Space News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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European agency aims to develop spacecraft to take astronauts to Moon

ESA director-general outlines plan to develop independent human launch capability within a decade
An artist’s image of the European Space Agency’s new-generation rocket launcher, the Ariane 6
Image

The European Space Agency is drawing up proposals to develop spacecraft over the next decade that could fly ESA astronauts into orbit and to the Moon, according to its director-general Josef Aschbacher.

Speaking to the Financial Times ahead of the FT Investing in Space summit in London, Aschbacher said developing an independent human launch capability was crucial for Europe to catch up in a rapidly evolving global race to space.

“What is happening in the US, China and India is quite impressive,” he said. “If you step back and see where Europe stands globally, you see that Europe has not engaged at the same level. I see so many opportunities, some of them lost opportunities.”
I don't understand why agencies funded by governments couldn't try to make their own starship that is fully reusable and attempt to outdo musk. This is why I still have to respect Elon even through I violently disagree with some of his opinions. He gets it done.
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caltrek
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Artificial Photosynthesis Could Be the Secret to Colonising Space
by Katharina Brinkert
June 7, 2023

Introduction:
(Science Alert) Life on Earth owes its existence to photosynthesis – a process which is 2.3 billion years old. This immensely fascinating (and still not fully understood) reaction enables plants and other organisms to harvest sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide while converting them into oxygen and energy in the form of sugar.

Photosynthesis is such an integral part of Earth's functioning that we pretty much take it for granted. But as we look beyond our own planet for places to explore and settle on, it is obvious how rare and valuable the process is.

As my colleagues and I have investigated in a new paper, published in Nature Communications, recent advances in making artificial photosynthesis may well be key to surviving and thriving away from Earth.

The human need for oxygen makes space travel tricky. Fuel constraints limit the amount of oxygen we can carry with us, particularly if we want to do long-haul journeys to the Moon and Mars. A one-way trip to Mars usually takes on the order of two years, meaning we can't easily send supplies of resources from Earth.

Read more of the Science Alert here: https://www.sciencealert.com/artificia ... ing-space

Extract from Nature Communications :
(Nature Communications) At present, about 1.5 kW out of the 4.6 kW energy budget of the Environmental Control and Life Support System on the International Space Station (ISS) is consumed by the Oxygen Generator Assembly (OGA)1, a photovoltaic (PV)-driven water electrolyser for electrochemical oxygen production. The high energy demand, resulting from the required electrochemical potential for the water oxidation reaction and the associated reaction overpotentials due to hindered gas bubble removal in the microgravity environment as well as the high total mass, makes the OGA unfeasible for application in future space architectures. Moreover, the OGA and the Carbon Dioxide Reduction Assembly currently in place on the ISS bear the challenge of being notoriously cumbersome and prone to breakdowns due to obsolete, inefficient, or aging compartments2. The lack of reliable and efficient life support hardware points to the need for new extra-terrestrial oxygen and CO2 recycling systems in order to realise space habitats on the Moon and Mars3.

Contrary to PV-driven electrolyser systems, photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices integrate the processes of light absorption, charge separation and transfer as well as catalysis. Recently, it has been demonstrated that PEC devices—currently developed for sustainable solar-to-chemical energy conversion processes on Earth—can be utilised to produce hydrogen in microgravity environments at terrestrial device efficiencies4. PEC devices have also been demonstrated to be able to extend the temperature range of water-splitting to lower temperatures5. These advantages provide a motivation to investigate the application of PEC device architectures as well for oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) management in space, where the sustainable production and recycling of life-supporting chemicals will be essential for human survival. Given the stringent mass and volume constraints during space travel, they could initially be transported due to their compact, monolithic design, but ultimately also manufactured within the confinements of an extra-terrestrial settlement via In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)6,7. The terrestrially researched PEC water-splitting and carbon dioxide reduction reactions (CO2RR) bear furthermore the advantage that they can be tuned to produce hydrogen (H2) and a variety of carbon-based fuels such as methane (CH4), which can serve as liquid CH4 in a rocket propulsion mixture (LOx/LCH4)8,9,10, or carbon monoxide (CO), which can be utilised, e.g., in the Fischer–Tropsch process for the synthesis of other hydrocarbon-based fuels and chemicals.
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caltrek
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Artificial Photosynthesis Could Be the Secret to Colonising Space - Continued
by Katharina Brinkert
June 7, 2023

Footnotes:

1. Chow, R., Nelson, G. J. & Perry, J. L. Electrolyzer exergy analysis for an environmental control and life support system. In ASME 2018 International
Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. https://doi.org/10.1115/imece2018-88119 (2018).
2. Jones, H. W. Using the International Space Station (ISS) Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) is not feasible for Mars transit. In 46th International
Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES). #20160014553 (2016).
3. European Space Agency. White Paper #08: Applied Space Sciences. ESA SciSpacE White Papers.
https://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/HRE ... iences.pdf (2021).
4. Brinkert, K. et al. Efficient solar hydrogen generation in microgravity environment. Nat. Commun. 9, 2527 (2018).
Article ADS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar
5. Kölbach, M., Rehfeld, K. & Matthias, M. Efficiency gains for thermally coupled solar hydrogen production in extreme cold. Energy Environ. Sci.
14, 4410–4417 (2021).
6. Addressing the Mars ISRU Challenge: Production of Oxygen and Fuel from CO2 Using Sunlight. Study Report prepared for the Keck Institute for
Space Studies (KISS). http://kiss.caltech.edu/new_website/programs.html#isru (2018).Return to ref 6 in article
7. International Space Exploration Coordination Group. ISECG ISRU Technology Gap Assessment Report.
https://www.globalspaceexploration.org/ ... r-2021.pdf
(2021).
8. Romero-Calvo, Á., Maggi, F. & Schaub, H. Magnetic positive positioning: toward the application in space propulsion. Acta Astronaut 187, 348–361
9. Hurlbert, E. A. et al. International Space Exploration Coordination Group Assessment of Technology Gaps for LOx/Methane Propulsion Systems for
the Global Exploration Roadmap. In AIAA Space. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2016-5280 (2016).
10. Klem, M. D. NTRS – NASA Technical Reports Server. LOX/Methane In-Space Propulsion Systems Technology Status and Gaps.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20170005557 (2017). (2021).
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weatheriscool
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China wants to launch a moon-orbiting telescope array as soon as 2026

By Tereza Pultarova published 2 days ago

The satellite constellation circlng the moon would enable scientists to peer into the universe's early days.


China's planned moon-orbiting telescope, the Discovering Sky at the Longest Wavelength Project.
An array of moon-orbiting satellites could enable astronomers to peer into the dark ages of the universe. (Image credit: NAOC/Xulei Chen)

China wants to put a small constellation of satellites in orbit around the moon to create a radio telescope that would open a "new window" into the universe.

The array would consist of one "mother" satellite and eight mini "daughter" craft. The mother would process data and communicate with Earth, and the daughters would detect radio signals from the farthest reaches of the cosmos, Xuelei Chen, an astronomer at the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said at the Astronomy From the Moon conference held earlier this year in London.

Putting such an array in orbit around the moon would be technically more feasible than building a telescope directly on the lunar surface, a venture that NASA and other space agencies are currently considering as one of the next big steps in astronomy.

"There are a number of advantages in doing this in orbit instead of on the surface because it's engineeringly much simpler," Chen said during the conference. "There is no need for landing and a deployment, and also because the lunar orbital period is two hours, we can use solar power, which is much simpler than doing it on the lunar surface, which, if you want to observe during the lunar night, then you have to provide the energy for almost 14 days."
More:
https://www.space.com/china-moon-orbiti ... tification
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For the first time in decades, Congress seems interested in space-based solar power

As far as legislative moments go, the passage of a minor amendment to an innocuous US House resolution on Wednesday was not exactly groundbreaking. But for space exploration enthusiasts, the amendment offered by US Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., was kind of a big deal.

That's because, for the first time since the 1970s, the idea of space-based solar power has been addressed legislatively by the US Congress.

"Although the technology to gather solar energy in space and send it to the surface as electricity is not yet commercially viable at scale, we already know from early research that it is possible," Mullin said during a meeting of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee on Wednesday.

Mullin was seeking to amend House Resolution 2988, a bill instructing NASA and the US Department of Energy to collaborate on key areas of research and development, including propulsion, artificial intelligence, astrophysics, Earth science, and quantum computing. He sought to add space-based solar power to the list. The amendment passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan committee vote.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/f ... lar-power/
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caltrek
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There Could Still Be A Ninth Planet In Our Solar System – Here’s Why
by Hector Socas-Navarro and Ignacio Trujillo Cabrera
June 16, 2023

Introduction:
(IFL Science) We all used to think there were nine planets. But in 2006 the Solar System was left with only eight planets, when Pluto was no longer classified as such. Is it still possible there is a planet out there beyond Neptune – possibly way beyond it?

In the last 20 years, we have made significant strides in exploring the outer solar system.

We are talking about what is known as Trans-Neptunian Space, the eternal night beyond the realm of the giant planets. And in this exploration we have come across a surprising population of inhabitants, the so-called Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects, whose peculiar characteristics have given rise to intense debate in the scientific community.

Some researchers see in this population the manifestation of an invisible presence, a new planet not yet discovered in the dark and cold confines of our solar system. Others, however, think that there is no such planet and that these Extreme Trans-Neptunian peculiarities are due to the incompleteness of our limited observations, so-called “observational biases”.

A hypothetical huge and distant world

This hypothetical planet is provisionally known as Planet 9. Planet 9 is thought to not be a small object like Pluto or like many other Trans-Neptunian Objects that have been discovered in recent years. Detailed simulations have been created to theorise about the characteristics that the body might have in order to produce the effects observed, and the conclusion is that it must be a very large planet, consisting of between 4 and 8 times the mass of the Earth.

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/there-could ... hy-69408
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NASA Will Make SpaceX Starship into Space Stations


Image
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/06/n ... ation.html
June 18, 2023 by Brian Wang

NASA will partner with SpaceX to make Starship space stations. This is part of NASA partnering with seven U.S. companies to make advanced space capabilities. SpaceX is collaborating with NASA on an integrated low Earth orbit architecture to provide a growing portfolio of technology with near-term Dragon evolution and concurrent Starship development. This architecture includes Starship as a transportation and in-space low-Earth orbit destination element supported by Super Heavy, Dragon, and Starlink, and constituent capabilities including crew and cargo transportation, communications, and operational and ground support.

Making Giant Space Stations Using SpaceX Starships

Each Starship has more than the volume of the International Space Station. They are also similar in size to the external fuel tank of the old Space Shuttle. There were many space station proposals based upon the external fuel tank of the Space Station. It will be easier to build with SpaceX Starships. The steel construction the SpaceX Starship makes them easy to weld, cut and modify. The SpaceX Starships will start being able to support astronauts.
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A trio of images highlight BepiColombo’s third Mercury flyby
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration ... cury_flyby
The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has made its third of six gravity assist flybys at Mercury, snapping images of a newly named impact crater as well as tectonic and volcanic curiosities as it adjusts its trajectory for entering Mercury orbit in 2025.

The closest approach took place at 19:34 UTC (21:34 CEST) on 19 June 2023, about 236 km above the planet’s surface, on the night side of the planet.

“Everything went very smoothly with the flyby and images from the monitoring cameras taken during the close approach phase of the flyby have been transmitted to the ground,” says Ignacio Clerigo, ESA’s BepiColombo Spacecraft Operations Manager.
Image
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Titanic Sub Tragedy Stokes Fears for Space Tourism
by Miriam Kramer
June 25, 2023

Introduction:
(Vox) The catastrophic implosion of a submersible near the wreckage of the Titanic is a sobering moment for another extreme and risky tourism industry: private human spaceflight.

Why it matters: It's not a matter of if, but when a deadly accident will rock the commercial human spaceflight industry, experts say.
  • "It's sort of an easy parallel to make," space lawyer Michelle Hanlon tells Axios. "You're in a capsule with a window that is its weakest point, and you're going into an environment that is deadly."
  • And submersibles like OceanGate Expedition's Titan are subject to few safety regulations, much like the vehicles that take extremely rich customers to space.
State of play: Three companies are currently capable of flying passengers to space.
  • Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic fly paying customers to suborbital space, while SpaceX is able to fly astronauts and private citizens into orbit.
Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2023/06/25/titan ... e-tourism
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