S03E216: Japan's Rocket Setback, Europa Clipper's Epic Voyage, and the Milky Way's Galactic Secrets

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, space enthusiasts. Today, we have an incredible lineup of

0:03 Speaker 1: stories from across the Cosmos, from groundbreaking developments in lunar

0:08 Speaker 1: exploration to fascinating discoveries about our own galactic neighborhood. We're

0:12 Speaker 1: covering the full spectrum of space news. We'll look at

0:15 Speaker 1: Japan's latest challenges in rocket development, check in on NASA's

0:19 Speaker 1: Europa Clipper as it makes its way toward Jupiter's icy moon,

0:23 Speaker 1: and explore some remarkable findings about what makes our Milky

0:26 Speaker 1: Way galaxy unique. We'll also get updates on SpaceX's busy

0:30 Speaker 1: launch schedule and hear about an exciting lunar mission that's

0:33 Speaker 1: about to take flight. Stay with me as we journey

0:37 Speaker 1: through these astronomical developments and uncover the latest adventures in

0:40 Speaker 1: space exploration. Japan's space agency JACKSA, encountered a significant setback

0:47 Speaker 1: on Tuesday this week during a crucial engine test of

0:50 Speaker 1: their Epsilon S rocket. The test, conducted at the Tanegashima

0:54 Speaker 1: Space Center in southwestern Japan, was abruptly terminated when a

0:58 Speaker 1: fire broke out at the test site just forty nine

1:01 Speaker 1: seconds after ignition. While fortunately there were no injuries reported

1:05 Speaker 1: and the external facility remained undamaged. This failure could push

1:09 Speaker 1: back the rocket's debut launch beyond its targeted March deadline.

1:12 Speaker 1: The incident is particularly concerning as it follows previous setbacks,

1:16 Speaker 1: including another engine test failure in July last year due

1:20 Speaker 1: to thermal damage to its ignition systems. The Epsilon S rocket,

1:24 Speaker 1: developed in partnership with IHI Aerospace, represents a crucial component

1:28 Speaker 1: of Japan's space ambitions. It's designed to be the next

1:32 Speaker 1: generation in their solid fuel small rocket series, aimed at

1:35 Speaker 1: making Japan more competitive in the growing commercial space launch market.

1:40 Speaker 1: This setback is especially significant given the broader context of

1:43 Speaker 1: Japan's space program development. While their larger H three rocket

1:48 Speaker 1: has recently achieved success with three consecutive flights this year

1:51 Speaker 1: after initial difficulties, the Epsilon S problems highlight the ongoing

1:55 Speaker 1: challenges in developing reliable space launch systems. The jap Janese

2:00 Speaker 1: government has emphasized that rocket development remains extremely important for

2:04 Speaker 1: maintaining the autonomy of their space program. As JACKSA and

2:08 Speaker 1: IHI conduct their investigation into the cause of this latest incident,

2:12 Speaker 1: they'll need to implement thorough countermeasures before proceeding with any

2:16 Speaker 1: further tests. This careful approach, while necessary for safety and reliability,

2:21 Speaker 1: means additional delays for Japan's space missions and satellite launch plans.

2:26 Speaker 1: An update now from way out there, so to speak,

2:30 Speaker 1: NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft is making remarkable progress on its

2:33 Speaker 1: journey to Jupiter's moon Europa, having already covered an impressive

2:37 Speaker 1: thirteen million miles since its October launch. The spacecraft, traveling

2:42 Speaker 1: at a breathtaking speed of twenty two miles per second

2:44 Speaker 1: relative to the Sun, has successfully completed several critical deployment

2:48 Speaker 1: milestones that will be essential for its future mission to

2:51 Speaker 1: investigate Europa's potential for supporting life. The mission team has

2:55 Speaker 1: been particularly focused on deploying and testing the spacecraft's crucial

2:59 Speaker 1: scientific innas instruments. One of the first major achievements was

3:03 Speaker 1: the successful deployment of the spacecraft's massive solar arrays, which

3:07 Speaker 1: stretched to the length of a basketball court. This was

3:10 Speaker 1: followed by the extension of the magnetometer boom, reaching out

3:14 Speaker 1: twenty eight feet from the spacecraft. The team has confirmed

3:17 Speaker 1: that all three sensors on the magnetometer are functioning perfectly,

3:21 Speaker 1: ready for their future task of measuring Europa's magnetic field

3:25 Speaker 1: to help determine the depth and salinity of its subsurface ocean.

3:29 Speaker 1: Another significant milestone was the deployment of the spacecraft's radar antennas.

3:34 Speaker 1: These impressive structures extend nearly fifty eight feet from the spacecraft,

3:39 Speaker 1: complemented by eight smaller nine foot antennas. This sophisticated radar

3:43 Speaker 1: system will be instrumental in peering beneath Europa's icy surface,

3:48 Speaker 1: providing unprecedented insights into what lies below. The mission team

3:52 Speaker 1: is now conducting thorough health checks on seven additional instruments,

3:56 Speaker 1: which will continue through the coming months. Some instruments, particularly

4:01 Speaker 1: the visible imagers and spectrometers, are keeping their protective covers

4:04 Speaker 1: closed for now, shielding them from potential solar damage as

4:09 Speaker 1: the spacecraft traverses the inner Solar System. Looking ahead, the

4:13 Speaker 1: spacecraft is preparing for its first major navigational milestone, a

4:17 Speaker 1: gravity assist maneuver at Mars in March twenty twenty five.

4:21 Speaker 1: This clever use of planetary gravity will help adjust the

4:24 Speaker 1: spacecraft's trajectory and increase its speed on its long journey

4:28 Speaker 1: to Jupiter, where it will arrive in twenty thirty to

4:31 Speaker 1: begin its extensive study of Europa's potential for harboring life.

4:36 Speaker 1: SpaceX has been maintaining an impressive pace of launches, with

4:39 Speaker 1: several significant missions marking important milestones for the company. Their

4:44 Speaker 1: Falcon nine rocket just achieved its four hundredth orbital mission,

4:47 Speaker 1: setting a new record for the fastest booster turnaround time

4:51 Speaker 1: at just thirteen days and twelve hours, beating their previous

4:54 Speaker 1: record of twenty one days. The company has a busy

4:57 Speaker 1: schedule ahead, with four Falcon nine missions planned from all

5:00 Speaker 1: three of their active launch sites in the United States.

5:04 Speaker 1: These launches include multiple Starlink satellite deployments, continuing to expand

5:08 Speaker 1: their global Internet constellation, which now numbers over seven thousand,

5:13 Speaker 1: four hundred satellites in orbit. In particularly exciting news, NASA

5:18 Speaker 1: has selected SpaceX's powerful Falcon heavy rocket to launch the

5:22 Speaker 1: ambitious Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan in twenty twenty eight.

5:27 Speaker 1: This three point three five billion dollars mission will send

5:30 Speaker 1: a car sized rotorcraft to explore Titan's unique environment, which

5:34 Speaker 1: features lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons, making it the

5:38 Speaker 1: only celestial body besides Earth known to have stable surface liquids.

5:42 Speaker 1: The Dragonfly launch contract, valued at approximately two hundred and

5:45 Speaker 1: fifty seven million dollars, adds to SpaceX's growing portfolio of

5:50 Speaker 1: high profile NASA science missions. The Falcon Heavy has already

5:53 Speaker 1: successfully launched NASA's Psyche asteroid probe and the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

5:59 Speaker 1: After its launch and July twenty twenty eight, Dragonfly will

6:02 Speaker 1: spend six years traveling to Titan, where it will investigate

6:05 Speaker 1: the Moon's potential to support life and study its intriguing

6:08 Speaker 1: prebiotic chemistry. The Falcon Heavy continues to prove itself as

6:13 Speaker 1: a reliable vehicle for NASA's most ambitious missions, currently standing

6:17 Speaker 1: as the second most powerful operational rocket after NASA's Space

6:21 Speaker 1: Launch System. With eleven successful launches under its belt, including

6:25 Speaker 1: the recent Europa Clipper mission, SpaceX's heavy lift vehicle has

6:29 Speaker 1: become a cornerstone for complex deep space exploration missions. Next,

6:34 Speaker 1: exciting developments are taking shape in the commercial lunar exploration sector,

6:39 Speaker 1: with Firefly Aerospace announcing a major milestone for their Blue

6:43 Speaker 1: Ghost lunar lander. The spacecraft has successfully completed its rigorous

6:47 Speaker 1: environmental testing phase, clearing the way for its upcoming mission

6:51 Speaker 1: to the Moon. As part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload

6:54 Speaker 1: Services initiative. The testing, which wrapped up at NASA's Jet

6:59 Speaker 1: Propulsion Laborage, put the lander through its paces in conditions

7:03 Speaker 1: designed to simulate both the journey through space and operations

7:06 Speaker 1: on the lunar surface. Using a specialized thermal vacuum chamber

7:11 Speaker 1: equipped with solar simulation capabilities, engineers subjected Blue Ghosts to

7:15 Speaker 1: the extreme temperature variations it will face during its mission.

7:19 Speaker 1: The lander also passed crucial tests for vibration resistance, acoustic performance,

7:25 Speaker 1: and electromagnetic compatibility. The successful completion of these tests has

7:29 Speaker 1: paved the way for the next phase of the mission.

7:32 Speaker 1: Blue Ghost is now scheduled to make its way to

7:34 Speaker 1: Cape Canaveral in mid December, where it will be prepared

7:37 Speaker 1: for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket. The launch

7:41 Speaker 1: window opens in mid January twenty twenty five, giving the

7:44 Speaker 1: team a six day opportunity to begin this ambitious lunar journey.

7:48 Speaker 1: Once launched, Blue Ghost will embark on a forty five

7:51 Speaker 1: day journey to the Moon, during which time the mission

7:54 Speaker 1: team will conduct comprehensive system checks and prepare the scientific payloads.

7:58 Speaker 1: The landing site is set for Mailrisium, where the spacecraft

8:01 Speaker 1: will operate for a full lunar day equivalent to fourteen

8:05 Speaker 1: Earth days. During this time, it will carry out various

8:09 Speaker 1: scientific experiments, including subsurface drilling, sample collection, and studies of

8:14 Speaker 1: lunar dust behavior. The mission, dubbed Ghostwriters in the Sky,

8:19 Speaker 1: represents a significant step forward in commercial lunar exploration and

8:23 Speaker 1: marks the first of three planned Firefly missions supporting NASA's

8:27 Speaker 1: broader Artemis campaign. This approximately sixty day mission will be

8:31 Speaker 1: managed from Firefly's Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas,

8:35 Speaker 1: helping to establish the foundation for a sustainable commercial presence

8:39 Speaker 1: on the Moon. Our understanding of the Milky Way has

8:43 Speaker 1: taken an interesting turn thanks to new research comparing our

8:46 Speaker 1: galaxy to one hundred and one of its cosmic cousins.

8:50 Speaker 1: While astronomers have long used our galaxy as a standard

8:53 Speaker 1: template for understanding galactic formation and evolution, it turns out

8:57 Speaker 1: the Milky Way might be more of an outlier than

8:59 Speaker 1: we previous thought. The findings come from the Saga Survey,

9:04 Speaker 1: which has been meticulously studying galaxies similar in mass to

9:08 Speaker 1: our own. One of the key differences they've discovered relates

9:12 Speaker 1: to our galaxies satellite systems. While the Milky Way has

9:16 Speaker 1: relatively few satellite galaxies actively forming stars, mainly just the

9:20 Speaker 1: large and small Magellanic clouds, other similar galaxies typically show

9:25 Speaker 1: much more active star formation in their satellite systems. The

9:29 Speaker 1: research also revealed that about a third of the studied

9:31 Speaker 1: galaxies have large satellite companions similar to our large Magellanic Cloud,

9:37 Speaker 1: and these systems tend to have more satellites overall than

9:40 Speaker 1: our Milky Way. This suggests our galaxy satellite system configuration

9:46 Speaker 1: is somewhat unusual compared to its peers. What makes this

9:50 Speaker 1: particularly intriguing is how it affects our understanding of galaxy

9:53 Speaker 1: formation and evolution. The Milky Way has long served as

9:57 Speaker 1: our primary laboratory for studying these processes, but if it's

10:01 Speaker 1: not as typical as we thought, we may need to

10:04 Speaker 1: readjust some of our theories and models. The findings also

10:07 Speaker 1: raise fascinating questions about dark matter's role and galaxy formation.

10:12 Speaker 1: Since galaxies form within massive dark matter halos, these differences

10:17 Speaker 1: between the Milky Way and its counterparts might hint at

10:20 Speaker 1: variations in how dark matter shapes galaxy evolution. This could

10:24 Speaker 1: have significant implications for our understanding of the Universe's structure

10:28 Speaker 1: and development. Well that's all for today's episode of Astronomy Daily.

10:34 Speaker 1: I want to thank you for joining me on this

10:35 Speaker 1: journey through the latest developments in space exploration and astronomical discoveries.

10:42 Speaker 1: If you'd like to stay up to date with all

10:43 Speaker 1: the latest space and astronomy news, please visit our website

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11:10 Speaker 1: is full of wonders and we'll be back tomorrow with

11:13 Speaker 1: more fascinating stories from the Cosmos. Until then, keep looking up.

11:17 Speaker 1: Sunday Star is so Star Star