Space News and Discussions

weatheriscool
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NASA to deflect asteroid in test of 'planetary defense'
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-nasa-defl ... fense.html
by Chris Lefkow
This artist's illustration obtained from NASA shows the DART spacecraft prior to impact with the asteroid Dimorphos.

In the 1998 Hollywood blockbuster "Armageddon," Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck race to save the Earth from being pulverized by an asteroid.

While the Earth faces no such immediate danger, NASA plans to crash a spacecraft traveling at a speed of 15,000 miles per hour (24,000 kph) into an asteroid next year in a test of "planetary defense."

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is to determine whether this is an effective way to deflect the course of an asteroid should one threaten the Earth in the future.

NASA provided details of the DART mission, which carries a price tag of $330 million, in a briefing for reporters on Thursday.

"Although there isn't a currently known asteroid that's on an impact course with the Earth, we do know that there is a large population of near-Earth asteroids out there," said Lindley Johnson, NASA's Planetary Defense Officer.
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China is planning a complex Mars sample return mission
by Andrew Jones — November 4, 2021
https://spacenews.com/china-is-planning ... n-mission/
HELSINKI — China is working on a complex mission to collect Mars rock samples and deliver them to Earth by building on the successes of recent moon and Mars missions.

The mission, likely to be named Tianwen-2, could launch as soon as 2028 with the goal of returning samples around 2030. Such a mission has never before been attempted.

A presentation from Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer of the Tianwen-1 mission, at deep space forum in Shenzhen Oct. 18 indicates a shift in mission profile from a single-launch to using two launches within the same launch window.

Earlier statements on the mission suggested using a single future Long March 9 super heavy-lift rocket. Instead the mission will likely use the established Long March 3B and Long March 5 launch vehicles.

Zhang’s presentation indicates the Long March 3B will launch a lander and ascent vehicle within an aeroshell attached to a propulsion module, with the orbiter and reentry capsule to be launched by the Long March 5.

China’s ambition to carry out the unprecedented mission has been stated previously and was included in the China National Space Administration’s plans for development across 2021-2025.

The mission is understood to have recently passed a milestone review and could, potentially, deliver to Earth the first samples of rock sampled from Mars. Such a mission would have tremendous scientific value, providing insights in the composition and geology of Mars and possibly even evidence of life such as fossils or biosignatures.

However there is a leading competitor in what could be seen as a race to Mars and back.

NASA and ESA are already collaborating to conduct a Mars sample return mission. The Perseverance rover touched down on Mars in February and in September collected the first samples for potential later delivery to Earth.
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Astronomers Decadal Survey 2020 Report Released
by John Kelvey
November 4, 2021

https://www.inverse.com/science/why-ast ... -telescope

Introduction:
(Inverse) WHAT’S ON THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY’S WISHLIST FOR THE NEXT DECADE? A big (6-meter), pricey ($11 billion) space telescope that looks a lot like the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, but would see more visible light and launch in the 2040s. For starters anyway.

The “infrared/optical/ultraviolet (IR/O/UV) space telescope” was the top, but just one of many recommendations published Thursday in a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Known as the Decadal Survey, every 10 years a panel of astronomers surveys their field and scientific community and lays out strategic science and development goals for the next 10 years. The astronomy community recommended the James Webb Space Telescope in the 2000 Decadal Survey, and recommended what would become the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in 2010.

The 2020 Decadal Survey report — its release was delayed a year due to the global SARS-CoV-2 outbreak — makes recommendations for space and ground-based observatories and programs with an eye toward keeping up a steady stream of affordable, mid-range projects, in addition to flagship missions like the IR/O/UV space telescope.

The consortium targeted their recommendations to follow up on some of the biggest discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics in recent years, including exoplanets, dark energy, and the origins of the universe, questions that “have the potential to profoundly change the way that human beings view our place in the universe,” in the language of the report.
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Hunting for alien planets with a new solar telescope

by Suvrath Mahadevan, Sam Sholtis, and Jorge Salazar, Texas Advanced Computing Center
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-alien-pla ... scope.html
Thousands of alien worlds are known to orbit stars beyond our solar system. And many more worlds, possibly harboring life, lie waiting to be discovered. A new astronomical instrument called NEID, the NN-explore Exoplanet Investigations with Doppler spectroscopy, has come online in 2021 to help scientists hunt for new alien worlds.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) is assisting the effort with supercomputer time and expertise in NEID's scientific search for new worlds.

The name "NEID" derives from the word meaning "to see" in the native language of the Tohono O'odham, on whose land Kitt Peak National Observatory is located. NEID is a spectrograph attached to the WIYN 3.5m telescope at the observatory in Arizona.

"We're proud that NEID is available to the worldwide astronomical community for exoplanet discovery and characterization," said Jason Wright, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and NEID project scientist. "I can't wait to see the results we and our colleagues around the world will produce over the next few years from discovering new, rocky planets, to measuring the compositions of exoplanetary atmospheres, to measuring the shapes and orientations of planetary orbits, to characterization of the physical processes of these planets' host stars."
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SpinLaunch Completes Prototype Flight Using Kinetic Launch System
by Aria Alamalhodaei
November 9, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/09/spinl ... ch-system/
(TechCrunch) SpinLaunch, a startup working on a kinetic space launch system, has successfully completed its first prototype flight. It’s a major milestone for the seven-year-old company as it works toward a test of its full-scale system.

The concept behind that system is pretty wild: essentially, SpinLaunch wants to get to orbit by using a large, vacuum-sealed chamber and a hypersonic tether to spin a spacecraft at a high enough velocity – up to 5,000 miles per hour – to escape the atmosphere. That means no rocket, no rocket engines. It’s a markedly different way of thinking about spaceflight, much more akin to a giant rail gun rather than a conventional launch system.

According to SpinLaunch, such a system is now possible thanks to advances in small electronics and high-strength materials like carbon fiber, which can harden both the launch vehicle and small satellites to high-G forces.

The prototype flight took place on October 22 at Spaceport America in New Mexico. In addition to launching the test vehicle at supersonic speeds using the accelerator, which was around one-third the size of the planned system (but still larger than the Statue of Liberty, SpinLaunch notes on its website), the startup also recovered the vehicle to reuse it for later tests.

SpinLaunch, which was founded in 2014, aims to conduct around 30 suborbital test flights over the next six to eight months, CNBC reported. The startup has been backed by Airbus Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and GV.
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caltrek wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:01 pm SpinLaunch Completes Prototype Flight Using Kinetic Launch System
by Aria Alamalhodaei
November 9, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/09/spinl ... ch-system/
(TechCrunch) SpinLaunch, a startup working on a kinetic space launch system, has successfully completed its first prototype flight. It’s a major milestone for the seven-year-old company as it works toward a test of its full-scale system.
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caltrek
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Scientists May Have Just Discovered the Moon's Large Adult Son
by Passant Rabie
November 10, 2021

https://www.inverse.com/science/did-ear ... n-one-moon

Introduction:
(Inverse) BENJAMIN SHARKEY, A PHD STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, began looking at a small, nearby space rock named Kamo'oalewa in 2017. At visible wavelengths, Kamo'oalewa was your average near-Earth asteroid. But once Sharkey began observing it in infrared light, things started to get weird.

“So when we were observing at visible wavelengths ... we're sort of saying, okay, this is an asteroid that we've kind of seen before,” Sharkey tells Inverse. “As we kept looking in the infrared, that was the process where we went, ‘Hold on, this is doing something weird.’”

Kamo'oalewa had similar light spectra to those of samples of the Moon brought to Earth by the Apollo mission. This suggests that the asteroid may have once been a part of Earth’s Moon, and was later ejected by an ancient impact.

The findings are detailed in a study published in the journal Nature.
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Near-earth asteroid might be a lost fragment of the moon
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-near-eart ... -moon.html
by University of Arizona

A near-Earth asteroid named Kamo`oalewa could be a fragment of our moon, according to a new paper published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment by a team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona.

Kamo`oalewa is a quasi-satellite—a subcategory of near-Earth asteroids that orbit the sun but remain relatively close to Earth. Little is known about these objects because they are faint and difficult to observe. Kamo`oalewa was discovered by the PanSTARRS telescope in Hawaii in 2016, and the name—found in a Hawaiian creation chant—alludes to an offspring that travels on its own. The asteroid is roughly the size of a Ferris wheel—between 150 and 190 feet in diameter—and gets as close as about 9 million miles from Earth.

Due to its orbit, Kamo`oalewa can only be observed from Earth for a few weeks every April. Its relatively small size means that it can only be seen with one of the largest telescopes on Earth. Using the UArizona-managed Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in southern Arizona, a team of astronomers led by planetary sciences graduate student Ben Sharkey found that Kamo`oalewa's pattern of reflected light, called a spectrum, matches lunar rocks from NASA's Apollo missions, suggesting it originated from the moon.

The team can't yet be sure how it may have broken loose. The reason, in part, is because there are no other known asteroids with lunar origins.
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SpaceX crew launch marks 600 space travelers in 60 years
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-spacex-cr ... years.html
by Marcia Dunn
A SpaceX rocket carried four astronauts into orbit Wednesday night, including the 600th person to reach space in 60 years.

The repeatedly delayed flight occurred just two days after SpaceX brought four other astronauts home from the International Space Station. They should have been up there to welcome the newcomers, but NASA and SpaceX decided to switch the order based on Monday's ideal recovery weather in the Gulf of Mexico and pulled it off.

"It was a great ride, better than we imagined," mission commander Raja Chari said shortly after the spacecraft reached orbit.

The launch was just as riveting for spectators at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, as well as along the East Coast, as the Falcon rocket thundered through clouds on its way to space, turning night into day.
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SpaceX launches 53 Starlink satellites into orbit
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-spacex-st ... orbit.html
by Alex Sanz

SpaceX expanded its constellation of low Earth orbit satellites on Saturday with the launch of 53 Starlink satellites from Florida.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:19 a.m. EST and deployed the satellites about 16 minutes after launch.

The rocket's reusable first stage, which has been used for multiple launches, including the first crewed test flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, successfully returned and landed on the "Just Read the Instructions" droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Starlink is a satellite-based global internet system that SpaceX has been building for years to bring internet access to underserved areas of the world.

Earlier this week, SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station, including the 600th person to reach space in 60 years.

It took 21 hours for the flight from NASA's Kennedy Space Center to reach the glittering outpost.
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