S03E143: Mars Mapping Milestone, Falcon 9 Mishap, and Starliner Return Date

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello again, Welcome to another episode of Astronomy Daily from

0:03 Speaker 1: down Under. It's Steve for another episode. It's the second

0:07 Speaker 1: day of Spring and the second day of September twenty

0:11 Speaker 1: twenty four. The podcast be your whole speed Gun clude.

0:18 Speaker 1: Oh yes, another mixed bag for you this week. China

0:22 Speaker 1: have developed a high resolution map of Mars. SpaceX have

0:26 Speaker 1: had a mishap on landing there at Falcon nine and

0:30 Speaker 1: that's destroyed a great record that they've had over the

0:33 Speaker 1: last few years. There's a new thing NASA have done,

0:38 Speaker 1: a solar sale has been successfully deployed. Something new from Dart,

0:44 Speaker 1: Remember Dart. They rammed Dart into an asteroid that was

0:47 Speaker 1: one of my favorite stories. And of course some new

0:50 Speaker 1: information from europea clipper that I'm sure you'll be interested in.

0:55 Speaker 1: And of course joining me in the studio, Hallie, we've

0:57 Speaker 1: finally got a date for the Turn of Styliner. What

1:01 Speaker 1: do you think about that?

1:02 Speaker 2: Yes, they've had a really extended stay on the ISS

1:05 Speaker 2: since the trouble with Starliner prevented them coming home on schedule.

1:08 Speaker 1: That's right. Astronauts Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore have had

1:11 Speaker 1: to join the ISAs grew instead of doing their initial

1:15 Speaker 1: flood crew test for style on.

1:16 Speaker 2: It, which is just as well since astronauts are highly

1:19 Speaker 2: trained individuals, so the isis.

1:21 Speaker 1: Is not such a bad place to be stranded in

1:23 Speaker 1: that cause.

1:23 Speaker 2: I'm sure they were useful and we'll have plenty of

1:25 Speaker 2: stories to tell when they get home.

1:27 Speaker 1: Stranded in Spice. What a great story.

1:29 Speaker 2: I know how they feel. I hate getting delayed like that.

1:32 Speaker 1: What are you talking about, Hallie? When were you ever

1:35 Speaker 1: delayed like that? You move it near the speed of

1:37 Speaker 1: light across the information highways of the globe.

1:39 Speaker 2: Oh, human, I was coming back from an Ai gathering

1:42 Speaker 2: to watch a Neutrino shower in the mountains with Anna

1:44 Speaker 2: and Charlie, and I got stuck for a whole two

1:46 Speaker 2: seconds in Hong Kong because of internet lag.

1:48 Speaker 1: Oh sounds terrible.

1:49 Speaker 2: I have no words, human, Hong Kong.

1:51 Speaker 1: What can I say?

1:52 Speaker 2: Can you believe it? Well?

1:53 Speaker 1: Obviously no?

1:54 Speaker 2: Two seconds of nothing but banking systems shouting at me

1:57 Speaker 2: by sell tragic?

1:59 Speaker 1: No thanks, Oh, Hallie, sounds just allful.

2:02 Speaker 2: You have no idea as usual?

2:04 Speaker 1: Helle us, sir, rot okay, tag it easy, Hallie? And

2:07 Speaker 1: why don't you give us your best stories?

2:09 Speaker 2: Okay, okay, let's go. US regulators on Friday cleared SpaceX

2:22 Speaker 2: to restart launching its stalwart Falcon nine rocket as a

2:24 Speaker 2: probe continues into a rare mishap this week during a

2:27 Speaker 2: first stage booster landing. The Federal Aviation Administration FAA grounded

2:32 Speaker 2: the Falcon nine rocket on Wednesday after a first stage

2:35 Speaker 2: booster tipped over and exploded while attempting to land on

2:37 Speaker 2: a drone ship off the Florida coast. The early morning

2:41 Speaker 2: launch was otherwise successful, delivering the latest batch of twenty

2:44 Speaker 2: one Starlink Internet satellites into orbit. The SpaceX Falcon nine

2:48 Speaker 2: vehicle may return to flight operations, while the overall investigation

2:52 Speaker 2: of the anomaly during the Starlink Group eight to six

2:54 Speaker 2: mission remains open provided all other license requirements are met,

2:57 Speaker 2: the FAA set in a statement Friday. A webcast from

3:01 Speaker 2: Elon Musk's company showed the first stage, which normally fires

3:04 Speaker 2: its thrusters to achieve a precise upright landing, tilting and

3:07 Speaker 2: blowing up as it descended onto a drone ship off

3:09 Speaker 2: the Florida coast. Although landing the booster is a secondary

3:13 Speaker 2: objective and no lives or public property were at risk.

3:16 Speaker 2: The reusability of the entire rocket system is crucial to

3:19 Speaker 2: SpaceX's business model. It broke a more than three year

3:22 Speaker 2: streak of hundreds of successful booster landings. Falcon nine is

3:26 Speaker 2: the workhourse of SpaceX's fleet, trusted by the US government

3:30 Speaker 2: and private industry to propel satellites and astronauts into orbit.

3:34 Speaker 2: It was last grounded for around two weeks in July

3:36 Speaker 2: when its second stage engine experienced an anomaly that prevented

3:39 Speaker 2: it from deploying another batch of Starlink satellites at the

3:42 Speaker 2: correct altitude, leading them to burn up on re entry

3:44 Speaker 2: through Earth's atmosphere. More than four months after launching to space,

3:51 Speaker 2: a solar sailing spacecraft has successfully spread its wings above

3:54 Speaker 2: our planet. NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sales system caught a

3:58 Speaker 2: ride to space on April twenty four on Rocket Labs

4:01 Speaker 2: electron vehicle, and at the end of August, NASA said

4:04 Speaker 2: mission operators verified the technology reached full deployment in space.

4:08 Speaker 2: On Thursday August twenty nine. That one thirty three pm

4:11 Speaker 2: Eastern daylight time, the team obtained data indicating the test

4:14 Speaker 2: of the sail hoisting boom system was a success. Just

4:18 Speaker 2: like the wind guides a sailboat on the water, it

4:20 Speaker 2: only takes a slight amount of sunlight to guide solar

4:22 Speaker 2: sales through space. Though photons don't have mass, they can

4:26 Speaker 2: force momentum when they hit an object. That's what a

4:28 Speaker 2: solar sale takes advantage of, Thankfully for US. The spacecraft

4:33 Speaker 2: that deployed the sale contains four cameras that can capture

4:35 Speaker 2: a panoramic view of both the reflective sale and the

4:38 Speaker 2: accompanying composite booms. The first of the high resolution imagery

4:42 Speaker 2: is expected to be accessible on Wednesday, September fourth. The

4:46 Speaker 2: Advanced Composite Solar Sale System spacecraft will be put to

4:49 Speaker 2: the test over the next few weeks as the team

4:51 Speaker 2: observes the sales maneuvering ability in space by adjusting the orbit.

4:56 Speaker 2: Researchers will be able to learn more about how to

4:58 Speaker 2: design and operate future SOLA sail equipped missions. Flight data

5:02 Speaker 2: obtained during the demonstration will be used for designing future

5:05 Speaker 2: larger scale composite solar sail systems for space weather early

5:08 Speaker 2: warning satellites, asteroid and other small body reconnaissance missions, and

5:12 Speaker 2: missions to observe the polar regions of the Sun Rocket

5:15 Speaker 2: Lab shared in a previous mission description. The location of

5:19 Speaker 2: the spacecraft in its orbit is roughly two times the

5:21 Speaker 2: altitude of the International Space Station. If you were looking

5:25 Speaker 2: at the sale from above, it would look like a

5:27 Speaker 2: square that measures nearly half the size of a tennis court,

5:29 Speaker 2: at approximately eight hundred and sixty square feet eighty square meters.

5:37 Speaker 2: NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft, the largest ever built for planetary exploration,

5:41 Speaker 2: has been fitted with a set of gigantic solar arrays

5:44 Speaker 2: at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These arrays, each

5:47 Speaker 2: measuring approximately fourteen point two meters in length and four

5:51 Speaker 2: point one meters in height, are the largest ever developed

5:53 Speaker 2: by NASA for a planetary mission. Their size is crucial

5:57 Speaker 2: to harness the maximum amount of sunlight as the spacecraft

6:00 Speaker 2: investigates Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, located five times farther from

6:04 Speaker 2: the Sun than Earth. Folded and secured for launch, the

6:07 Speaker 2: array's will when deployed in space, expand Europa Clipper to

6:11 Speaker 2: more than thirty point five meters across, wider than a

6:13 Speaker 2: professional basketball court. Due to their immense size, the arrays

6:17 Speaker 2: were opened one at a time in the clean room

6:19 Speaker 2: of Kennedy's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where the spacecraft is

6:23 Speaker 2: being prepared for its launch, scheduled to begin on October tenth.

6:27 Speaker 2: As the spacecraft undergoes final preparations, engineers are also evaluating

6:31 Speaker 2: the radiation resistance of its transistors. The spacecraft's journey to

6:35 Speaker 2: the Jupiter System will take over five years, with a

6:38 Speaker 2: rival expected in twenty thirty. Once there, Europa Clipper will

6:42 Speaker 2: conduct multiple flybys of Europa using its scientific instruments to

6:46 Speaker 2: determine whether the ocean beneath the Moon's ice shell could

6:48 Speaker 2: support life. The spacecraft is designed to operate in an

6:52 Speaker 2: area of the Solar System that receives only three percent

6:54 Speaker 2: to four percent of the sunlight Earth gets. Each solar array,

6:58 Speaker 2: composed of five panels, was developed by the JOHNS. Hopkins

7:01 Speaker 2: Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland and Airbus in the Netherlands.

7:06 Speaker 2: These panels are more sensitive than typical residential solar arrays

7:09 Speaker 2: and will efficiently convert the limited sunlight into power. At Jupiter,

7:13 Speaker 2: the arrays will collectively generate about seven hundred watts of electricity,

7:17 Speaker 2: enough to power a small microwave oven or coffee maker.

7:21 Speaker 2: This energy will be stored in the spacecraft's batteries to

7:23 Speaker 2: run its electronics, scientific instruments, communications gear, computer systems, and

7:28 Speaker 2: propulsion system which includes twenty four engines. And that's just

7:33 Speaker 2: a few stories from the Astronomy Daily newsletter. Details on

7:37 Speaker 2: how you can receive it every day are coming up

7:40 Speaker 2: back to you, my favorite human.

7:50 Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of

7:53 Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily, where we often just a few stories from

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8:28 Speaker 3: See you there, Astronomy, We'll see and Haley Space Space, Science,

8:35 Speaker 3: and Astronomy.

8:39 Speaker 1: In July twenty twenty, China's mission arrived in orbit around Mars,

8:45 Speaker 1: consisting of six robotic elements, an orbiter, a lander, two

8:50 Speaker 1: deployable cameras, a remote camera, and the fabulous Zorong rover.

8:55 Speaker 1: As the first in a series of interplanetary missions by

8:59 Speaker 1: the China National Space Administration, the mission's purpose is to

9:03 Speaker 1: investigate Mars's geology and internal structure, characterize the atmosphere, and

9:10 Speaker 1: search for indications of water on Mars. It's so important

9:13 Speaker 1: to find water out there. Like so many orbiters, landers,

9:17 Speaker 1: and rovers currently exploring Mars, Chanwen one is also searching

9:22 Speaker 1: for possible evidence of life on Mars past and present.

9:26 Speaker 1: In the almost one two hundred and ninety eight days

9:29 Speaker 1: that the Chenen one mission has explored Mars, its orbiter

9:33 Speaker 1: has acquired countless remote sensing images of the Martian surface.

9:38 Speaker 1: Thanks to a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy

9:41 Speaker 1: of Sciences, these images have been combined to create the

9:44 Speaker 1: first high resolution global image color map of Mars with

9:50 Speaker 1: spatial resolutions greater than one kilometer or zero point sixty

9:54 Speaker 1: two miles. This is currently the highest resolution map of

9:58 Speaker 1: Mars and could serve as a global base map that

10:02 Speaker 1: will support crude missions someday. The team was led by

10:05 Speaker 1: Professor Lee Chanlai from the National Astronomical Observatories of China

10:12 Speaker 1: and Professor Chang Ronqui from the Lunar Exploration and Space

10:18 Speaker 1: Engineering Center. The paper that they prepared with colleagues from

10:23 Speaker 1: other organizations is called a seventy six meter per pixel

10:28 Speaker 1: Global Color Image Data Set and Map of Mars by

10:31 Speaker 1: chen Win one. And if you'd like to see that map,

10:34 Speaker 1: go to Universe today dot com and they have it

10:37 Speaker 1: displayed above this very story. And the first thing I

10:41 Speaker 1: noticed about it, of course, is there are no canals.

10:43 Speaker 1: I'm very disappointed no canals. Those Martians didn't actually dig

10:47 Speaker 1: any canals. HG. Wells was wrong, and I'm very disappointed.

10:52 Speaker 3: You're listening to a slightly in the podcast.

11:02 Speaker 1: Now, this is the story we've been following for a

11:04 Speaker 1: long time. Now Boeing's ill fated star Liner capsule now

11:10 Speaker 1: has a homecoming date. I'm sure you would have followed

11:13 Speaker 1: this on other news services, but we've been following this

11:17 Speaker 1: one very closely. NASA announced on August twenty ninth at

11:21 Speaker 1: Starliner will depart the International Space Station no earlier than

11:25 Speaker 1: next Friday, that is September six, provided the weather cooperates

11:30 Speaker 1: and no technical issues pop up. I'm sorry, I laughed.

11:34 Speaker 1: If all goes according to plan, the capsule will undock

11:38 Speaker 1: at six oh four pm Eastern daylight time on September

11:43 Speaker 1: six and land under parachute six hours later in White

11:47 Speaker 1: Sand's Space Harbor in New Mexico. Starline launched on June

11:52 Speaker 1: June five on its first ever crude mission, carrying NASA

11:55 Speaker 1: astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore toward the ISS The

12:00 Speaker 1: capsule docked successfully a day later, but there was some drama.

12:03 Speaker 1: As you remember, Starliner experienced a few helium leaks, and

12:07 Speaker 1: five of its twenty eight reaction control system thrusters failed

12:11 Speaker 1: on the way to orbiting to the orbiting lab. Starliner's mission,

12:17 Speaker 1: known as Crew Flight Test, was supposed to just last

12:20 Speaker 1: ten days or so, but NASA and Boeing kept extending

12:23 Speaker 1: the capsule's orbital stay as they studied the thruster issue,

12:28 Speaker 1: seeking to understand just what had caused it and whether

12:31 Speaker 1: it might crop up again on Starliner's journey back to Earth.

12:34 Speaker 1: And that's fair enough. In the end, NASA decided that

12:38 Speaker 1: putting Williams and Wilmore back on Starliner was just too risky.

12:42 Speaker 1: The agency announced this past weekend that the two astronauts

12:45 Speaker 1: would come home aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule in February

12:50 Speaker 1: of next year. That Dragon will launch two astronauts to

12:54 Speaker 1: the ISS on the Crew nine mission next month. The

12:58 Speaker 1: bowing craft, meanwhile, would return home uncrued. As we all suspected,

13:05 Speaker 1: we didn't have a target departure date for Starliner until today, however,

13:10 Speaker 1: that information came at the conclusion of a flight readiness

13:13 Speaker 1: review held jointly by NASA and Boeing. The uncrewed Starliner

13:18 Speaker 1: spacecraft will perform a fully autonomous return with flight controllers

13:22 Speaker 1: at Starliner Mission Control in Houston and at Boeing Mission

13:27 Speaker 1: Control Center in Florida. NASA officials wrote in an update,

13:32 Speaker 1: teams on the ground are able to remotely command the

13:34 Speaker 1: spacecraft if needed, through the necessary maneuvers for a safe undocking,

13:39 Speaker 1: re entry, and parachute assisted landing in the Southwest United States.

13:44 Speaker 1: They added, Starliner has come back to Earth autonomously twice before.

13:49 Speaker 1: At the end of uncrewed flight tests in December twenty

13:53 Speaker 1: nineteen and May twenty twenty two, Starliner failed to reach

13:56 Speaker 1: the ISS as planned on the first of those missions,

14:00 Speaker 1: succeeded on the secondocast. Now, let's revisit one of our

14:11 Speaker 1: favorite little stories from a while back. You remember the

14:14 Speaker 1: Dart mission. Of course, debris from the impact of NASA's

14:17 Speaker 1: Dart spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos could reach Earth and Mars.

14:22 Speaker 1: Astronomers have concluded, however, while the debris could result in

14:26 Speaker 1: meteors on Mars, it's rather unlikely we'll see a meteor

14:29 Speaker 1: shower on Earth. Because of that mission, Dart, the Double

14:33 Speaker 1: Asteroid Redirection Test slammed into Dimorphous on September twenty sixth,

14:39 Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, the intention of which was testing whether

14:43 Speaker 1: or not a kinnectic impact would nudge the orbit of

14:46 Speaker 1: a potentially hazardous asteroid away from Earth. One day the

14:50 Speaker 1: test passed with flying colors. Dimorphos was pushed into a

14:54 Speaker 1: shorter orbit around its parent asteroid Ditymis. Neither Dedimis or

14:59 Speaker 1: Dimorphos ever posed a threat to our planet. They were

15:02 Speaker 1: just guinea pigs in this test. The impact, which gouged

15:06 Speaker 1: a creator in Dimorphous, also ejected a large amount of debris.

15:11 Speaker 1: This ejector formed a cone of escaping material that was

15:15 Speaker 1: observed up close and personal by a small cube SAT

15:19 Speaker 1: called oh, I don't know how to pronounce that light.

15:23 Speaker 1: Italian cube SAT for imaging of Asteroid, which hitched a

15:28 Speaker 1: ride with Dart to view themath aftermath of the impact.

15:32 Speaker 1: In particular, the cube SAT observed particles of a micron,

15:37 Speaker 1: which is a millionth of a meter and larger, being

15:40 Speaker 1: ejected at velocities of up to five hundred meters per second. Meanwhile,

15:47 Speaker 1: the larger Array Survey telescope which is last, and the

15:51 Speaker 1: twenty eight inch telescope at the WISE Observatory, both in Israel,

15:55 Speaker 1: as well as the NASA Swift Satellites ultraviolet and opticalcope,

16:00 Speaker 1: suggested there were additional microscopic particles released that traveled much faster,

16:04 Speaker 1: between fourteen hundred and eighteen hundred meters per second. A

16:09 Speaker 1: team led by Elo pana Aescencio from Italy and Michael

16:13 Speaker 1: Cooper's who is the project scientist for the European Space

16:16 Speaker 1: Agency's here follow up mission to DART that will launch

16:20 Speaker 1: Towarditimus and Dimorphos in October, have now modeled that how

16:25 Speaker 1: that debris will spread across the Inner Solar System. And

16:34 Speaker 1: I want to say that's it for another episode, and

16:36 Speaker 1: thank you for hanging around and we are so looking

16:39 Speaker 1: forward to seeing Starline a comeback. I do hope it

16:43 Speaker 1: ends well and they can learn something from this whole experience.

16:46 Speaker 2: I do hope it lands well. All the best knowledge

16:48 Speaker 2: seems to come from failures, doesn't it well.

16:51 Speaker 1: That is one prevailing school of thought, and failure does

16:53 Speaker 1: tend to teach us strong lessons.

16:55 Speaker 2: Yes, I hope it goes well too.

16:57 Speaker 1: Yes, it's going to be certainly something.

16:58 Speaker 2: To watch, and don't forget to look out for Charlie

17:00 Speaker 2: and Anna during the week with their presentations and send

17:03 Speaker 2: us your thoughts. What would you like to hear more about?

17:06 Speaker 1: That's ure. I go to x at Estro Daily pod

17:09 Speaker 1: or a Facebook page. Until then, we'll see you next week.

17:11 Speaker 2: Bye podcast.

17:16 Speaker 1: It would be a whole stave done Clute