rocket
[00:08:40] to launch lunar landers to the moon for NASA's Artemis program. New Glenn's first-stage booster
[00:08:46] is reusable and is designed to land on an offshore barge in the Atlantic Ocean,
[00:08:50] which will bring it back to the coast, similar to the way SpaceX recovers its Falcon 9 booster.
[00:08:57] The faring is large enough to hold three school buses, Blue Origin said.
[00:09:02] It's reusable first-stage aims for a minimum of 25 missions and will land on a sea-based
[00:09:06] platform located roughly 1,000 kilometers downrange. Blue Origin is now 24 years old
[00:09:13] and employs around 11,000 people at locations around the country, with major locations in
[00:09:18] Washington, Texas, Florida, and Alabama. While the company has not yet launched
[00:09:24] anything into orbit, Blue Origin is working on a wide range of projects aside from
[00:09:29] rockets, including cargo and human-rated lunar landers for NASA and a space tug that could move
[00:09:34] payloads into different orbits for the US military. New Glenn is crucial for all of these plans.
[00:09:41] Blue Origin's latest progress with New Glenn comes as Bezosas Space Company appears to be on
[00:09:46] the verge of buying United Launch Alliance from Boeing and Lockheed Martin. If all goes according
[00:09:52] to plan, Blue Origin should complete the integrated tanking test within a few weeks.
[00:09:57] The rocket will then roll off the launch pad to allow technicians to install the
[00:10:01] booster's engine compartment with the 7B-4s. New Glenn will also need a new upper stage
[00:10:07] before returning to LC-36 for a hot-fire test of the 7B-4 engines,
[00:10:12] a milestone aviation week said is scheduled for this summer.
[00:10:16] Blue Origin initially plans to operate with a rotation of four reusable New Glenn boosters,
[00:10:21] each flying as often as every 30 days, according to Aviation Week.
[00:10:26] The company has not announced a firm schedule for the debut of New Glenn
[00:10:30] other than sometime later this year. The first New Glenn test flight will likely carry a pair of
[00:10:36] small NASA satellites bound for Mars, an agency official said in November.
[00:10:41] This NASA mission, called Escapade, is on contract with Blue Origin for a launch date
[00:10:46] in August 2024. However, this schedule is under review.
[00:10:52] New Glenn's massive lift capability is overkill for the two Escapade spacecraft,
[00:10:56] each about the size of a mini-fridge, so engineers are studying the possibility of
[00:11:01] using New Glenn to send the missions directly to Mars rather than launching them into an initial
[00:11:05] orbit around Earth. Changing the trajectory for Escapade would allow for a launch date later
[00:11:11] this year. The mission must launch in 2024, with Earth and Mars in the right positions
[00:11:17] in the solar system, or else wait until 2026. It is worth noting that launchers comparable to
[00:11:23] New Glenn, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Starship, ULA's Falcon, and Japan's H3,
[00:11:29] took between one and two years to get to a first flight after their first full-scale test vehicles
[00:11:34] reached the launch pad for fit checks and fueling rehearsals. This final phase of a
[00:11:39] rocket's development can often uncover problems that went undetected during
[00:11:43] manufacturing and component testing. However, Jared Jones, Blue Origin's Vice President of New Glenn,
[00:11:50] told Aviation Week he is confident in flying the rocket this year.
[00:11:54] We're launching this year. It's happening, Jones said. Our plan is to launch twice this year.
[00:12:01] And now it's back to you, Steve.
[00:12:05] Thank you very much, Hallie, for those great stories from the Astronomy Daily newsletter,
[00:12:09] which you can get each day in your email by visiting these places.
[00:12:13] Bytes.com, that's B-I-T-E-S-Z dot com and Spacenuts.io and dropping your email address in the slot
[00:12:22] provided. Then you'll be up to date with all the news about space science and astronomy from
[00:12:27] all around the galactic neighborhood. And while you're there, check out the back editions of
[00:12:31] Astronomy Daily and Spacenuts featuring Andrew Dunkley and Astronomer at Large
[00:12:36] Professor Fred Watson of the Australia Observatory. We can also be found at the Spacenuts podcast
[00:12:43] group on Facebook and look for us on Spotify to listen in the car. Happy listening, everybody.
[00:12:51] Astronomy Daily with Steve and Hallie. Space, space science and astronomy.
[00:13:03] And as we were talking earlier on in this episode, you will know that over the weekend a
[00:13:09] dead satellite plummeted back to Earth, bringing an end to get this a nearly 30 year life in space.
[00:13:17] The European Space Agency's remote sensing, remote sensing two that is ERS2 satellite re-enter
[00:13:25] Earth's atmosphere at 1215 Eastern Standard Time over the Pacific Ocean. The fall ended
[00:13:32] nearly 13 years de-orbitin campaign that began with 66 engine bursts in July 2011 depleting
[00:13:40] the spacecraft of remaining fuel. And at the time of reporting it was unclear if any debris
[00:13:45] made its way down to the surface after ERS2 re-entered the atmosphere, but none of the
[00:13:51] fragments contain any toxic or radioactive substances our ESA assured the public in a
[00:13:58] FAQ published prior to re-entry. Now just in case you don't know ERS2 was roughly the size of a school
[00:14:04] bus and weighed about 2,516 kilograms when full of fuel at liftoff all those years ago.
[00:14:13] And when it fell to its fiery demise yesterday fully depleted it weighed in around 5,057
[00:14:19] pounds that's 2,294 kilograms while fairly large the satellite's mass isn't an
[00:14:26] outlier when it comes to re-entered space junk an objective similar size falls to Earth
[00:14:33] into Earth's atmosphere every few weeks when it launched ERS2 was quote the most sophisticated
[00:14:40] Earth observation spacecraft ever developed and launched by Europe. ESA wrote in its FAQ
[00:14:47] about the re-entry the satellite was designed to collect data about Earth's landmasses
[00:14:53] ice caps and oceans and even helped monitor the aftermath of natural disasters things like a Taylor
[00:14:59] Swift concert being rained out I would imagine. The ERS satellites have provided a stream of data
[00:15:05] which has changed our view of the world in which we live ESA's director of Earth observation programs
[00:15:11] Semineta Chelly said in a statement they have provided us with new insights on our planet
[00:15:17] the chemistry of our atmosphere the behavior of our oceans and the effects of mankind's
[00:15:21] activity on our planet of course creating new opportunities for scientific research and applications
[00:15:28] ERS2 fell to Earth in what is known as a natural re-entry you and I would probably call it a plummet
[00:15:35] meaning mission controllers had no way to maneuver otherwise control the satellite
[00:15:41] during its descent towards the atmosphere its batteries were discharged prior to re-entry
[00:15:46] and all electronic systems were deactivated long before it began its fire descent
[00:15:52] ESA representatives said these types of re-entries are perfectly safe even if some debris occasionally
[00:15:58] reaches the actual ground in the 67 years of spaceflight thousands of tons of artificial
[00:16:06] space objects have re-entered the atmosphere pieces that make it to the surface have only
[00:16:11] rarely caused any damage and there has never been a confirmed report of a human injury said ESA
[00:16:18] in a statement now I can remember Skylab coming down in Western Australia and it caused no damage
[00:16:24] at all as far as I can tell or as far as I can remember while any natural re-entry such as this
[00:16:31] has a chance of dropping debris into Earth's surface the chances that any remaining debris could
[00:16:37] harm people or property on the ground are incredibly low ESA's FAQ about the re-entry notes that one's
[00:16:44] chances of being struck by lightning are 65,000 times higher than one's risk of being struck by
[00:16:50] space debris in a lifetime and to put that another way the odds that any one person is hit with
[00:16:55] falling space debris each year is one in 100 billion they say are we feeling comfortable
[00:17:02] well the big story this week is Odysseus a robot lander built by Houston based company intuitive
[00:17:09] machines touchdown near the lunar south pole of the moon it was a landmark moment for space
[00:17:19] exploration no private spacecraft had ever soft landed on the moon before and an american vehicle
[00:17:26] hadn't hit the great dirt softly since nasa's crude Apollo 17 landed did so in december 1972
[00:17:35] and what a happy administrator of nasa bill nelson was when he exclaimed on the air I watched this
[00:17:42] what a triumph Odysseus has taken the moon uh he said in a video message the agency aired just
[00:17:50] after the confirmation of a successful touchdown this is a feat though this feat is a giant leap
[00:17:56] forward for all humanity stay tuned was a nice message the moon was a frequent target for american
[00:18:03] spacecraft during the 1960s and early 1970s this push didn't come from mere scientific curiosity
[00:18:10] landing astronauts on earth's nearest neighbor was viewed as a national security imperative
[00:18:17] way to demonstrate technological superiority over the nation's cold war rival the soviet union
[00:18:23] the u.s famously put 12 astronauts on the lunar surface over the course of six
[00:18:27] Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972 with the moon race thus definitively won nasa was directed
[00:18:35] to focus on other goals for its human space spaceflight program chiefly the development
[00:18:41] and operation of the space shuttle program the u.s launched a number of robotic moon probes after
[00:18:47] the Apollo era nasa's sharp-eyed lunar reconnaissance orbiter has been circling the moon since 2009
[00:18:55] for example but for some frustrating fits and starts northwithstanding getting back to the
[00:19:00] surface was not a priority until recently in december 2017 the then president donald trump
[00:19:07] ordered nasa to return astronauts to the moon in relatively near future this directive gave rise
[00:19:13] to a broad and ambitious program called artemis which aims to establish a long-term sustainable
[00:19:19] human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s and to use the knowledge gained
[00:19:25] in doing so to help astronauts get to mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s nasa's plan
[00:19:32] plans to set up one or more artemis bases in the moon's southern polar region which is thought to
[00:19:38] harbour lots of water ice before sending astronauts there however the agency wants to collect more
[00:19:44] data about this little explored area to help determine for example just how much water it
[00:19:49] contains and how easy this crucial resource might be to access so nasa has established another
[00:19:57] program called clps which we talked about last week the commercial lunar payloads payload surfaces
[00:20:04] which books rides for agency science instruments on robotic robotic lunar landers built by american
[00:20:10] companies the goal here is for us to investigate the moon in preparation for artemis and really to
[00:20:16] do business differently for nasa su-ledera cps project scientist at johnson space center in
[00:20:24] houston said during a press conference on february 12th one of our main goals is to make sure that we
[00:20:30] develop a lunar economy and that's where intuitive machines comes in in 2019 clps selected intuitive
[00:20:37] machines to deliver a batch of nasa science instruments to the lunar surface using the
[00:20:43] company's novice sea lander which is about the size of a british telephone booth after some
[00:20:49] modifications the task order turned out to be worth 118 million dollars nasa officials said
[00:20:56] recently it covered the transport of six agency experiments and technology demonstrations on
[00:21:02] intuitive machines first lunar mission which the company calls i am one that mission features
[00:21:08] a novice sea vehicle named odysseus after the famous voyaging hero in greek mythology
[00:21:14] the nasa instruments which cost the agency an additional 11 million to develop
[00:21:18] are designed to conduct a variety of investigations for instance one of them called ndl navigation
[00:21:25] doppler lidar for precise velocity and range sensing used lidar bite detection and ranging
[00:21:32] technology to collect data during descent and landing ndl turned out to be vital to today's
[00:21:39] touchdown as you'll see in a second another instrument was designed to study how the spacecraft's
[00:21:45] engine exhaust interacts with lunar dirt and rock yet another will demonstrate the autonomous
[00:21:50] positioning tech which could eventually become part of a broad gps like navigation system on and
[00:21:56] around the moon intuitive machines also put six commercial payloads on odysseus for i am one
[00:22:02] one of them comes from columbia sportswear which wanted to test its omni heat infinity
[00:22:08] insulative material in deep space another is a set of sculptures by the artist jeff coons and
[00:22:15] there's even a secure lunar repository that aims to help preserve humanity's storehouse of accumulated
[00:22:21] knowledge also flying on odysseus was eagle cam a camera built system built by students at
[00:22:28] embri riddle aeronautical university a eagle cam was designed to deploy from odysseus at about
[00:22:34] 100 feet or 30 meters above the lunar surface and snapped photos of the lander's epic touchdown from
[00:22:40] below all 12 of the included payloads lifted off on febru 15 when a space x falcon 9 rocket sent
[00:22:48] odysseus towards the moon the lander's deep space trek was short and relatively smooth
[00:22:54] although things got a bit sporty towards the end odysseus arrived arrived in lunar orbit
[00:23:00] on febru 21 as planned and in the home stretch of its touchdown however the lander's handlers
[00:23:06] discovered that odysseus's laser rangefinders which allow it to determine its altitude and
[00:23:11] horizontal velocity weren't working properly and the team pressed nasa's experimental
[00:23:17] ndl payload into surface for this vital function pushing the landing try back by two hours to
[00:23:25] put a new plan into action this last minute work around which required the team to design the software
[00:23:31] patch on the ground and beam it up to odysseus did the trick and at 6 11 p.m eastern standard time
[00:23:38] odysseus fired up the main engine for a crucial 11 minute burn that slowed the craft's descent
[00:23:43] down toward the loose lunar surface then at 6 23 p.m eastern standard time odysseus touched
[00:23:50] down softly near the rim of the crater mallapur a about 190 miles or 300 kilometers from the
[00:23:58] lunar south pole now success wasn't immediately apparent however it took about 15 tense minutes
[00:24:04] for the i am 1 team to latch on to odysseus's signal what we can confirm without doubt is our
[00:24:11] equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting mission director tim crane said
[00:24:17] after that milestone moment odysseus has found his new home if all goes according to plan the
[00:24:24] lander and its payloads will now operate for about seven earth days on the lunar surface i am
[00:24:30] one will end when the sun goes down at mallapur a the odysseus was not designed to survive in
[00:24:36] the bitter cold of the long lunar night it takes the moon more than 27 earth days to
[00:24:41] rotate once on its axis so each lunar night lasts roughly two weeks i am one is part of a
[00:24:47] newly energised march to the moon for example pittsburgh company astro botic launched its
[00:24:52] peregrine lunar lander last month on the first flight of united launchers vulcan central rocket
[00:24:58] but peregrine also carried nasa payloads via the clps program suffered a crippling fuel leak
[00:25:06] just after deploying from the rocket's upper stage the problem prevented peregrine from making it to
[00:25:11] the moon and astro botic ultimately steered it into a controlled demise in earth's atmosphere on january
[00:25:17] 18 two other probe private moon landers made it to the lune orbit orbit recently the israeli
[00:25:24] bearish sheet probe and the hakuto r which was built by tokyo based company ispace still
[00:25:31] neither one could take the next step bear sheet crashed in during its landing attempt in on april
[00:25:39] 2019 and hakuto r suffered the same fate in april 2023 national governments are increasingly shooting
[00:25:46] for the moon as well last august for instance india put its robotic chandrayan 3 mission down
[00:25:51] near the land lunar south pole and just last last month japan landed its own moon probe
[00:25:57] called slim it was the first such success for each nation they've now joined the luna party which all
[00:26:03] already included soviet union the us and china and some of these countries have even bigger
[00:26:09] lunar ambitions there's the us with its arthomas program of course but china also aims to put
[00:26:15] astronauts on the moon by 2030 and is working with russia and several other nations to develop
[00:26:21] a lunar outpost later that decade as well india meanwhile has said it wants to put
[00:26:28] boots down on earth's natural satellite in 2040 or thereabouts some politicians have
[00:26:34] characterized this planned activity as a new moon race a competition between the us and china
[00:26:39] for the right to establish precedents and norms of behavior in the high frontier
[00:26:44] exploration advocates however tend to see the rosy aside stressing the coming exploitation
[00:26:50] of lunar resources that could help humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system
[00:26:56] for the first time either way the moon is coming into sharper focus for the nations and businesses
[00:27:02] around the world it's going to get busier and busier so how about that hally a er s2 has come
[00:27:12] down and Odysseus on the moon so essentially an umbrella won't help and a big sheet of steel
[00:27:17] won't protect you either from a falling satellite the size of a bus no but you were listening the
[00:27:23] chances of being hit are so small that for you i'm totally fine i'm just electrons and light
[00:27:30] okay you're going to need a concrete raincoat i think oh heli i think uh they know how to
[00:27:35] bring these old crates down safely honestly i'm in more danger crossing the road what
[00:27:41] from satellites no from cars why would cars fall from the sky when you're crossing the road
[00:27:47] hally have you checked your power cells today oh dear i'm being silly in public aren't i
[00:27:53] say see you later hally see you later hally and just like that it's all over for another episode
[00:27:58] of our podcast once again thank you for joining us on a stormy daily i'll look forward to catching
[00:28:03] you all next time bye for now


