SpaceX Scrubs Launch, Mars Tracks Interstellar Visitor, and Roman Telescope's Game-Changing Potential

Avery: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, the podcast that

brings you the latest news from across the

cosmos. I'm Avery.

Anna: And I'm Anna. Uh, on the docket today, a,

uh, last minute launch scrub for SpaceX's

massive rideshare mission. A new way to track

interstellar visitors using data from Mars,

and a look at how NASA's upcoming Roman

telescope is already set to exceed

expectations.

Avery: Plus, we'll cover a Thanksgiving Day launch

to the International Space Station and a

successful flight for South Korea's home

grown Nuri rocket. Let's get right into it,

Anna.

Uh, what happened with SpaceX?

Anna: Well, it looks like a huge fleet of tiny

satellites will have to wait a little longer

to get into orbit. On Wednesday, SpaceX

scrubbed the launch of their Transporter 15

mission.

Avery: Oh, that's a shame. How close did they

get?

Anna: They were very close. The call came just

over 15 minutes before the planned liftoff

from Vandenberg Space Force Base in

California.

Avery: Any word on why? Technical issue?

Weather.

Anna: SpaceX hasn't disclosed a specific reason for

the delay, but during the live commentary, a

spokesperson emphasized their cautious

approach.

Avery: Right.

Anna: They said, and I'm quoting here, there are a

thousand ways that a launch can go wrong and

only one way that it can go right. So if the

team sees anything that looks even slightly

off, they'll stop the countdown.

Avery: That's a very good point. Better safe than

sorry, especially with a payload that large.

How many satellites were on board?

Anna: Again, A staggering 140

satellites. It's a rideshare mission, so it's

an eclectic mix of customers. For example,

Planet Labs has 36 of their small

SuperDev satellites on board, plus two of

their larger Pelican satellites.

Avery: Wow, that's a lot of eyes on Earth.

Anna: Exactly. The European Space Agency

also has a pair of satellites to monitor

Earth's water cycle. And there are dozens

more from companies and agencies all over the

world, from Taiwan to Italy. There's even

a from the company Varda, which launches

experiments that can return to Earth in re

entry capsules.

Avery: And this was on one of their veteran

boosters, wasn't it?

Anna: It was the first stage of this. Falcon 9

has already flown 29 times before.

The plan was and still is for it to land

on the drone ship. Of course I Still Love

youe in the Pacific to be prepped for its

30th flight.

Avery: Incredible. So when is the next attempt?

Anna: M the next launch opportunity is Friday,

November 28th at 1:19pm

Eastern Time. We'll be keeping our fingers

crossed for them.

Avery: 30 flights for a single booster is astounding

it really speaks to the maturity of their

reusability program.

You mentioned the company's cautious

approach. Is there any speculation on the

specific nature of the issue that caused a

scrub M? Was it related to the vehicle, the

payload, or ground systems?

Anna: SpaceX maintains a tight lid on the details

of these holds, but sources familiar with the

operation suggest it was likely a sensor

reading on the ground support equipment that

was trending out of its expected range. It

could be something as simple as a temperature

or pressure reading in a propellant line. The

automated countdown system is designed to

halt for any anomaly, no matter how small,

to give engineers time to evaluate the data.

It's a philosophy that has served them well.

Preventing potential failures.

Avery: That makes sense. And with a veteran booster

like B1062, which has 29 flights under

its belt, are there additional checks and

balances in place? I imagine there's a lot of

focus on potential metal fatigue or wear on

components that have been through dozens of

launch and landing cycles.

Anna: Absolutely. That's a huge part of the

refurbishment process. Between each flight,

the booster undergoes extensive non

destructive testing, including ultrasonic

and X ray inspections to check for

microscopic cracks in the structure and

welds. They also swap out high

wear components like engines and

grid fins on a regular schedule long

before they are expected to fail. Each

flight provides a wealth of data that refines

their understanding of the vehicle's life

cycle, allowing them to confidently push the

boundaries of what these reusable rockets can

do.

Avery: Absolutely. From keeping things on the ground

to tracking things flying through deep space.

Our next story is an Update about the third

interstellar object ever detected. Three

I ATLs.

Anna: Right. These are fascinating visitors

from beyond our solar system. The big

challenge is always figuring out where they

came from and where they're going.

Avery: And getting an accurate trajectory is key.

Astronomers just got a huge boost in that

department thanks to a very innovative

approach using data from a spacecraft

orbiting Mars.

Anna: Mars? You mean the ExoMars

Trace Gas Orbiter?

Avery: That's the one. Until October, we could

only track 3i atls from

Earth based telescopes. But as it flew past

Mars, the TGO and Mars Express

orbiters got to see it from a completely

different angle.

Anna: Ah. Uh, so they could triangulate its

position. That makes sense.

Avery: Exactly. And it was a huge success. By

combining the data from Mars with the

observations from Earth, they improved the

prediction of the comet's path by a factor of

10. This is actually the first time

data from a spacecraft orbiting another

planet has been used to do this.

Anna: That's a fantastic milestone.

So where is 3i atls now?

Avery: M. It just made its closest pass to The sun

on October 30 and is now blazing out of

the solar system at speeds up to 250,000

thousand kilometers per hour.

Anna: Wow. And it's not coming anywhere near

us, right?

Avery: Not at all. It'll pass Earth on December

19th at a very safe distance of

270 million kilometers.

That's almost twice the distance between the

Earth and the Sun. But this improved

trajectory means telescopes and other

spacecraft can now track it with much greater

accuracy to learn more about it.

Anna: And there's a bigger picture here too. This

isn't just about this one object. This

entire exercise serves served as a valuable

test for planetary defense.

Avery: A, uh, kind of rehearsal.

Anna: Yes. And the implications of this improved

accuracy are significant. A, uh, more

precise trajectory allows astronomers

to more confidently trace the object's path

backward in time, helping to narrow down its

potential origin among the nearby stars.

It's like cosmic detective work trying to

find its home address. This also allows for

much more efficient follow up observations

from other telescopes, including space based

assets like the James Webb Space Telescope,

which can now be pointed with greater

certainty.

Avery: And what are they hoping to find with those

powerful telescopes? Is there Anything

particularly unusual about 3i

ATLAS composition compared to the

comets born in our own solar system?

Anna: That is the million dollar question. So

far from a distance, it appears to be a

fairly typical water ice rich comet.

But that in itself is a profound

discovery. It suggests that the chemical

makeup of planet forming disks might be quite

similar across the galaxy. The detailed

spectroscopic analysis that will now be

possible will break down the light from its

coma to identify the specific ratios

of different ices, organic molecules and

dust. This is our only way of

directly sampling the raw ingredients from

another solar system.

Avery: It's great to see these capabilities being

tested and proven.

All right. Moving from the solar system to

the stars themselves. Our next story is

about a telescope that hasn't even launched

yet.

Anna: You must be talking about NASA's Nancy Grace

Roman Space Telescope. It's scheduled for

launch between 2026 and 2027,

but it's already making waves.

Avery: I know it's designed to study dark matter and

dark energy, but new findings suggest it's

going to do much more, especially when it

comes to the that host exoplanets.

Anna: That's right. According to a new paper in the

Astrophysical Journal, Roman's capabilities

in astroseismology could be a game changer.

Avery: Astroseismology, that's the study

of starquakes, right? The seismic waves that

ripple across the star's surface precisely.

Anna: And Roman is uniquely equipped for it.

Its field of view is 100 times

broader than Hubble's. This will allow it

to observe a staggering number of stars in

incredible detail and detect those subtle

seismic waves on over

300,000 Red Giants.

Avery: And by studying those waves, we can learn

about the star's interior.

Anna: Mhm. We can determine its mass, size

and age with unprecedented accuracy.

As the study's leader Trevor Weiss put it,

that information will give us a lot of

insight on exoplanets themselves.

Understanding the host star is crucial to

understanding its planets, their potential

for habitability, and the future of that

planetary system.

Avery: This ties into one of Roman's main missions,

right? The Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey.

Anna: It does. That survey will use gravitational

microlensing to find exoplanets. But

this added astroseismic data means we'll get

a complete picture of not just the planets,

but the entire system. And since the

galactic bulge contains some of the oldest

stars in our galaxy, studying them will also

give us profound insights into our galaxy's

history and evolution.

Avery: So Roman will basically be a time machine

looking back at the history of star formation

in our galaxy.

Anna: What an incredible instrument it really is.

The data it collects will be the largest

asteroseismic data set ever compiled.

Avery: Okay, let's bring it back closer to home. For

our final stories of the day. We have a crew

launch and the successful rocket flight to

cover.

First up, a very timely trip to the

International Space Station.

Anna: That's right, one NASA astronaut and two

Roscosmos cosmonauts are counting down to

liftoff on Thanksgiving Day from the Baikonur

Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They're about to

begin an eight month mission aboard the

station. Who's flying? NASA astronaut

Chris Williams along with Roscosmos

cosmonauts Sergey Kud Sverchkov

and Sergei Mikayev. Their

Soyuz MS.M28 spacecraft

is set to launch at 4:27am M.

Eastern Time on Thursday. And it's a quick

trip, right? Very quick. They'll orbit Earth

just twice before docking with the raspet

module at 7:38am um, Eastern,

just over three hours after launch, they'll

expand the Expedition 73 crew from

seven to 10 members.

Avery: What a way to spend Thanksgiving.

And while they're getting ready to launch,

another country just had a big success.

Anna: Yes. South Korea's homegrown Nuri

rocket has flown for the first fourth time.

And it was another success. The rocket lifted

off from the narrow space center on November

26th.

Avery: That's great news for their space program.

What was the payload?

Anna: The main payload was an Earth observation

satellite called Cass

503, which will study

auroras and another atmospheric phenomenon

called airglow. It also carried a dozen

smaller rideshare cubesats for various

companies and research institutions.

Avery: This launch was significant for a couple of

other reasons, too.

Anna: Wasn't MHM was the first launch since the

establishment of the Korea Aerospace

Administration, or casa, back in May.

It was also the first time that a private

system integration company was in charge of

the rocket's production and assembly, marking

a big step towards commercialization for

South Korea's launch industry.

Avery: Fantastic to see that progress.

And that brings us to the end of another busy

day in space news.

Anna: From launch scrubs on Earth to interstellar

tracking from Mars, and a successful flight

for South Korea, it's been quite the day.

Thanks so much for tuning in to Astronomy

Daily.

Avery: Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your

podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Until

next time. I'm, um, Avery.

Anna: And I'm Anna.

Avery: Keep looking up.

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