S27E25: Lunar Lander's Perilous Journey: The Odyssey of Odysseus at the South Pole

[00:00:00] This is Space Time Series 27 Episode 26 for broadcast on the 26th of February 2024.

[00:00:08] Coming up on Space Time.

[00:00:09] Odysseus touches down at the lunar south pole.

[00:00:13] An out of control European satellite re-enters Earth's atmosphere.

[00:00:18] And Blue Origin's new heavy lift rocket, the new Glenn, reaches the launch pad.

[00:00:23] All that and more coming up on Space Time. Also the spacecraft was programmed to land in a crater named Malaport A, around 300 kilometres from the Moon's south pole. Instead it wound up in the Shamburger crater, some 200 kilometres up-range from the intended landing site, at an altitude of approximately 10 kilometres. Still it is the first lunar touchdown by any commercially manufactured and operated vehicle,

[00:01:42] and the first by an American spacecraft in 52 years. looking for that signal, that autonomous process of the lander reassigning itself somewhere that it believes is safe. The HRN camera was functioning and able to make those decisions after what was a two-hour orbit of problem-solving with intuitive machines as TRN and HRN cameras. The laser rangefinders assigned to those, those are the ones that intuitive machines installed inside the

[00:03:02] navigation pods. The laser rangefinders degree excursion. We're about to begin the roll maneuver, which is a terminal phase. The terminal phase, which is a large roll maneuver to get to the landing attitude. That's the last day point I have. But up until that point we were really solid.

[00:04:22] Right. So terminal phase begins at 30 meters or post-HDA? as our flight controllers are working with the ground station in the United Kingdom to work this issue, work this problem. It's another challenge, very similarly to the challenge solved just to make it this far. Science of life, we have a return signal we're tracking. We have an up a signal from our high gain antenna and transmitter. It's faint, but it's there. So stand by folks. We'll see what's happening here. All right. We're going to continue to stand by. It sounds like we are getting some kind of faint signal.

[00:07:02] I want to send a series of commands to reactivate,

[00:07:04] make sure we're transmitting to keep the Quasonics active.

[00:08:06] been here in the mission control. What an astounding effort. I know this was a nail biter but we are on the surface and we are transmitting and welcome to the moon."

[00:08:11] One of the problems is that Odysseus was never designed to provide live feed of the landing,

[00:08:15] which came a day after the spacecraft reached lunar orbit and a week after its launch from

[00:08:20] Florida aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Glenn of course, it's just the beginning of a whole range of new missions that they're

[00:09:40] planning for even later this year.

[00:09:42] At least three more missions heading to the moon again. They won't be going straight to the moon, instead they'll enter a cislunar orbit and hopefully transfer to a starship from SpaceX for the final descent and landing. Yeah, so that's the plan certainly that NASA has currently, not only with SpaceX, I think it was a commercial partner, but for later missions, the company is like Blue Origin and others

[00:11:01] to supply that ongoing transport service.

[00:11:04] And this is really again part of that lunar success, rather capsule returning samples from space after a year out there testing medical sciences and other materials. That's Glenn Nagel from NASA's Deep Space Communications Network in Canberra. Only four other countries have successfully landed on the Moon, the former Soviet Union, China, India and most recently Japan last month.

[00:12:22] Odysseus is carrying a suite of seven scientific instruments and technology demonstrators for It's easy to measure fuel tanks here on Earth where gravity pulls liquid to the bottom, but in space the game changes. Quantifying fuel that's floating around inside a spacecraft's tank isn't so simple. The lack of any gravity means fuel doesn't settle to the bottom of the propellant tanks. Instead it clinks to the walls, or it tends to form bubbles that could be anywhere in

[00:13:42] the tank.

[00:13:43] And that makes it really challenging to understand measure how much propellant is available. While smaller-scale experiments of the system have already been conducted on the International Space Station and during parabolic flights and aircraft on Earth, this was the first long-duration test on a standalone spacecraft. Zimley says the data he received during the mission will now be compared to simulations

[00:15:02] done on the ground.

[00:15:03] NASA has been working on ways to gauge propellants in tanks for over 50 years in the Artemis program will likely also use cryogenic propellants and have to store those propellants in space for long periods of time. So having an instrument like this that can measure the propellant in the tanks in low gravity will help future lunar missions know how much fuel is in the tank at all times. That's principal investigator for the radio frequency mass

[00:16:21] gauge project Greg Zimaly from NASA's Glenn Research Center in Together with its almost identical twin ERS-1, it provided invaluable long-term data on Earth's land surfaces, its ocean temperatures, ozone layer and polar ice extent, information which revolutionised science's understanding of Earth's environment and how it's being affected by climate change.

[00:17:40] Having far exceeded its planned three-year mission, ESA decided to de-orbit ERS-2 in sheer its fate had become sealed. Images taken between January 14 and February 3 show the satellite tumbling out of control towards the atmosphere at an altitude of around 300 km. By the middle of February it had passed below 200 km and was now dropping by around 10 km a day. Now at this altitude, atmospheric drag caused by molecules in the rarefied upper

[00:19:04] atmosphere of the Earth began to buffer planet's surface. No one was injured during the descent, and no property was damaged. So I guess you'd call that a happy ending, although probably not for the spacecraft. This is Space Time. Still to come, Blue Origin unveils its new orbital launch vehicle, the New Glenn, and

[00:20:21] later in the science report, major criticism for Google's new Gemini artificial intelligence eventually onto Mars and beyond. In its two-stage configuration, New Glenn will be able to launch 45 tons into low-earth orbit and 13 tons into geostationary transfer orbit. Pad 36 had been specially rebuilt to handle the giant new rocket, which is slated to undertake its maiden test flight later this year.

[00:21:40] The rollout was designed to test and validate the vehicle's integration, transport, ground

[00:21:45] support and launch operations processes. tourism flights out of Texas. An optional third stage, powered by a single B3 engine, is currently under design for future inclusion. Just as New Shepard was named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space, New Glenn is named in honor of John Glenn, the first South Wales ranking the lowest and South Australia ranking the highest per capita for concentrations. While on the subject of microplastics, scientists have discovered not only microplastics but also a higher abundance of cellulose-based fibres in the intestine samples of four apex

[00:24:21] shark species caught off the Territory and Northern Queensland.

[00:25:40] QCAV4 is a Cavendish Grand Neand banana that's been bio-engineered with a single banana-resistant

[00:25:46] gene, RGA2. white people as being either black or Asian. The Internet giant has been pressured to admit publicly that its Gemini AI model missed the mark, following a landslide of criticism claiming it's trying to rewrite history with a leftist work agenda and a racist anti-white bias. Users reported multiple cases of images of people of diverse ethnicities and genders,

[00:27:02] even though it was historically inaccurate to do so. provided a user's guide to identifying fraudulent psychics or mediums. Of course the guide works on the phony assumption that some psychics are real and the trick is finding the good ones. The simple truth is there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the clairvoy everything else is contingencies, then you have to be careful of that. Unsolicited emails or messages, we'll be all get those from different people all the time, whether it's a psychic or whether it's a scammer or spammer or whatever. That's not particularly purely for psychics, but it's coming to watch out for.

[00:29:40] No testimonials or reviews.

[00:29:42] That was surprising actually because I think a lot of psychics would have testimonials

[00:29:45] and reviews.

[00:29:46] Yeah, I thought so.

[00:29:47] Yeah. You seek recommendations again, that's often the way the psychics get in touch with other people and how they learn about them background with they can then feed back to the client. So and so visits the psychic and he said, Oh, I should have seen my sister and all my brother and all along to this. They're really looking for a solution to their problem, blah, blah, blah. Okay.

[00:31:00] And then when that person turns up, the psychics says, I see you have a problem solving this.

[00:31:04] That's amazing.

[00:31:05] Cause I already told the best one here, so the best quote strategy to verify orthopedic available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Bites.com, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from SpacetimewithStewartGary.com. Spacetime's also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and

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