S03E95: Near-Earth Asteroids & SpaceX's Ambitious Crewed Mission

[00:00:00] Welcome again to Astronomy Daily, this is Steve, it is the 8th of July 2024. That's right all the way from down under Australia, we're back for another episode so welcome aboard and we've got a couple of really interesting stories for you today one that just kind of

[00:00:25] chills me to the bone but we'll have a look at that later. There was a story of some Near-Earth Asteroids that came flying by, well have a look at that. Did you know that Space War

[00:00:37] 1 is underway? That's interesting news, there's a bit of a science fiction twist to that one. India has been testing a space plane and it looks fantastic and there's a lot of news coming

[00:00:50] out of SpaceX and they seem to be going streets ahead of everybody else. Ariane 6 has got a heavy lift rocket that's ready to go and some great news for Skywatchers, the Alpha Capricornid

[00:01:06] is coming up later in the week. I think Halley's got some news, what's your advice for everybody Halley? Keep your eyes on the skies. That's what we want to hear, how about the news then, let's get on with it.

[00:01:24] On July 9th, Europe's new Ariane 6 heavy lift rocket is set to launch for the first time on July 9th after a series of delays. The European Space Agency's ESA, Ariane 6 rocket, developed by Ariane Group, will lift off from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana.

[00:01:43] The three-hour launch window opens at 2pm ET or 18 o'clock GMT. This just in from SpaceX. After a successful test flight in June where SpaceX managed to soft land both Starship and its super heavy booster in the ocean, the company is targeting July for the mega rocket's

[00:02:05] next launch. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has stated IFT 5 will attempt to catch Starship's first stage booster using the launch tower's chopstick arms, a first for the rocket as its development evolves toward reusability. And still with SpaceX. SpaceX's most ambitious crewed mission

[00:02:27] to date is gearing up to launch this summer. It will include the company's first spacewalk capable spacesuits and a crew dragon capsule with an interior modified for vacuum exposure. Polaris Dawn is the first of three anticipated missions in the Polaris program,

[00:02:42] funded by billionaire philanthropist Jared Isaacman. The endeavor is a follow-up to SpaceX's Inspiration 4 launch that occurred 2021, which flew Isaacman and three other private citizens on the first all-civilian flight to space. On July 21, July's full moon signals its rotation back to opposite side of the sun from

[00:03:05] Earth and as such is fully illuminated. If you were standing on the moon at the right longitude it would be noontime, the sun would be directly overhead at the moon's equator and as high as it ever gets in the sky as one moves north or south.

[00:03:20] Lunar days are about 14 days long as the moon always keeps the same face towards Earth. A full moon means that the moon is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth and as such is fully

[00:03:31] illuminated. If you were standing on the moon at the right longitude it would be noontime, the sun would be directly overhead at the moon's equator and as high as it ever gets in the sky

[00:03:42] as one moves north or south. Lunar days are about 14 days long as the moon always keeps the same face towards Earth. And later this month between July 30 and 31, though few in number, the Alpha Capricornids frequently produce slow, bright yellow,

[00:04:01] fireball class meteors that can be quite spectacular. They can be especially stunning for northern observers because of their long trails owing to their low radiant elevation. This year they will last from July 3 to August 15th with a peak during the nights of July

[00:04:17] 30th and 31st. And finally this month, the news we are all on the edge of our seats about, except me because I don't sit. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return to Earth aboard Boeing Starliner to wrap up the spacecraft's crew flight test. Starliner

[00:04:37] was delayed again Friday, June 21 in finishing its first international space station ISS mission with astronauts. Extra testing still remains ahead of undocking, team officials emphasized, Starliner experienced helium leaks and thruster issues that extended its crew flight test

[00:04:56] mission from an originally planned 10 days after launching June 5th. NASA and Boeing have not yet announced a return date for Starliner saying only it will happen after a July 2 spacewalk. But there is one more piece of important news. Okay, what might that be, Hallie?

[00:05:15] Happy birthday to you my favourite human. Oh well that's a surprise thank you Hallie, I really appreciate that. I hear you're quite old. Well um... Like cranky old. Well maybe. Really? Not really. Good to hear. You silly girl. Hope you had a nice birthday.

[00:05:34] Yes I got together with my mum and dad and my sister and listeners will know that my brother is Andrew Dunkley from Space Nuts and yes we'll get together another time Andrew but it was a lovely day. Thanks Hallie, thanks everybody.

[00:05:48] That's all I have so the mic is all yours. Thank you for joining us for this Monday edition of Astronomy Daily where we offer just a few stories from the now famous Astronomy Daily newsletter which you can

[00:06:08] receive in your email every day just like Hallie and I do. And to do that just visit our URL astronomydaily.io and place your email address in the slot provided just like that you'll be receiving all the latest news about science, space science

[00:06:24] and astronomy from around the world as it's happening. And not only that you can interact with us by visiting at Astro Daily Pod on X or at our new Facebook page which is of course Astronomy Daily on Facebook. See you there.

[00:06:52] Yes that's good advice to go and put your email address in the slot provided as I mentioned before and you will not miss out on all the space science news and astronomy news that's coming down the pipe from all quarters of the earth.

[00:07:08] Fantastic stuff and as I mentioned at the top of the show there's a fantastic story coming up now about the near-earth asteroids that came very close to earth enabling researchers to observe them very closely. NASA's Goldstone Planetary Radar System recently recorded two near-earth asteroids

[00:07:29] 2024 MK and 2011 UL21 flying by our planet. Perhaps a tad alarming one was only detected 13 days before it safely bypassed earth but scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California assured it never posed a threat. Still the imagery they were able to collect has been extremely informative.

[00:07:53] There was no risk of either near-earth object impacting our planet but the radar observations taking during these two close approaches will provide valuable practice for planetary defense as well as information about their sizes, orbits, rotations, surface

[00:08:08] details and clues as to their composition and formation the team wrote in a press release. The Goldstone radar system is located in the desert near Basto California with its 70 meter long and fully steerable antenna, the only steerable radar in the world for high resolution ranging and imaging.

[00:08:27] It provides full sky coverage and has been used to investigate objects of interest within our solar system for the past 30 years. During that time it has managed to gather invaluable information about other planets from Mercury to Saturn and has supported numerous exploratory missions such as the Mars

[00:08:46] Exploration Rovers Cassini Saturn Expedition and the Hayabusa Asteroid Explorers, the Soho Sunwatching Probe Recovery, the Lunar Prospector and the Venus Studying Magellan Endeavour also benefited. As was seen this week it's also been used to track and study near-earth asteroids helping to

[00:09:05] prevent potential impact hazards and identify targets for future exploration missions. Radar is a powerful tool for studying asteroid properties and orbits. The ground based station transmits radio waves to the asteroids then receives back reflected signals that scientists can use to glean relevant information.

[00:09:27] If an object's echo is strong enough radar imaging can achieve spatial resolution to identify the features as fine as 10 meters in size. On June 27 the radar system tracked the asteroid 2011 UL21 as it made its way past earth at a distance of 4.1 million miles or 6.6 million kilometers.

[00:09:50] As its name hints the asteroid has been known to NASA scientists since 2011, having been discovered during the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona. About a mile wide or 1.6 kilometers this object was the first to come close enough

[00:10:06] to be imaged by an earth-planted radar allowing scientists to determine its shape is roughly spherical and that it is accompanied by its own moon that orbits at a distance of about 1.9 miles or 3 kilometers from the asteroid.

[00:10:21] It is thought about two-thirds of asteroids of this size are binary systems and their discovery is particularly important because we can use measurements of their relative positions to estimate their mutual orbits, masses and densities which provide key information about how they may have been formed, said Lance Benner,

[00:10:41] principal scientist at JPL who helped lead the observations. While NASA scientists say that due to its size, 2011 UL21 has been classified as potentially hazardous. Calculations of the asteroid's orbit indicate it won't pose any real threat in the near future. Then just two days later another asteroid appeared,

[00:11:03] the same team observed asteroid 2024 MK passing our planet at a distance of only 184,000 miles or 295,000 kilometers, slightly more than three-quarters of the distance between the moon and the earth. Closer approaches like this are relatively rare according to the team

[00:11:24] but provide valuable insights that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. This was an extraordinary opportunity to investigate the physical properties and obtain detailed images of a near-earth asteroid, said Benner. 2024 MK was first identified on June 16

[00:11:41] by the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System or ATLAS at Sutherland Observance Station in South Africa. Its orbit was changed by Earth's gravity as it passed by, reducing its 3.3 year orbital period around the Sun by about 24 days, the team stated in the release.

[00:12:01] On June 29 the scientists again transmitted radio waves to 2024 MK and this time produced a detailed image of the asteroid's surface revealing concavities, ridges and boulders about 30 feet or 10 meters wide they wrote. About 500 feet or 150 meters wide this

[00:12:21] asteroid appears to be elongated and angular with prominent flat and rounded regions, although it too is classified as potentially hazardous. Calculations of its future motion show that it does not pose a threat to our planet for the foreseeable future.

[00:12:40] India has recently completed a series of tests aimed at demonstrating homegrown technology for autonomously landing its reusable launch vehicle, an agency official said in a recent news release. The milestone gets the country another step closer to its goal of operating such a vehicle

[00:13:00] end-to-end within this decade, the technology for which can be adapted to its fleet of launch vehicles for multiple uses across missions in a more cost-effective manner. The latest demonstration which was the third and final RLV landing experiment was carried out by the Indian

[00:13:17] Space Research Organisation on June 23 this year in a government-owned outdoor testing facility in Karnataka in southern India. The space plane named Pushback executed a precise horizontal landing showcasing advanced autonomous capabilities under challenging conditions,

[00:13:36] the space agency said in a post on X, with objectives accomplished ISRO embarks to fly the craft into space for an autonomous return. The final test was led by the Kerala-based Vikram Cerroby Space Centre which in 2020 was directed to boost its launch vehicle development

[00:13:57] to achieve full reusability in this decade. From observations of the first two landing tests last year's RLV LEX-1 and LEX-2 that was conducted in March, ISRO said it strengthened Pushback's mechanical structures and landing gear so that the space plane could tolerate

[00:14:16] higher landing speeds. The final test on June 23 tested the vehicle's landing capabilities under more challenging conditions compared to previous tests including harsher wind they said. As part of the test, the 21-foot long 6.5-metre space plane was flown by a Chinook helicopter

[00:14:33] piloted by the Indian Air Force to about 2.8 miles or 4.5 kilometers above the surface and released midair. To test the plane's landing technology the vehicle was intentionally released 1,640 feet or 500 metres off-center from the runway below and the plane then

[00:14:53] automatically manoeuvred itself to approach the runway and executed an accurate touchdown at the centre of the runway. The inbuilt systems performed their roles perfectly and ensured that the plane could make its third consecutive landing on the runway centreline said Anand Krishna

[00:15:11] Nair, an aerospace engineer and director of VSSC. From an initial 500 meters distance from the runway centreline the plane was finally at 11 centimetres or 0.1 metre from the runway centreline. The vehicle used its parachute to reduce its speed from nearly 200 miles per hour or 322

[00:15:31] kilometres per hour to about 62 kilometres per hour or 104 kilometres per hour and later deployed its brakes to decelerate and come to a stop. This way the test simulated approach and landing conditions similar to that of a vehicle re-entering Earth's atmosphere from a trip

[00:15:48] to outer space said ISRO. The vehicle's body and flight systems were as is from the second landing test that was carried out in March which shows ISRO's strong ability to design flight systems that can be reused for multiple missions said Girish Ligana, a aerospace and

[00:16:06] political analyst based in Bengaluru. Developing technology essential for such a reusable launch vehicle is one of the most technologically challenging endeavours of ISRO the space agency had previously said. With the success of the final landing test of the space plane

[00:16:24] the agency has taken another significant step toward realising this goal. You're listening to Astrali Dhani, the podcast with your host Steve Dacqually. Have you ever wondered if Star Wars might be the real thing? Well, wars in space are no longer

[00:16:47] just science fiction, in fact Space War One has been raging for more than two years with no quick end in sight. This isn't the kind of conflict that involves X-wing fighters or space marines instead it's a battle over how satellites are being used to collect imagery,

[00:17:03] identify military targets and facilitate communications in the war between Ukraine and Russia. As I look at Ukraine in the early months it was obvious to me this is the first space wars as David Ignatius a journalist who lives a double life as a foreign affairs columnist

[00:17:22] for the Washington Post and a spy thriller novelist. In the latest episode of fiction science podcast Ignatius delves into the potential national security threats posed by satellite based warfare and how he wove those threats into a plot threads of a new novel

[00:17:44] entitled Phantom Orbit sounds wonderful. The tale lays out a scenario in which Space War One tips toward a potential catastrophic space war two why not when I have one when you can have two at half the price Ignatius shies away from calling the novel science fiction.

[00:18:05] All of my books really are drawn from my reporting he says I begin with real world subjects that interest me and if they seem bigger and more important than I can express in a newspaper column of 800 or 1200 words then I think maybe that might be a novel.

[00:18:23] The real world reporting behind Phantom Orbit began in 2017 when Ignatius became intrigued by calls for the creation of the US Space Force. Oh now should I play the Space Force music now? Over the years that followed he mapped out a spy novel plot with a Russian satellite

[00:18:42] researcher as one of the main characters and made plans for a research trip to Russia's industrial heartland. But guess what before he could take that trip the war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022 and Russia put Ignatius on its list of banned travelers my journalist friends were envious

[00:19:02] he recalls. Ignatius ended up stealing an assortment of plot points from the real life developments in the war in Ukraine for example how Russia jammed Visats satellite internet network at the start of its offensive and how SpaceX's Starlink network stepped into the breach to

[00:19:21] help Ukraine fight back and how commercial satellite imagery contributed to Ukraine's battlefield awareness. In response the Russians have escalated the space-based battle by interfering with Starlink scrambling satellites navigation systems and camouflaging its military

[00:19:40] assets to hide them from satellite sensors. If space war one gets hotter Ignatius worries that Russia may resort to measures that bring down entire satellite constellations we should be very scared about the vulnerability of space systems he says for more than two decades policymakers have

[00:20:01] warned about the potential for space pearl harbour a sneak attack on America's orbital assets. Ignatius points to US Republican Mike Turner's recent warning about the potential for Russia to use nuclear weapons in space such weapons might destroy enough satellites to create a crippling

[00:20:19] debris field in orbit or shut down electronics with an electromagnetic pulse. The Russians understand their vulnerability in space they understand the United States and its commercial companies would suffer asymmetric damage we'd suffer a lot more than Russia or China Ignatius

[00:20:38] says so they're willing to go forward with this planning and it ought to scare the heck out of people. So what's to be done? What I would say first is that our existing systems in space

[00:20:51] need to be hardened Ignatius says they need to be less vulnerable to all the mischief that an adversary could attempt the US space force is already well into its effort to make satellite networks more resilient and more replaceable in the event of an attack that's what its

[00:21:10] tactically responsive space initiative is all about millions of dollars are being paid out to the commercial ventures to demonstrate how they could help the US military send up fresh assets to support existing networks in a matter of days if not hours. One rapid response demonstration

[00:21:28] mission known as Victus NOx was conducted successfully last year with Firefly Aerospace and Millennium Space Systems serving as the Space Force's commercial partners another demonstration Victus Hayes is currently being readied by Rocket Lab and True Anomaly in all a

[00:21:48] dozen commercial launch providers are on the Space Force's list for future rapid response satellite missions. The Space Force is even supporting the development of a new space station architecture such as the orbital system being built by Gravitics a Seattle area startup

[00:22:08] keeping track of what's going on in orbit also known as space domain awareness is another must have for ensuring America's space security with Pentagon support True Anomaly Starfish Space and Northrop Grumman's space logistics subsidiary are working on spacecraft

[00:22:28] that could approach other satellites in orbit to inspect them refuel them boost them into different orbits or deorbit them safely in the fiction science podcast Ignatius hints that there may be bigger things to come I was just hearing about a company that's going to radically change

[00:22:47] the way space and other big weapons systems are built he says it will revolutionize how weapons are built the Russians and the Chinese just don't have anything remotely like that kind

[00:22:59] of creativity so there are a lot of reasons that I think people should be worried but that's a reason people should be reassured and just like that another episode comes to a flying halt thanks for

[00:23:19] joining us again on astronomy daily today it's been great having you and I hope you'll join us again next week for another episode and you weren't a cranky old man once in the whole

[00:23:28] show no I wasn't I was very well behaved see you next week old man she can't help it she's only 18 months old I'm Steve and that was Hallie and we'll see you bye for now