Turbulent Times for SpaceX, a Monstrous Comet in the Oort Cloud, and Europe's Space Revival

0:00 Anna: Hey there space enthusiasts and welcome to

0:02 Astronomy Daily. I'm your host, Anna, and

0:05 I'm so glad you could join us today for

0:07 another journey through the cosmos. We've got

0:10 some really captivating stories lined up for

0:12 you this episode. We're going to dive into

0:14 some big news from SpaceX, talking about

0:17 their latest Starship developments which have

0:19 been quite, shall we say, explosive recently.

0:23 And then we'll shift gears to something truly

0:25 immense, a colossal Oort cloud comet

0:28 that's making its way through our solar

0:29 system. And we'll also touch on Europe's push

0:32 to reclaim its status as a space power. So

0:35 stay tuned for all that and more.

0:38 Alright, let's talk about SpaceX, shall we?

0:40 Because they've been in the news again, and

0:42 not for the reason they usually like to be

0:45 their newest Starship spacecraft. This

0:47 massive 171 foot tall vehicle

0:50 experienced an explosion on a test stand

0:53 at their Starbase site late last Wednesday

0:55 night. This happened as they were getting

0:58 ready to ignite its six Raptor engines for

1:00 what's called a static fire trial, which is a

1:03 pretty common pre launch test. Now, A day

1:06 later, SpaceX narrowed down the likely cause.

1:09 Initial analysis, they say, points to the

1:11 potential failure of a pressurised tank,

1:13 specifically what they call a copv, or

1:16 composite overwrapped pressure vessel. This

1:18 tank, which holds gaseous nitrogen and is

1:21 located in Starship's nosecone area. But

1:24 they're still doing a full data review. Good

1:26 news though, there were no reported injuries

1:28 from this explosion. All SpaceX personnel at

1:31 Starbase are safe and folks living around the

1:34 site near Brownsville shouldn't worry about

1:36 contamination. SpaceX has done

1:39 independent tests on materials inside

1:41 Starship and they've confirmed no chemical,

1:43 biological or toxicological risks.

1:47 Plus they're coordinating with local, state

1:48 and federal agencies on environmental and

1:51 safety impacts. Now, this incident

1:53 did cause some damage around the test stand

1:55 at their Massey site. Not the orbital launch

1:58 mount mind you, but still it ignited several

2:01 fires there, which are being assessed once

2:02 it's safe to approach. Obviously this

2:05 explosion is going to push back the timeline

2:07 for Starship's 10th flight test, which SpaceX

2:10 had hoped to launch by the end of this month.

2:13 It's not clear yet by how much, but it

2:15 definitely shifts things to the right, as

2:17 they say. This is also the latest in a

2:20 series of setbacks for the starship upper

2:22 stages. SpaceX actually lost the

2:25 vehicle on its last three flight tests, which

2:27 happened in January, March and May of this,

2:30 uh, year. The upper stage, or ship, as

2:33 they call it, has had a bit of A tough run.

2:36 Interestingly, the first stage, known as

2:38 Super Heavy, has had a much better track

2:41 record lately. For example, on flights 7

2:43 and 8, this huge booster successfully

2:46 returned to Starbase and was even caught by

2:49 the launch tower's chopstick arms, which is a

2:51 jaw dropping feat to watch. On Flight 8,

2:54 which launched on March 6, the Super Heavy

2:56 booster was successfully caught. But the

2:58 ship, the upper stage, it started to tumble

3:00 after several of its six Raptor engines

3:03 failed toward the end of its ascent burn.

3:05 SpaceX lost contact about nine minutes into

3:07 the flight, and it presumably detonated high

3:09 in the sky. This kind of mirrored Flight

3:12 seven, where they also lost ship at about the

3:14 same point. SpaceX traced that Flight 7

3:17 anomaly to what they described as a harmonic

3:20 response several times stronger in flight

3:21 than had been seen during testing, which

3:24 caused increased stress and propellant leaks,

3:26 leading to fires. They've since taken steps

3:29 to minimise recurrence, like conducting a

3:31 longer static fire test with Flight 8's ship

3:34 and making hardware changes to fuel lines and

3:36 propellant temperatures. They've even added

3:38 new vents and a purge system using gaseous

3:41 nitrogen to make the area more robust to

3:43 propellant leakage. In the long run,

3:46 SpaceX plans to bring both Super Heavy and

3:49 Ship back to Starbase for these launch tower

3:51 catches. Their vision is for this fully

3:54 reusable rocket to fly multiple times per

3:56 day, making Mars settlement, which is Elon

3:59 Musk's long held goal, economically

4:02 feasible. They've requested approval for 25

4:05 Starship launches from Starbase in

4:07 2025 alone. So despite these recent

4:10 challenges, they're still aiming high.

4:14 Okay, let's pivot now from rockets and

4:16 explosions to something a little more serene,

4:18 but still incredibly exciting. A truly

4:21 monstrous comet spotted way out in the outer

4:24 solar system. Astronomers have

4:26 recently completed a long range observation

4:29 of a comet named C 2014 UN

4:31 271 Bernardinelli Bernstein. And this

4:34 thing is just massive. It's actually one of

4:37 the largest Oort Cloud comets ever observed,

4:40 measuring a whopping 140 kilometres across.

4:43 For some context, Halley's Comet, which we

4:45 all know is only about 15 kilometres across.

4:48 So imagine something nearly 10 times that

4:50 size. This comet, UN

4:52 271, is currently pretty far from the sun,

4:56 about 16 and a half astronomical units away,

4:58 which makes it super tough to observe.

5:01 But astronomers have been using the powerful

5:03 Atacama Large Millimetre Submillimeter Array,

5:06 or alma, in Chile to keep an eye on it. And

5:09 what they're seeing is quite surprising for

5:11 something so far out there. They're watching

5:13 jets of carbon monoxide gas, erupting from

5:15 its nucleus. That's a really unexpected level

5:18 of activity for a comet that's so distant and

5:20 cold. The comet was actually

5:23 Discovered back in 2014 by astronomers Gary

5:25 Bernstein and Pedro Bernardinelli, who

5:28 spotted it as a faint fuzzy smudge in

5:30 archival images from the Dark Energy Survey.

5:33 Its slow movement immediately told them it

5:35 was far out in the solar system and therefore

5:38 quite large. This thing is on an incredibly

5:41 long journey. Its perihelion, which is its

5:44 closest approach to the sun, won't be until

5:46 January 2031. And even then

5:49 it'll still be 10.9 AU from the sun

5:52 just outside Saturn's orbit. It's on a

5:54 2.8 million year orbit inbound, and then a

5:57 4.6 million year orbit outbound heading

5:59 almost a light year away, about a fifth of

6:01 the way to Proxima Centauri, our nearest

6:03 star. The difference in its inbound and

6:06 outbound orbit, by the way, is is likely due

6:08 to interactions with planets when it's closer

6:10 to the Sun. Nathan Roth from NASA's

6:13 Goddard Space Flight Centre noted that these

6:15 measurements give us a look at how this

6:17 enormous icy world works and that they're

6:20 seeing explosive outgassing patterns that

6:23 raise new questions about how this comet will

6:25 evolve. Now, you might be wondering, is this

6:28 giant comet going to hit Earth? And

6:30 thankfully no. While a comet of this size is,

6:33 it's 12 times the size of the Chicxulub

6:35 impactor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Would

6:38 definitely be an extinction level event if it

6:41 came our way. UN271 isn't coming

6:43 anywhere near the inner solar system, so

6:46 breathe easy. It's a bit of a shame it won't

6:48 visit the inner solar system closer, because

6:51 it would put on an amazing show even bigger

6:53 than Comet Hale Bopp. But its appearance

6:56 really shows us just what might be lurking

6:58 out there in the remote icy realms of the

7:01 outer solar system and how active these

7:03 distant objects can be, which is pretty cool

7:06 from the distant icy realms of comets.

7:09 Let's zoom in a bit closer to Earth and

7:11 actually to the geopolitical arena of space.

7:14 French President Emmanuel Macron recently

7:16 made some pretty strong statements

7:18 emphasising that Europe really needs to re

7:20 establish itself as a global space power. And

7:23 he's particularly focused on the increasingly

7:26 competitive low Earth orbit or or LEO

7:28 satellite market. Macron was speaking at the

7:31 Paris Air show and he didn't mince words.

7:34 He warned that France, and by extension

7:36 Europe, risked being completely squeezed out

7:39 of this crucial LEO satellite constellation

7:42 market. He specifically called out players

7:44 like SpaceX who have as he put it

7:47 disrupted the market and also Amazon,

7:50 who's getting involved, plus China who's not

7:53 far behind. He said we all need to be very

7:55 clear headed about this situation. The

7:58 urgency here stems from growing geopolitical

8:00 tensions which are pushing countries to focus

8:03 on the independence of their satellite

8:05 infrastructure. Macron believes that relying

8:08 on non European constellations in low orbit

8:10 would be, and I quote, madness.

8:13 He really wants to see Europe, with France at

8:15 its core, become a space power once again. So

8:17 what's the plan? Well, he's calling for a

8:19 significant increase in collective

8:21 investment, both public and private. He also

8:23 suggested that non European partners like

8:26 those in the Gulf, India, Canada and Brazil

8:29 should team up with France. It's all about

8:31 building strong alliances and shared

8:33 solutions. As part of this push,

8:36 France has actually more than doubled its

8:38 stake in the satellite operator Utilsat,

8:41 making it the largest shareholder in a deal

8:43 worth about 1.35 billion euros.

8:46 Utilsat, which by the way merged

8:49 with the British firm OneWeb in 2023,

8:52 is now the world's second largest operator of

8:55 low earth orbit satellites, right behind

8:57 Starlink. So they're actively positioning

8:59 Eutelsat as a European alternative,

9:02 especially for companies and nations looking

9:03 for sovereign solutions and not wanting to

9:05 rely solely on Elon Musk's ventures.

9:08 Looking ahead, France also plans to organise

9:11 a major space Summit in early 2026.

9:14 The goal there is to really mobilise partners

9:16 globally, both public and private, to

9:19 push this vision forward. It really

9:21 highlights how critical this independent

9:23 space infrastructure is becoming, not just

9:25 for telecommunications and navigation, but

9:28 also for emergency response and even defence.

9:31 It's a big deal.

9:33 Speaking of global space efforts, the

9:35 European Space Agency, or esa, is

9:37 celebrating a pretty big milestone, their

9:40 first half century. To mark this occasion,

9:42 they've released a new publication called

9:44 Issei 50 Hallmark Achievements

9:47 Across 50 Years. And it really

9:50 highlights some incredibly pivotal moments.

9:52 From landing on a comet, which is just wild

9:54 to think about, to fostering Europe's space

9:56 industry, contributing a lab for the space

9:58 shuttle, and even implementing the world's

10:00 most precise satellite navigation system.

10:03 It's a huge retrospective. The that really

10:05 underscores ESA's crucial role in undertaking

10:08 ambitious projects that frankly would

10:11 just be too big for any single nation to

10:13 tackle alone. As uh, ESA Director General Jos

10:15 Aschbacher puts it, being an agency means

10:18 taking action to deliver results too big

10:21 and ambitious for any single nation. It

10:23 really is all about that collective power.

10:25 Kai Ua Schrogel, who was the agency

10:27 coordinator for the 50th anniversary,

10:30 actually mentioned that the biggest challenge

10:32 wasn't deciding what to include in the

10:34 publication, but actually what to leave out,

10:36 because ISSEI has achieved such an enormously

10:39 long list of remarkable milestones over the

10:41 years. So the book isn't just about the top

10:44 achievements, but truly hallmark ones,

10:47 showcasing technical miracles, historic

10:50 firsts, and honestly, just moments of

10:53 pure inspiration that highlight the broad

10:55 range of ESA's activities. It makes

10:58 you think about what a Europe without its

11:00 space agency would even look like. Director

11:02 General Aschbacher encourages readers to

11:05 imagine the wider universe would be a

11:07 much dimmer, less known place. Our

11:10 continent might have fewer native astronauts

11:12 or space scientists, and our

11:14 telecommunications, navigation, and even

11:17 weather forecasting could well be dependent

11:19 on foreign powers. So ESA's work

11:22 is critical for maintaining Europe's

11:24 independence and advancing its capabilities

11:26 in space. The 50 achievements

11:29 listed in this publication are actually

11:31 grouped according to the five strategic goals

11:33 of Issei's Strategy 2040,

11:36 which is their vision for the next 15 years.

11:39 So they're not just looking back, they're

11:41 treating these past results as baselines to

11:43 build upon for the future. The publication is

11:46 available as a PDF and I'll include a link in

11:49 the show Notes if you'd like to download a

11:51 copy.

11:53 That's all for this episode of Astronomy

11:55 Daily. Wow, we covered a lot of

11:58 ground today, didn't we? From the latest on

12:00 SpaceX's Starship and those ongoing

12:02 challenges they're facing to that truly

12:05 monstrous Oort Cloud comet just doing its

12:07 thing way out there, and even Europe's big

12:09 push for space independence. And let's not

12:11 Forget ise celebrating 50 years of incredible

12:14 achievements. Thank you so much for tuning in

12:17 and joining me. This has been Anna, your

12:19 host, and I really invite you to visit our

12:21 website at astronomydaily IO.

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12:51 off.