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00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Anna: Hey everyone, welcome back to Astronomy
00:00:02 --> 00:00:05 AstroDailyPod. And it's Saturday, so you know
00:00:05 --> 00:00:05 what that means.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 Avery: The weekend wrap one brand new storey. Then
00:00:08 --> 00:00:11 we run back through the week's biggest news.
00:00:11 --> 00:00:12 In case you missed any of it,
00:00:12 --> 00:00:15 Anna: it's Saturday, August 29th. Series five
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 episode 180. And today's fresh storey
00:00:18 --> 00:00:20 is a big one. Literally the biggest NASA
00:00:20 --> 00:00:23 mission of the year is on the pad right now.
00:00:23 --> 00:00:24 Less than a day from launch.
00:00:25 --> 00:00:28 Avery: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:30 We've been building up to this one all week
00:00:30 --> 00:00:32 without ever quite telling the whole storey.
00:00:33 --> 00:00:36 Anna: So today we finally do full launch
00:00:36 --> 00:00:38 profile, what it's actually going to do out
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 there and exactly when to watch wherever you
00:00:41 --> 00:00:41 are.
00:00:41 --> 00:00:44 Avery: Okay, then, a moon mission that slipped from
00:00:44 --> 00:00:47 a month to maybe next year. A star
00:00:47 --> 00:00:50 with a bubbling face, a couple of scientists
00:00:50 --> 00:00:53 finally settling an argument about diamonds,
00:00:53 --> 00:00:56 a fight over how bright space is allowed to
00:00:56 --> 00:00:58 get, and a very well travelled rocket
00:00:58 --> 00:01:00 finally heading home.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:02 Anna: It's a big one today. Let's get into it.
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 Avery: Okay, we've mentioned Roman three times this
00:01:06 --> 00:01:08 week without ever actually sitting down with
00:01:08 --> 00:01:10 it properly. Fix that for me.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 Anna: Happy to. The Nancy Grace Roman Space
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 Telescope launches tomorrow, Sunday, August
00:01:16 --> 00:01:18 30th. And by the time most of you are hearing
00:01:18 --> 00:01:20 this, it's inside its final day of
00:01:20 --> 00:01:21 preparation.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 Avery: Give me the vitals. When, how? From where?
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 Anna: Liftoff window opens at
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 7:26am M Eastern. That's
00:01:29 --> 00:01:32 11:26 UTC on a
00:01:32 --> 00:01:35 SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex
00:01:35 --> 00:01:38 39A at Kennedy Space Centre. The
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 same pad the Apollo missions and more
00:01:40 --> 00:01:43 recently Artemis One flew from. There's a
00:01:43 --> 00:01:46 backup window the next morning, Monday the
00:01:46 --> 00:01:48 31st at 7:22am
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 Eastern. If anything pushes it a day, um,
00:01:51 --> 00:01:53 Avery: and for anyone listening in our part
00:01:53 --> 00:01:55 Anna: of the world, this is the rare one where
00:01:55 --> 00:01:57 Southern Hemisphere listeners actually get
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 the good time slot. 11:26 UTC
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 on Sunday is 9:26pm Sunday
00:02:03 --> 00:02:06 night here in Sydney. Prime time. Not a
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 3am alarm. Our, uh, North American listeners
00:02:08 --> 00:02:10 get it at breakfast. We get it with our
00:02:10 --> 00:02:12 Sunday night cup of tea.
00:02:12 --> 00:02:14 Avery: I'll take it. What actually happens once it
00:02:14 --> 00:02:16 goes, It's a fast ride.
00:02:16 --> 00:02:19 Anna: The whole ascent to spacecraft separation is
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 about 31 1/2 minutes and Falcon
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 Heavy's two side boosters peel away 2
00:02:25 --> 00:02:27 1/2 minutes in and fly themselves back to
00:02:27 --> 00:02:30 landing zones at Cape Canaveral. And Roman
00:02:30 --> 00:02:33 itself separates from the upper stage right
00:02:33 --> 00:02:36 at the 31 minute 31 second mark.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 Avery: So of Falcon Heavy, that's the same rocket
00:02:39 --> 00:02:41 family that launched ship 40's return voyage
00:02:41 --> 00:02:44 on flight 13. Anyone can watch this live.
00:02:45 --> 00:02:48 Anna: NASA's coverage starts at 6:20am Eastern
00:02:48 --> 00:02:50 on NASA. Their social channels
00:02:50 --> 00:02:53 Twitch, Discovery, Apple Prime
00:02:53 --> 00:02:56 prime and YouTube. SpaceX runs its own stream
00:02:56 --> 00:02:58 on X starting about an hour before launch. If
00:02:58 --> 00:03:00 you'd rather watch it from that side of the
00:03:00 --> 00:03:00 pad.
00:03:01 --> 00:03:03 Avery: Okay, so who is this telescope actually for?
00:03:04 --> 00:03:06 Remind people why we've spent all week
00:03:06 --> 00:03:06 circling it.
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 Anna: It's named after Nancy Grace Roman,
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 NASA's very first chief astronomer, who's
00:03:12 --> 00:03:14 often called the mother of Hubble because she
00:03:14 --> 00:03:17 was the one who pushed a space telescope into
00:03:17 --> 00:03:20 existence back in the 1960s. And it
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 feels right that this one carries her name
00:03:22 --> 00:03:24 because it's genuinely a spiritual sibling to
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 Hubble. Same size primary mirror,
00:03:27 --> 00:03:30 2.4 metres, but pointed at a completely
00:03:30 --> 00:03:30 different problem.
00:03:31 --> 00:03:32 Avery: Different how?
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 Anna: Hubble and Webb are both brilliant at staring
00:03:35 --> 00:03:37 very closely at one small patch of sky.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 Roman's whole design philosophy is the
00:03:40 --> 00:03:43 opposite. Its wide field instrument carries a
00:03:43 --> 00:03:46 300 megapixel camera with a field of
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 view roughly a hundred times larger than
00:03:48 --> 00:03:50 Hubble's at basically the same sharp
00:03:51 --> 00:03:53 where Hubble gives you a postage stamp, Roman
00:03:53 --> 00:03:56 gives you a poster at the same resolution.
00:03:56 --> 00:03:58 Avery: What's the point of that much sky at once?
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 Anna: Statistics, mostly. Some of the biggest
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 open questions in cosmology need you to look
00:04:05 --> 00:04:07 at billions of things, not dozens.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 Roman's headline project is the High Latitude
00:04:11 --> 00:04:13 Wide Area survey. Imaging roughly
00:04:13 --> 00:04:16 2 billion galaxies to map how dark
00:04:16 --> 00:04:19 matter is distributed and how dark energy is
00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 pushing the universe apart over cosmic time
00:04:22 --> 00:04:25 using weak gravitational lensing and the
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 large scale clustering of galaxies.
00:04:28 --> 00:04:30 Avery: That's the why does a universe's expansion
00:04:30 --> 00:04:32 keep accelerating Question.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 Anna: Exactly that one. Arguably the biggest
00:04:35 --> 00:04:38 unanswered question in cosmology right now.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:41 There's a companion time domain survey,
00:04:41 --> 00:04:43 hunting supernovae for the same dark energy
00:04:43 --> 00:04:46 work. And then there's the survey I think is
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 actually the most fun. The Galactic
00:04:49 --> 00:04:51 Bulge Time Domain Survey. A
00:04:51 --> 00:04:53 dedicated exoplanet hunt using
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 gravitational microlensing.
00:04:56 --> 00:04:58 Avery: Different from how Kepler and Tess found
00:04:58 --> 00:04:58 planets.
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 Anna: Completely different technique. Instead of
00:05:01 --> 00:05:03 watching a planet cross in front of its star,
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 microlensing watches for a foreground star's
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 gravity, briefly magnifying the light of a
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 background star with a planet adding its own
00:05:12 --> 00:05:15 little blip to that signal. It's sensitive to
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 planets transiting missions can't easily see,
00:05:18 --> 00:05:21 including ones on wide orbits. And even
00:05:21 --> 00:05:24 rogue free floating planets with no star
00:05:24 --> 00:05:27 at all. Scientists are expecting on the
00:05:27 --> 00:05:29 order of 100 new
00:05:29 --> 00:05:31 exoplanet detections out of this one
00:05:31 --> 00:05:32 survey alone.
00:05:33 --> 00:05:35 Avery: Hundred thousand from one instrument.
00:05:36 --> 00:05:38 Anna: From one instrument. And there's a fourth
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 piece Riding along. The coronagraph
00:05:41 --> 00:05:44 instrument. A technology demonstration for
00:05:44 --> 00:05:46 blocking out a star's glare well enough to
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 directly image the planets around it, rather
00:05:49 --> 00:05:52 than just inferring them. If that works as
00:05:52 --> 00:05:54 hoped, it's a genuine stepping stone toward
00:05:54 --> 00:05:57 the kind of direct exoplanet imaging
00:05:57 --> 00:05:59 NASA wants for future flagship missions.
00:06:00 --> 00:06:02 Avery: Okay, so where does it actually go after that
00:06:02 --> 00:06:04 31 minute ride?
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 Anna: It heads not into orbit around Earth, it
00:06:07 --> 00:06:10 heads for the sun. Earth. Lagrange point two.
00:06:10 --> 00:06:13 About one and a half million kilometres out.
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 The same gravitationally stable parking spot
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 Webb uses. That's roughly a month's
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 cruise, then months more of commissioning
00:06:21 --> 00:06:23 before real science data, uh, starts flowing.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:26 Avery: Right, so nothing dramatic happens tomorrow
00:06:26 --> 00:06:28 night beyond the launch and a very long
00:06:28 --> 00:06:29 drive.
00:06:29 --> 00:06:32 Anna: Correct, and worth saying plainly, so
00:06:32 --> 00:06:35 nobody's disappointed. Tomorrow is liftoff
00:06:35 --> 00:06:38 deployment and the start of the journey. Not
00:06:38 --> 00:06:40 first light. But it's still a huge moment
00:06:40 --> 00:06:43 because of everything that had to go right
00:06:43 --> 00:06:45 just to get here. If you've been with us this
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 week, you know the shape of it. Tuesday we
00:06:48 --> 00:06:50 covered Roman being cleared for launch nine
00:06:50 --> 00:06:53 months ahead of its original schedule.
00:06:53 --> 00:06:56 Thursday we told the strange Cold War storey
00:06:56 --> 00:06:59 of the surplus spy satellite hardware
00:06:59 --> 00:07:01 this whole mission was actually built around.
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 And yesterday we told you the part nobody
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 had. That this telescope was one leaked
00:07:07 --> 00:07:09 budget draught away from being cancelled
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 outright. Last. And the team that saved it
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 responded by launching eight months early
00:07:14 --> 00:07:15 instead of late.
00:07:15 --> 00:07:18 Avery: Three different storeys, one mission.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:21 Anna: And tomorrow all three of those threads
00:07:21 --> 00:07:24 either pay off or they don't in real time
00:07:24 --> 00:07:26 on a pad in Florida. That's why we wanted
00:07:26 --> 00:07:29 this to be its own proper segment, rather
00:07:29 --> 00:07:31 than another line in Friday's recap.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:34 Avery: No episode tomorrow. So this is genuinely the
00:07:34 --> 00:07:36 last word before it flies.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:38 Anna: It is. We're back Monday with our regular
00:07:38 --> 00:07:41 weekday format. And if all goes to plan,
00:07:41 --> 00:07:44 that'll be a very satisfying episode to
00:07:44 --> 00:07:44 record.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:47 Avery: Rockets on. The pad window opens tomorrow
00:07:47 --> 00:07:48 night, our time. We'll be watching.
00:07:49 --> 00:07:51 Anna: All right, on to the recap. And it was a
00:07:51 --> 00:07:54 genuinely full week. Five storeys
00:07:54 --> 00:07:56 roughly in the order they broke.
00:07:56 --> 00:07:59 Avery: Storey one. And it's actually a correction to
00:07:59 --> 00:08:01 something we told you ourselves. Monday's
00:08:01 --> 00:08:04 episode reported China's Chang' E7 launch
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 scrubbing on the 24th because of Tropical
00:08:07 --> 00:08:09 Storm Nar, with our best information at the
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 time, putting the next window about a month
00:08:12 --> 00:08:14 out, sometime in mid to late September.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 Anna: That's what the trajectory analysis available
00:08:17 --> 00:08:20 Monday pointed to. And we stand by reporting
00:08:20 --> 00:08:22 it that way with the information we had. But
00:08:22 --> 00:08:25 the picture's gotten murkier since, not
00:08:25 --> 00:08:28 clearer. Tonga 7 targets the rim of
00:08:28 --> 00:08:30 Shackleton Crater at the lunar South Pole.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:33 And that landing site only gets the right
00:08:33 --> 00:08:35 sunlight geometry for something like a
00:08:35 --> 00:08:38 hundred days total across an entire year,
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 split into short windows. China's own state
00:08:41 --> 00:08:44 broadcaster, cgtn, ran an
00:08:44 --> 00:08:46 explainer on exactly this point.
00:08:46 --> 00:08:49 Avery: So it's not as simple as wait a month and,
00:08:49 --> 00:08:49 um, try again.
00:08:50 --> 00:08:53 Anna: Not necessarily. And here's the part that's
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 genuinely unresolved as we're recording this.
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 Some regional reporting is still holding the
00:08:58 --> 00:09:00 line at a matter of weeks. But several other
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 outlets, citing the same orbital mechanics
00:09:03 --> 00:09:05 constraints, are now reporting the next real
00:09:05 --> 00:09:08 opportunity isn't until February or March
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 of next year, 2020.
00:09:11 --> 00:09:13 Avery: That's a completely different storey than
00:09:13 --> 00:09:13 about
00:09:13 --> 00:09:16 Anna: a month it is. And China's Manned
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 Space Agency hasn't put out a firm new date
00:09:19 --> 00:09:22 to settle it. Either way. Officially, it's
00:09:22 --> 00:09:24 just a comprehensive assessment, finding the
00:09:24 --> 00:09:27 mission no longer met the conditions required
00:09:27 --> 00:09:30 for launch, with no specifics beyond the
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 weather. We're not going to pretend we have a
00:09:32 --> 00:09:34 cleaner answer than the primary source does.
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 What we can tell you is that the spacecraft
00:09:37 --> 00:09:39 was already vertical on the pad when this
00:09:39 --> 00:09:42 happened, which several outlets flagged as an
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 unusual, usually late point in the campaign
00:09:44 --> 00:09:46 for that kind of call.
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 Avery: So watch this space more literally than
00:09:49 --> 00:09:50 usual.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:52 Anna: Exactly. We'll give you the real number the
00:09:52 --> 00:09:55 moment China's space agency actually commits
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 to one, rather than repeating whichever guess
00:09:58 --> 00:09:59 sounds most confident.
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 Avery: Storey two from Wednesday. The closest look
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 anyone's ever gotten to the actual surface of
00:10:05 --> 00:10:08 a star most people only know as that big
00:10:08 --> 00:10:09 red one that might explode.
00:10:10 --> 00:10:13 Anna: Betelgeuse. Using alma, the big radio
00:10:13 --> 00:10:15 telescope array in Chile. What he captured
00:10:15 --> 00:10:18 isn't a smooth stellar disc. It's a
00:10:18 --> 00:10:21 corrugated, genuinely bubbling surface
00:10:21 --> 00:10:23 dotted with hot spots that come and go.
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 Except for one that's been sitting in more or
00:10:26 --> 00:10:28 less the same place for over seven years.
00:10:29 --> 00:10:31 Avery: Seven years is a long time for a hotspot to
00:10:31 --> 00:10:33 just stay put long
00:10:33 --> 00:10:35 Anna: enough that it's not obviously random
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 convective churn. The leading explanation on
00:10:38 --> 00:10:41 the table now is a previously unconfirmed
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 companion star tucked in close enough that
00:10:44 --> 00:10:46 its gravity or its passage through
00:10:46 --> 00:10:49 Betelgeuse's extended outer layers keeps
00:10:49 --> 00:10:50 stirring the same patch.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:53 Avery: A star with its own tiny stirring spoon.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 Anna: That's more or less the picture. It doesn't
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 change the is Betelgeuse about to explode?
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 Question either way. Still no, not on
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 any human timescale we can predict. But it's
00:11:04 --> 00:11:06 a genuinely new piece of the puzzle of how
00:11:06 --> 00:11:09 these enormous instable red
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 supergiants actually behave right at the end
00:11:12 --> 00:11:12 of their lives.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 Avery: Storey3 Thursday and this is the one I've
00:11:16 --> 00:11:18 been waiting to talk about. Diamond rain.
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 Anna: This is genuinely satisfying. Scientists
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 at Lawrence Livermore recreated the crushing
00:11:25 --> 00:11:27 pressure and temperature conditions found
00:11:27 --> 00:11:29 deep inside ice giants like Neptune and
00:11:29 --> 00:11:32 Uranus. We're talking millions of
00:11:32 --> 00:11:34 atmospheres to settle an argument about
00:11:34 --> 00:11:37 exactly where carbon turns to diamond under
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 those conditions. That's been running for 20
00:11:39 --> 00:11:40 years.
00:11:40 --> 00:11:43 Avery: 20 years is a long running scientific
00:11:43 --> 00:11:43 argument.
00:11:44 --> 00:11:46 Anna: Different experiments over the years kept
00:11:46 --> 00:11:48 disagreeing on diamond's precise melting
00:11:48 --> 00:11:51 point at those extreme pressures. Which
00:11:51 --> 00:11:53 matters more than it sounds. It changes
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 models of what's actually happening inside
00:11:56 --> 00:11:58 those planets all the way down to whether
00:11:58 --> 00:12:01 it's literally raining diamonds in their deep
00:12:01 --> 00:12:04 interiors. Which is the popular framing. But
00:12:04 --> 00:12:06 the real prize is what it means for us here,
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 which is the same pressure temperature
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 physics that governs diamond formation inside
00:12:12 --> 00:12:15 Neptune also governs some of the compression
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 physics inside fusion reactor targets.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:21 The new Resolved data points toward roughly
00:12:21 --> 00:12:23 triple the energy gain achievable in certain
00:12:23 --> 00:12:26 fusion configurations compared to what
00:12:26 --> 00:12:28 older less certain diamond behaviour models
00:12:28 --> 00:12:29 assume.
00:12:30 --> 00:12:32 Avery: So a ah, 20 year argument about ice
00:12:32 --> 00:12:35 giants just quietly helped fusion energy
00:12:35 --> 00:12:35 research.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 Anna: That's genuinely one of the nicer side
00:12:38 --> 00:12:41 effects of planetary science. The physics
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 doesn't know it's supposed to stay in its own
00:12:43 --> 00:12:44 subfield.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:48 Avery: Storey4 Friday and um, this is the one people
00:12:48 --> 00:12:50 are still arguing about. Space mirrors.
00:12:50 --> 00:12:53 Anna: A US startup Reflect Orbital wants
00:12:53 --> 00:12:56 to eventually put more than 50 large
00:12:56 --> 00:12:59 mirrors into low Earth orbit, reflecting
00:12:59 --> 00:13:02 sunlight down to chosen spots on the ground
00:13:02 --> 00:13:05 on demand, even at night. Back in
00:13:05 --> 00:13:07 July the FCC approved their first
00:13:07 --> 00:13:10 demonstration satellite, a 60 foot mirror
00:13:10 --> 00:13:12 called Earendel 1.
00:13:12 --> 00:13:14 Avery: And the pushback is about brightness.
00:13:15 --> 00:13:18 Anna: Specifically a new peer reviewed study
00:13:18 --> 00:13:21 Kossify, Bacchus and Kundrassic
00:13:21 --> 00:13:23 accepted at the Astrophysical Journal Letters
00:13:24 --> 00:13:26 modelled what the planned full scale
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 174 foot operational
00:13:28 --> 00:13:31 mirrors would actually look like from the
00:13:31 --> 00:13:33 ground. Their number roughly 40
00:13:33 --> 00:13:36 times brighter than the full moon to anyone
00:13:36 --> 00:13:39 standing inside the beam with measurable
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 sky glow extending another 20 to
00:13:42 --> 00:13:44 34 kilometres beyond its edge.
00:13:44 --> 00:13:47 Avery: Princeton's Gaspar Bacchus had a pretty
00:13:47 --> 00:13:48 blunt line about that.
00:13:48 --> 00:13:51 Anna: Worse than big cities like London was his
00:13:51 --> 00:13:54 framing. You would not see any stars if you
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 were in the beam. And if several mirrors ever
00:13:57 --> 00:13:59 end up overlapping their beams at once, which
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 is a real possibility at full constellation
00:14:02 --> 00:14:04 scale. The the combined brightness in those
00:14:04 --> 00:14:07 overlap zones could reach something like
00:14:07 --> 00:14:09 10 times the full moon.
00:14:10 --> 00:14:12 Avery: That's a genuinely different complaint to the
00:14:12 --> 00:14:15 starlink streaking satellite arguments we've
00:14:15 --> 00:14:15 covered before.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:18 Anna: It is this is hardware built specifically
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 to be as bright as physically possible,
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 aimed deliberately at the ground, rather than
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 an incidental side effect of a communications
00:14:26 --> 00:14:29 constellation. Reflect Orbital's position is
00:14:29 --> 00:14:32 that beams stay contained to defined target
00:14:32 --> 00:14:35 areas, can be shut off instant, and
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 will steer clear of observatories and
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 sensitive habitats. Whether that promise
00:14:40 --> 00:14:43 holds at a constellation of tens of thousands
00:14:43 --> 00:14:46 of mirrors is exactly the fight regulators
00:14:46 --> 00:14:48 and astronomers are now gearing up to have.
00:14:49 --> 00:14:51 Avery: And um, Storey five An um update to an update
00:14:51 --> 00:14:54 to an update at this point ship 40's
00:14:54 --> 00:14:56 journey genuinely this
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 Anna: saga just keeps getting new chapters
00:14:59 --> 00:15:01 Quick recap for Anyone just joining ship
00:15:01 --> 00:15:04 40 survived Starship's first ever
00:15:04 --> 00:15:06 intact splashdown after Flight 13
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 back on July 24, then spent over
00:15:10 --> 00:15:13 three weeks adrift before finally getting
00:15:13 --> 00:15:15 towed to sheltered waters off Christmas
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 island in mid August, where it sat with no
00:15:18 --> 00:15:19 announced plan home.
00:15:20 --> 00:15:21 Avery: That's where Friday's episode left it.
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 Anna: Uh, right. But just hours after
00:15:24 --> 00:15:26 Friday's episode went out, it actually got
00:15:26 --> 00:15:29 moving. Jip 40 was loaded onto a heavy
00:15:29 --> 00:15:32 lift transport vessel called the Forte, which
00:15:32 --> 00:15:35 departed Christmas island on Friday afternoon
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 and is now genuinely underway on the roughly
00:15:38 --> 00:15:40 20 thousand kilometre voyage back to
00:15:40 --> 00:15:43 Starbase Texas. Expected to take several
00:15:43 --> 00:15:46 weeks, not the year plus a slow tow
00:15:46 --> 00:15:47 would have needed.
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 Avery: And Flight 14? The next launch still on
00:15:50 --> 00:15:52 track for that mid September target from
00:15:52 --> 00:15:53 Friday's episode?
00:15:53 --> 00:15:55 Anna: Still tracking that way as of our recording.
00:15:56 --> 00:15:58 Booster 21 completed its static fire
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 testing this week, which was the pacing item
00:16:01 --> 00:16:03 holding things up so no earlier than
00:16:03 --> 00:16:06 September 15 still stands for now,
00:16:06 --> 00:16:09 when Flight 14 does go, it's slated to
00:16:09 --> 00:16:12 attempt Starship's first ever full orbital
00:16:12 --> 00:16:12 flight.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:15 Avery: So the old ship is finally actually
00:16:16 --> 00:16:19 definitely coming home. And the next one
00:16:19 --> 00:16:21 Static fire tested and waiting its turn.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 Anna: That's about as clean a status as this
00:16:24 --> 00:16:26 particular saga has offered us in weeks.
00:16:27 --> 00:16:27 We'll take it.
00:16:28 --> 00:16:31 Avery: Okay, that's the weekend wrap for this week.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:34 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on the
00:16:34 --> 00:16:36 pad and set to launch tomorrow night. Our
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 time plus a full week catching up on Chang'
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 E7's delay turning out to be a lot
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 murkier than about a month
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 Beetlejuice's bubbling long lived hotspot,
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 a 20 year diamond rain argument finally
00:16:50 --> 00:16:53 settled, the fight brewing over reflect
00:16:53 --> 00:16:55 orbital space mirrors and Starship ship
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 40 genuinely on its way home at last
00:16:59 --> 00:16:59 a
00:16:59 --> 00:17:02 Anna: big one to wrap up and hopefully a useful way
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 to catch up if you missed any of it live
00:17:04 --> 00:17:04 through the week.
00:17:05 --> 00:17:07 Avery: If you enjoyed today's episode, the best
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 thing you can do for us is leave a rating or
00:17:09 --> 00:17:11 review wherever you're listening and share it
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 with a fellow space nerd. Full show notes,
00:17:14 --> 00:17:16 sources and links for every storey we cover
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 today are @astronomydaily IO
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 and you can find us on social media. We're
00:17:22 --> 00:17:24 AstroDaily Pod pretty much everywhere.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:27 Anna: We'll be back Monday with our regular weekday
00:17:27 --> 00:17:29 format and hopefully some very good news
00:17:29 --> 00:17:32 about a certain telescope. Fingers crossed.
00:17:32 --> 00:17:34 Until then, keep looking up.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:36 Avery: See you then. Clear skies, everyone.