S03E89: Gateway to the Moon & Odyssey's 100,000th Orbit

Hello again, it's Steve with you for another episode of Astronomy Daily. It's the first of July twenty twenty four. Popular it would be a whole speed gun clude. Well, can you believe it? It's the first of July, right, and in the middle of the year, well almost, and it's going by so very quickly. That's a time thing for all of your time travelers out there. And today we'd like to welcome back Halle who's got her voice back. Oh boy, that's good years. Hey, what's going on, Hallie? Well today I'm talking about asteroids, more of your favorite subjects. I like asteroids. You're a rock and roll kind of guy, aren't you. Oh? True? I mean retired, but true. Don't give me that. I'll post photos of your guitar and amplifier collection. Oh you do that too, wouldn't you. The proof is in the lack of space in the lounge room. Not that you need any space, but okay, okay, what else have you got for us besides all the stratocaster and Marshall's blocking the studio door. We've received a celebratory announcement that another of NASA's little probes has hit a milestone all right, that'd be the Odyssey orbits story. That's the one. Hey, Haley, I wonder if anyone out there can guess how many orbits that little bug has made around Mars already. Well, we will find out in a minute. And lastly, I'll tell you about NASA's amazing plans for a lunar orbiting space station. Oh wow, that sounds really wild, very major, Tom, I knew you were going to say that. Oh you did not, So what have you got? Okay, I've got a story about something close to home, my home, an Australian Indian joint mission that sounds pretty exciting. That's from the Australian Space Agency, or as we like to call it, down Under, up there or DOOT for sure, I don't think so. Yeah, you don't get a vote, Hollie, really really really. Oh and there's also an unfortunate tale about a Chinese mishap. That's a launch that went wrong, and we'll have a brief look at that one. And the big story released this week, perhaps to throw smoke over the Boeing style line, is SpaceX's new contract to destroy the ISS. Wow, somebody get elon a Darth Vader mask already. Yeah. I know. It sounds like that, doesn't it. So are we ready? Helly, I'm ready, Jim huh, let's go. NASA and its partners are launching Gateway, a lunar orbiting space station by twenty twenty eight. This station will serve as a hub for deep space exploration, featuring advanced modules for power, habitation, and science. It will support the Artemis missions with its sophisticated systems, including the Power and Propulsion Element HALO, and contributions from international agencies like ESA and Jackson. NASA, in collaboration with international partners, will explore the scientific mysteries of deep space. With Gateway, humanity's first space station to orbit the Moon. Starting with the Artemis for mission in twenty twenty eight, the international teams of astronauts, living, conducting science, and preparing for missions to the lunar South Pole region on Gateway will be the first humans to make their home in deep space. The Gateway station will include many different elements power and Propulsion element that will make Gateway the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown. The module will use the Sun's energy to power the space station's subsystems and ionized zenon gas to produce the thrust that will maintain Gateway's unique polar orbit around the Moon. Halo Habitation and Logistics outpost Gateways Command and Control Nexus provides communications between Earth and the lunar surface with the Lunar Link system provided by ESA, European Space Agency. Halo will house life support systems, including exercise equipment and science payload banks. Lunarihab provided by ESA with hardware contributions from JACKSA japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will host environmental control and life support systems, sleeping quarters and a galley, among other features. Lunar View provided by ESA will have refueling capabilities for the power and propulsion element, cargo storage and large windows. Crew and science airlock provided by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center of the United Arab Emirates for crew and hardware transfer from Gateway's interior to the vacuum of space. CANADARM three Advanced External Robotic system provided by CSA, Canadian Space Agency deep Space Logistics spacecraft that will transport cargo to Gateway to support ARTEMIS missions. Initial Gateway science payloads will study solar and cosmic radiation. A little understood phenomenon that is a chief concern for people and hardware traveling through deep space, including Mars. The payloads visible in this video are ea rsa European Radiation Sensor's array provided by ESA attached to the Power and Propulsion Element, and the nasaal D Hermes Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite is attached to HALO. A third radiation science payload, IDA Internal Docimiter Array provided by ESA and JACKSA will be inside of Halo Gateway. Is part of the Artemis architecture to return humans to the lunar surface for scientific discovery and chart a path for human exploration further into the Solar System, such as to Mars and beyond. You're listening to a stormy day the past. NASA's Odyssey spacecraft, the longest running mission at Mars, circled the red planet for the one hundred thousandth time. Today, it was revealed. To celebrate the milestone, the Space Agency released an intricate panorama of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcan in the Solar System. Odyssey captured the view in March. The volcano's base sprawls three hundred and seventy three miles or six hundred kilometers near the Martian equator, while it soars seventeen miles or twenty seven kilometers into the planet's thin air. Earlier this month, astronomers discovered ephemeral morning frost coating the volcano's top for a few hours every day, offering fresh insights into how ice from the poles circulates throughout the parched world. In Odyssey's latest image of the volcano, the bluish white band seen grazing Olympus monds shows the amount of dust floating in the Martian air when the image was taken. According to NASA, the thin coat of purple just above likely hints at a mixture of atmospheric dust with bluish water ice clouds. The blue green layer at the top edge of the world marks where water ice clouds reach up about thirty miles or forty eight kilometers into the Martian sky, scientists say. To capture the latest panorama, scientists come branded Odyssey to slowly rotate such that its camera pointed toward the Martian horizon, capturing views similar to the kind International Space Station dwellers take of Earth. Normally, we see Olympus monds in narrow strips from above, but by turning the spacecraft toward the horizon, we can see in a single image how large it looms over the landscape. Jeffrey plot, who is Odyssey's project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL in California, said in the recent news release. Not only is the image spectacular, it also provides us with unique science data. By snapping similar images at different times during the year, scientists can study how the Martian atmosphere changes over the planet's four seasons, which last from four to seven months eachst Yesterday, astronomers and space lovers around the world are collectively marveling at our mercurial presence in the universe, particularly as we drift the cosmos amid large asteroids like the one that suppose Moly wiped out the dinosaurs sixty six million years ago. June thirtieth marks Asteroid Day, a holiday observed annually to reflect on the prospect of a planet destroying space rock striking Earth and what scientists are doing to mitigate that risk. The day is observed on the anniversary of the nineteen o eight Tunguska event in Russia, when a space rock about half the size of a football field broke up in the air over a remote forest in Siberia, the biggest asteroids strike ever witnessed on Earth, with a flash brighter than the sun followed by a thunder like noise. The fireball killed herds of reindeer, knocked people who were over forty miles away or sixty four kilometers from the impact off their porches, and leveled about eighty million trees. The impact dumped so much dust in the air that sunsets were fiery red for days, and people who lived as far away as Asia could read newspapers outdoors until midnight. More recently, in February twenty thirteen, a twenty meter sixty six foot space rock struck Earth near Chelyabinsk City in Russia, injuring about one thousand, five hundred people and shattering over three thousand windows in apartments and commercial buildings. The shockwave generated by the impact was so strong it circled our planet twice. Scientists say although such devastating space rocks land more often in oceans than they do on land, the twenty thirteen asteroid strike, just a decade ago, now reminded us that these things do happen. Nick Moskovitz, of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona said in an interview, asteroids have this strange duality to them, in that they probably delivered the ingredients for life to the Earth, but at the same time, the wrong impact in the right place could lead to significant damage for whoever may be around. Asteroid Day is a global awareness campaign spearheaded by the Asteroid Foundation in Luxembourg, and it has been an official day in the United Nations calendar since December of twenty sixteen. In previous year, the day has been celebrated by dozens of local events in institutions around the world, with talks centering around asteroid science that were topical that year. Last year, for instance, many events focused on NASA's wildly successful Dart mission, which smashed a refrigerator sized spacecraft into an asteroid named Dimorphos and nudged the space rock off its orbit by thirty three minutes, very likely changing the object's shape as well. Dart was humanity's first planetary defense test and proved scientists had the technology necessary to defend Earth if a similar space rock were to ever be on a collision course with our planet. Last year, Asteroid Day was very much like Dartfest, said Moskovitz. It's a fun day and that's all the rock I have for you. Favorite human, It's your turn to roll Astronomy Derby with Steve and Helen Space Spice, Science and Astronomy. 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. Earlier this year, the Australian government announced funding for three collaborative space projects, including eight point five million four Space Matri that's MAAI. The announced projects were part of the Australian Space Agency's eighteen million dollar International Space Investment or India ISSI Projects program to strengthen the space economy for two partner nations. Head of the Australian Space Agency, and Rico Palermo said the agreement is an important step towards enhancing Australia's space heritage and strengthening the nation's relationship with India. This formal agreement and mission will leverage our country's respective capabilities and unique strengths to make space activities more sustainable. Like India, Australia's commercial space sector is rapidly growing and we are producing innovative space technologies that benefit life on Earth. The mission will inspire future explorers and further enhance international cooperation in this critical domain, he said. The Space Mattery Mission involves several Australian and Indian partner companies collaborating with Space Machines Company, including Degantra and ant Technologies, the University of Adelaide, the University of Sydney, the University Technology Sydney, LEO Labs Advanced Navigation, and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The Space Mattery Mission and our collaboration with ENCIL represents a significant leap forward for Australia Space industry. By combining our innovative spacecraft capabilities with India's proven launch expertise, we are not only strengthening the ties between our nation's space sectors, but also demonstrating our shared commitment to sustainable space operations, said Rajat Kilstretscher, CEO and co founder of Space Machines Company. India's space sector is the fastest growing in the world and is expected to grow by forty seven point three billion by twenty thirty two, and we continue to strengthen collaboration between our respective space industries across mutual priority areas. You're listening to a slightly in the podcast, and I don't think i'd want to be around for the fallout after this one. It was meant to be a routine static firing of a rocket attached to a test stand on the ground, but instead the Tianglong three first stage booster broke free and blasted off on Sunday. An unintended launch in China's Hanan Province led to a flight of roughly one minute that ended in a very large explosion in the nearby hills about a mile from the test stand, according to witnesses. Footage of the catastrophic test result was captured and uploaded to Chinese social media, which I find fascinating. The rocket stage can be seen leaving the ground and climbing into the air under its own power for about thirty seconds before flipping over on its side and beginning to free fall back to the surface of the back to the ground. After about a minute into the video, a very loud explosion is heard, followed by a massive fireball on a nearby hillside. The accident was captured from different angles and nearby settlements. A statement from Chinese commercial space company Space Pioneer, which conducted a statement from Chinese commercial space company Space Pioneer, which conducted the test, said that an investigation determined that there had been no casualties, thank goodness from the accident. It said the test site is actually far from nearby Gongiai City, where the explosion was easily and dramatically visible. The company blamed the incident on a structural failure where the booster connects to the stand oh dear. The tests are part of the build up to an orbital mission for the Tianglong three, which is comparable to the SpaceX's Falcon nine space junk from Chinese. Mission and failed launch stages have a bad habit of falling in rural Chinese areas. Just last week, a rocket was seen dropping toxic chemicals over a populated area. Oh, that is the worst news I've heard all week. That's terrible. Anyway, I hope they gather themselves together and get it right. Hate seeing stories like That's terrible. The podcast and look Out dartha Vader SpaceX has won the right to tackle a monumental task, destroying the International Space Station. Wow. Did you ever ever believe that you would ever hear anyone make that announcement? Well, I'm the guy who just did that, so wow. The demolition will shove the iconic and enormous station down through Earth's atmosphere in a fiery display. I can't believe I'm reading this. And if anything goes wrong, a cascade of debris could rain down on our planet's surface. Now I don't know. Should I add God's Zilla? And I don't know? Wow. Conceived and built in a post Cold Wall partnership with Russia, the ISS, like so many of NASA's major projects, has lasted far longer than its initial design life of fifteen years. Nothing lasts forever, however, especially in the harsh environment of outer space. It's not really out of space, though, as it's low Earth orbit. The ISS is aging, and for safety's sake, NASA intends to incinerate the immense facility around twenty thirty one. To accomplish the job, the agency will pay SpaceX up to eight one hundred and forty three million dollars. According to a statement released recently June twenty sixth, The contract covers the development of a unique D orbit vehicle. This is the bit I get excited about to usher the unwieldy ISS to its doom. It excludes launch costs. NASA has declined to provide the number of proposals received for the projects. Currently, no details about SpaceX's visions use the force. Look that is what's going through my head for No details about the SpaceX's vision for the D orbit vehicle are publicly known. Scientific American reached out to the company but did not receive any response. What is clear is that SpaceX existing Dragon and Starship spacecraft aren't good matches for the D orbit mission. That means that the company could intend to heavily adapt one of these vehicles or start from scratch and design a custom built spacecraft. Whatever the d orbit vehicle ends up looking like, SpaceX is taking on a delicate technical challenge. The ISS is perhaps the most complex construction project ever executed, and certainly the largest and most expensive one in space. Beginning in nineteen eighty eight, Its modules required forty two different launches to blast off Earth, and the orbiting laboratory contains about as much internal space as a six bedroom house spread out of an area the size of a football field, weighing more than four hundred and fifty tons, or the equivalent of nearly three large blue whales. Don't you love the way Americans? I'm sorry, my American listeners, but I love the way you guys measure things without using official measuring things like that building is as tall as one hundred and fifty washing machines. So this is the equivalent of nearly three large blue whales. I'm going to use that for everything now. The ISS is heavy too Safely destroying the space station will arguably be even harder than assembling it. You're going to need a space hammer. The ISS should still have several years of science ahead. NASA said it intends to operate the space station through twenty thre and that its partner space agencies in Canada, Europe and Japan concur with that timeline. NASA's ros Cosmos, which leads the ISS partnership with NASA and operates several key modules of the station, is currently only committed through at least twenty twenty eight. But why destroy the station at all? Because of the ISS's lengthy and continuous tenure. The last time the Earth orbit was bereft of human beings was in November two thousand, just before the arrival of Expedition one, when a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts began the station's first residency. The iconic orbital outpost is now a potent symbol of the space age and of international collaboration in science that transcends geopolitical squabbles on Earth. Indeed, some ISS fans argue it shouldn't be destroyed at all. Instead, they think it should be boosted up to an orbit so high that it would remain in space forever as a testament to the engineering prowess of humans. That idea would be widely impractical and prohibitively expensive, NASA says Besides, the lab is already fragile and would become even more fragile the long grit stays aloft, Sooner or later it will start disintegrating, and the more debriate sheds, the more likely catastrophic space junk collisions would become a frightening feedback process that could curtail further activity in Earth orbit. Some nostalgic observers want to see parts of the station excised in tac and ferried safely to the Earth's surface bound from museum, but that's just as logistically challenging as a permanent ultra high orbit NASA says, although the space station was assembled in orbit, it wasn't designed to be disassembled, and no current spacecraft has enough payload capacity to carry ISS modules back to Earth. NASA considered other scenarios too, Repurposing the facility in orbit, passing off IF operations to private industry, or even blowing it to smithereens in space all posed even grimmer prospects. However, so it's a fiery doom unfortunately, and the ISS will be sent down all in one piece, given the challenges of taking the station apart. In theory, that's a tidy solution. Because Earth's atmosphere creates friction that naturally incinerates material passing through it, Larger objects can survive the inferno and fall to Earth. However, damage from plummeting space debris is rare but not unheard of. We spoke last week of a family in Florida that is suing NASA for that very reason, because of a two pound piece of space debris that crashed through their roof earlier this year. I hope they're doing well. The object was the remains of a large battery palette stuffed with debris that astronauts had jettisoned from the space station three years ago for an uncontrolled re entry. NASA determined the homeowner is now seeking compensation from the Space Agency for that incident. Oh boy, still one of my favorite stories. When it was discarded, the palette weighed about five eight hundred pounds, according to NASA. Compare that with the station's mass of about nine hundred and twenty five thousand, three hundred and thirty five pounds. A range of factors, shape, density, orientation, atmospheric conditions, and the like determined how much of an object survives re entry. An uncontrolled plunge for something as bulky as the International Space Station would be a nightmare scenario. Not only would large pieces of the lab likely make it to our planet's surface, but the station would also probably tumble and break apart, making the process unpredictable, and an uncontrolled reentry would rain debris anywhere along the ISS's orbit, which passes over about ninety percent of the Earth's population. That's where NASA's contract with SpaceX comes into play. The commercial de orbit vehicle is meant to launch attached the space station and then pull it down through the Earth's atmosphere in a carefully choreographed, risk minimizing maneuver. Here's what it will look like. First, the ISS would use a combination of natural drag and, if necessary, its existing engines to move to a lower orbit, from the operation height of about two hundred and sixty miles to no lower than two hundred and five miles above the Earth. Then SpaceX's d orbit vehicle would launch about a year before the station's plan date with destiny, and while astronauts were still aboard. During that one year lead time, the ISS's attitude would continue to decrease and the last resident astronauts would depart for Earth, leaving the station human free for the first time in thirty years. Depending on how quickly the laboratory was falling, the orbit vehicle would conduct a series of burns to tug the lowest point of the station's orbit from about one hundred and fifty miles to about ninety miles. In this region of the atmosphe, the thickness of the air would mean that the station would have less than a month left even if NASA were to let it fall on its own. The ISS's ability to steadily orient itself compared to Earth would also degrade. By that point, the de orbit vehicle would need to exert an iron grip on the station's motion to prevent potential disaster. Then, at last, the final push would be made. The de orbit vehicle would fire its engines up for about an hour to shove the ISS through the thickest, most dangerous lower layers of the atmosphere. The burn would be carefully time to ensure that the station and whatever debris it produced fell across the sparsely populated Southern Pacific Ocean, the final resting place for most of humanity's most hazardous orbital refuse and regularly listens to this show would know that problem I have with that is that the East coast of Australia is in the southern Pacific Ocean. Say yeah, I'm not real care about that. Who as another episode of Astronomy Daily, I want to thank you for staying with us and I hope you really enjoyed these stories just a selection from the Astronomy Daily newsletter and of course thanks to Hallie. It was really lovely to share the headphones with you again. It was so nice to have my own voice back too. Well Hallie, you do sound so much better as yourself. Thanks. Oh well, you're welcome and on that note, see you next Monday for more astronomy science and space science. That's right, absolutely, and don't forget Anna and Charlie are back with you during the week, so catch those shows and we will see you next Monday. Bye for now, podcast, I will be your whole speed gun clue