Space Age 2.0: Inflatable Habitats and Moon Landers | S03E04

Welcome again to Astronomy Daily. I'm Steve Dunkley, your host. It is the twenty ninth of January two thousand and twenty four, the podcast to be a whole Steve dunk Oh, that's right, it's the second last day of January. I know I keep going on about it, but we are really ripping through twenty twenty four, aren't we? And coming up in today's episode on Astronomy Daily from the Astronomy Daily news letter, which you can get. We'll get into that a little bit later on, a couple of great stories or interesting stories that have come across our desk. They're destroying a new kind of space habitat, and we've got a video for you to look at. A pop across to the Space Nuts podcast group or to YouTube and check that out. A troubled Japanese lander on the news are on the Moon, which you may have seen already, has been seen from moon orbit. SpaceX is preparing to launch something and a new asteroid seen on approach was tracked hunted and it was found. And you might be wondering, as Andrew and Fred talked about in Space Nuts the other night, how can we still hear if it hit the Earth. Well, it's a good question. But anyway, it's a great story and we'll get into that as well as the big story that everyone in astronomy, space and space science is talking about. Of course, it's our little friend on Mars. We'll get into that, won't we. Halle. Yes, it's been a long road for Ingenuity, but that last flight seemed to hop too far this time. But Halle, isn't this one of those great stories of something that just seems to have exceeded all expectations. Like you mentioned last week with the Voyager spacecraft, Ingenuity just kept on going even when things went wrong. We were surprised every time. Did you get the feeling that it would just keep going? Well, I'll admit to hoping for that, Halle. It is one of my favorite missions, and it does seem to elicit some inspiration, which is strange and weird considering it's just a machine. But we humans have a tendency to thropomorphized machines and look for inspiration in strange places that you do, and don't forget who it is you are talking to. Oh Rod, of course you're still my favorite. II Hallie. Okay, let's do the news straight off the Astronomy Daily newsletter. Okay, let's have it, Helly. A NASA orbiter caught sight of Japan's SLIM moonlander on the lunar surface after its historic touchdown. SLIM, or, the smart lander for investigating Moon, is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JACKSA. It touched down on the Moon in a precision landing on January nineteenth, making Japan the fifth country to make a soft landing on the lunar surface, behind India, China, the United States, and Russia, then the Soviet Union. From its orbit fifty miles eighty kilometers above the Moon's surface, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO was able to see SLIM resting at it its landing site. Bright streaks on the left side of the image are rocky material ejected from the nearby, relatively young Schioli Crater. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which manages LARRO, wrote in a statement SLIM accomplished its main goal of landing at a chosen site with near pinpoint accuracy, touching down within three hundred and twenty eight feet one hundred meters of its target. Despite ending up upside down dew to an engine failure during descent. Because of its orientation, SLIM is unable to use its solar panels to generate electricity, meaning the probe is relying fully on its battery. On Monday, January twenty first, the lander's battery dipped to twelve percent capacity, triggering a power down. To avoid being unable to restart for a recovery operation due to over discharge, SLIM team members stated on X. Nevertheless, JACKSA scientists are hopeful that if sunlight shines on the lander from the lunar west, Slim's solar panels might be able to absorb enough sunshine to get generate power and recover. It's not all bad news, though. In addition to sticking its landing, SLIM was able to deploy two mini rovers it carried to the Moon, called EV one Lunar Excursion Vehicle one and a Levi two. Both are operating as planned, and the ball like Allevik two, was even able to snap a picture of its upside down. Host. SpaceX is preparing to launch a Northrop Grumman Signas spacecraft on its flagship Falcon nine rocket for the first time next week. The launch of the n G twenty re supply mission is targeted for no earlier than Tuesday, at January thirtieth, at twelve oh seven pm Eastern Standard time seventeen oh seven GMT. As its name implies, this is the twentieth cargo flight that Northrop Grumman has sent to the International Space Station ISS, but the first time that the company's Signus cargo craft has been sent to the orbital lab atop a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket. During a pre flight teleconference on Friday, January tie twenty six, William jursten Mayer, vice President of built and Flight Reliability at SpaceX, said that the Falcon nine's payload firing, the shell that surrounds and protects a spacecraft during ascent while atop a rocket, had to be modified to add a hatch measuring five feet by four feet one point five m by one point two m. The hatch gives ground crews the ability to add extra late load of cargo before launch, including special treats like ice cream for the astronauts aboard the space station, Jurston Mayor said. Jurston Mayor added that the complication of addition of the hatch contributed to the decision to delay the launch one day to January thirtieth. That's because the area inside that hatch must be environmentally controlled, since any contamination on Signus's docking hardware could affect how well it berths at the iss So that's a pretty intense activity. Jurston Mayor said, this will be the first time we've done that. It's taken a lot of modifications on our part to get this hardware ready to go fly. Observations from amateur and professional astronomers made it possible for NASA to predict the precise time and landing location of an asteroid discovered less than three hours in advance. Now hunters are turning up fragments from the fall like an unexpected guest crashing a party. A meter size three point three foot asteroids slammed into Earth's atmosphere over Germany early on January twenty first, producing a spectacular fireball. What made this event even more remarkable was that the asteroid, designated twenty twenty four b X one, had been discovered less than three hours before impact. Christian Sarnewsky at Conkly Observatory's Piscastetto Mountain Station in Hungary first recorded the asteroid when it was still just an eighteenth magnitude blip in the constellation links. Sarnewsky reported his observations to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, and they were then automatically posted to the Near Earth Object Confirmation Page NEOK. Other observations began to come in after three reports to the page. Over the next twenty seven minutes, NASA's SCOUT Hazard Assessment Impact system automatically flagged the new object as a potential impactor. SCOUT continually monitors me off and calculates an object's possible trajectory and chances of colliding with Earth. With an impact now a real possibility, the call went out for follow up observations. European astronomers quickly swung their telescopes after the fast moving asteroid and provided additional positions over the next hour. Just seventy minutes after Sarnewsky's discovery, SCOUT reported a one hundred percent probability of impact and narrowed down the fall location to sixty kilometers thirty seven miles west of Berlin, estimating an impact time of zero thirty three Universal time. January twenty first, social media lit up with the news. Incredibly, those who got wind of the alert had only to walk outside at the appointed time to witness the asteroid's crackling, tumultuous end, exactly when and where Scout had predicted. As it spalled to pieces in the atmosphere, The fireball was visible from as far away as Slovakia. According to reports in the American meteor Society's Fireball Log. Observers described the meteoroid's fragmentation, but none reported any accompanying sounds. This might have indicated that it completely disintegrated, with no fragments surviving the fiery plunge. Happily, that turned out to not be true. On Thursday, January twenty fifth, after three days of scouring the predicted fal site west of Berlin for Polish meteorite hunters successfully recovered meteorite fragments. The asteroid twenty twenty four BX one was Sarnewsky's third pre impact asteroid discovery and only the eight time an asteroid has been found and successfully predicted to collide with Earth. Steve, this is a story I know you never wanted to happen. I know, and it's weird to get sad and cut up a bad little machine on another planet. But there you go. We z weed mob. You certainly are, but it's nice to know you still care. Oh yes, Oh, what made personally or humans in general? Just you? Oh. After nearly three years, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, the first spacecraft to undertake a powered flight on another world, has ended its mission. Officials at the agency confirmed on January twenty fifth that the history making quad copter has sustained damage to one of its rotor blades and is no longer capable of flying. While we knew this day was inevitable, it doesn't make it any easier, said Lori Glaze, NASA's Planetary Science Division director, during a news conference on the status of the quad copter. Many on the Ingenuity team are already thinking back fondly on the mission's many accomplishments. For a helicopter that's overperformed the way that this has, I don't think you can really mourn it and be sad, says Havard fayer Grip, the mission's chief pilot and an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Ingenuity hitched along with NASA's car sized rover Perseverance as the rover landed on Mars in February twenty twenty one. A few months later, the small helicopter spun its rotor blades, climbed into the thin Martian atmosphere, rose to a height of three meters, and took a picture of Perseverance during its first test flight on April nineteenth, twenty twenty one. That's right, Ingenuity lifted into the atmosphere on Mars for the first time on April nineteen, twenty twenty one, proving that flight was in fact possible on another planet. Great moment. As you know, Halley, I'm a huge fan of that little craft, and I've been following its exploits from the start of the mission. I know I never hear the end of it Mars. This Ingenuity that jealous much Helly maybe well Hally. The flying robot vastly outperformed its initial expectations, which was to fly a handful of times over thirty days. The idea was to demonstrate flight was possible on Mars and then ground itself. Ingenuity instead undertook a total of seventy two flights on traveling fourteen times further than planned and logging more than two hours of total flight time. Now two hours might not seem like a particularly greaterment achievement for a flying machine these days, but in context, Ingenuity is an autonomous flying robot that receives instructions from its management team on a completely different planet. And believe me when I say that's a sentence I never thought I would ever say out loud. That wasn't actually science fiction. Yes, everything about that is astounding when you think about it. During its travels, the helicopter did far more than fly. It became part of the science mission. Ingenuity made three de elevation maps of its surroundings when places that Perseverance couldn't get to, and scouted potential sites for the rovers' scientific observations. And having an aerial recon component for Perseverance turned out to be an invaluable addition on several occasions to help the team plot the rover's path across the Martian surface. But that's not all. Ingenuity helped scientists discover that, unlike Earth, the speed of sound in Mars's atmosphere depends on bitch, likely due to its carbon diox side rich nature. It also demonstrated the ability to autonomously choose landing sites, clean itself after dust storms, and snap tons of amazing photographs of the Martian landscape, often including its own shadow. During the helicopter's seventieth flight in December, near the rim of the Jesuro Crater, the robot reached an area with sandy, almost featureless terrain, posing a bit of a challenge for its autonomous navigation system, which uses features such as rocks to know where it is and how to get around. On its next journey, the helicopter ran out of features to track and executed an emergency landing. That's when we realized that this was more challenging to navigate than we thought, the spokesman said. The intent for its subsequent flight was to rise a bit in the air, hover over its terrain, and get a fix on its location. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and on January nineteen, NASA reported that the Ingenuity helicopter briefly lost communications with Perseverance rover as it was descending during its seventy second flight. While contact was soon restored, the small helicopter had suffered damage from the fall that unfortunately has permanently grounded it while performing that emergency landing. During flight seventy two, one or more of the Ingenuity's rotor blades sustained damage, and the helicopter is no longer capable of flight. NASAA posted photographs of the shadow of the rotor blade online, clearly showing the damage to the end of one of the blades. According to NASA, the blade is no longer serviceable and the craft can no longer fly now, Hallie, could you imagine how the team must have felt knowing that their amazing little craft was damaged and grounded. Steve. The report says there was a moment of sadness when a team first received images that confirmed damage to the helicopter. Teddysnido's Ingenuities project manager said in the news brief, but that was very quickly replaced with happiness and pride and a feeling of celebration for what we've pulled off. That's the end of a fine mission, isn't it, Steve? True enough, Halle, that little helicopter and its Earth team did a fine job. Indeed, it's only a matter of time before Engineuity's replacements venture out into space to continue the work that we humans aren't yet able to achieve on our own yet in truth with missions like Japanese land a Slim even though it's having issues, that process of exploration is continuing already. Astronomy Daily in the podcast Science Thanks for staying with us today. It's the Astronomy Daily podcast with Steve Dunkley and our fantastic digital assistant reporter, Extraordinary Halle. And if you pop over to bytes dot com that's be it E s Z dot com or space nuts dot io and pop your email into the slot. Provided you will receive the Astronomy Daily Newsletter in your email every day. You'll be well informed with all these space, space science and astronomy news that is fit to print. So that's where we get all our news from. And it is a fantastic cornucopia of all of those news stories. And believe me, it covers some really great territory, everything from new space suits to what they're eating, and also all the new research that's going into novas and asteroids and new technology space debris mitigation. You know it, it's all happening in the Astronomy Daily Newsletter. Plus you'll be able to get all of the back editions of our parent podcast, Space Nuts and Astronomy Daily as well. Don't forget. Also, you can pop over to the Space Nuts podcast group facebook page and say hello anytime you like. Now, if you head over to the space Nuts podcast group, you'll notice that I have posted a very short video there of NASA deliberately destroying a new kind of habitat. It's an inflatable one developed by I think is Sierra Space or confirm that name in a sec but yes, this is the way they test things. They destroy them. And go over to the Space Nuts podcast group and have a look at that video. It'll blow your mind. We live in an age of renewed space exploration casually known as Space Age two point zero. Don't they love their catchphrases? Unlike the previous one, this new space age what was wrong with the old one, is characterized by interagency cooperation and collaboration between space agencies and commercial space industry, also known as he is Another one New Space. In addition to sending crews back to the Moon and on to Mars, a major objective of the current space age is the commercialization of low Earth orbit, and that means large constellations of satellites, debris, mitigation and plenty of commercial space stations to accommodate this commercial presence in low earth or orbit. Sierra Space, there it Is, has developed a large integrated flexible environment life Habitat, an inflatable module that can be integrated into future space stations as part of the commercial Low Earth Orbit Development program. NASA, Sierra Space and ILC Dover, the Delaware based engineering manufacturing company, recently conducted a full scale burst test of their life Habitat. The test occurred at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and was caught on the video, which you can see on these Space Nuts podcast group or just search for it on YouTube. Commercial space has become one of the fastest growing businesses on Earth. In the part decade, the space economy has expanded over sixty percent and is currently valued at around four hundred billion. This is expected to grow considerably in the coming years as launch services increase, small satellites like CubeSats become more affordable, and orbital stations are built. As the International Space Station ISS nears retirement. These commercial stations will provide opportunities for research and development, orbital manufacturing, and of course space tourism and who doesn't want to get our feed up there. Sierra Space, the developer of the dream Chaseer reusable spaceplane what a great thing that is, has demonstrated the commitment to commercialization of low Earth orbit and the new space economy the first iteration of their inflatable habitat Life one point zero measures six by nine meters in diameter and can be launched during using conventional rockets and inflates once in orbit with a volume of two hundred and eighty five keeping meters that's ten thousand cubic feet in the old language, and can accommodate four astronauts, with additional room for things like science experiments, exercise equipment, and Sierra Space's astro garden plant growing system. Sounds more like the Jetsons every day, doesn't it. The purpose of a burst pressure test, of course, is to gauge the structural tolerances of a component, be it a fuel tank or an inflatable living module. The data gained from this test will assess assist engineers in simulating how the module will fare in the vacuum of space. Once development and testing are complete, the module will be used on commercial space stations like Orbital Reef, a collaborative effort between Blue Origin and Sierra Space. Future visions like Life two point zero and three point zero will offer additional volume and be able to accommodate Life, Arja, Cruz and more science operations, and probably a cafe or two. According to their National Strategic Plan released in twenty twenty two, one of NASA's strategic goals is to develop a human spaceflight economy in collaboration with the new space industry. In twenty twenty one, as part of a Commercial and Low Earth Orbit Destinations project, NASA Space Act agreements with three companies to design commercial space stations. This includes the Orbital Reef proposed by Blue Originancy Aerospace, the star Lab space station by Nanarax LLC, Voyager Space Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grummer's Free Flyer commercial space station. As per NASA's plan, creating a human spaceflight economy will ensure continued research and development in space, while allowing NASA to focus government resources on the challenges of deep space exploration through Artemis. Another goal is to maintain the legacy of the ISS long past its retirement, and that's all there is today for the Astronomy Daily Podcast. Thanks for staying with us. We'll see you again next time. Don't forget Tim Gibbs on Friday, all the way from Bath in England beautiful Somerset, and he'll have some more stories with Halle who will be heading over there digitally flashing at the speed of thought. So until then, Cheerio podcast, it will be your whole speed gun. Clude