New space walks
November 13, 2021 11:16 AM Subscribe
A space exploration update for November 2021. In Earth orbit news, one crew returned from the International Space Station, while a new crew rode a SpaceX flight to board the ISS. The ISS altered its orbit by a mile to avoid incoming debris from an old Chinese launch. Members of the Shenzhou 13 team aboard China's Tiangong space station conducted a spacewalk to build out the station; colonel Wang Yaping became China's first female spacewalker.
In space tourism developments, one hundred people have bought Virgin Galactic flight tickets so far.
Glen de Vries, who flew alongside William Shatner (previously), died in a plane crash.
Getting machines into orbit: SpaceX launched 53 Starlink satellites into orbit, then recovered the rocket. China launched three more Yaogan reconnaissance satellites into Earth orbit. Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched nine satellites into orbit. Scientists used data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite to generate a clearer picture of how human carbon emissions declined during spring 2020. An international group signed a Net Zero Space charter, calling for making Earth orbit safer from junk as it gets more crowded; China launched a military satellite to explore that issue. Spaceflight (a company of that name, not the concept) announced it would ferry satellites to orbit next year on its space tug, which would itself reach orbit via a SpaceX launch.
Towards and on the moon: NASA announced it planned for ten lunar landing missions in its Artemis program. The first new human landing is now scheduled for 2025 and will likely use newly designed spacesuits. NASA also announced the south polar destination for lunar mining probe Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1), to launch next year, in collaboration with the Intuitive Machines company. Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced plans to collaborate on a second attempt to land a probe on the moon, Bereshet 2.
Also in the Earth-moon system, two researchers believe near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa contains lunar materials, perhaps because it was torn off of the moon.
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) probe, a test of how to attack dangerous asteroids, aimed at near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, will be able to launch starting November 21.
Near the Sun: the Parker Solar Probe is getting blasted not only by radiation, but high velocity dust.
Venus: NASA published a video illustrating how it hopes its forthcoming (in 2029) Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission will fare.
Mars: China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft adjusted its orbit to conduct more surface mapping. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter took another flight, its 15th, for nearly 13 seconds. Perseverance scraped at interesting rocks.
Jupiter: astronomers spotted more rocks crashing into the solar system's biggest planet. NASA's Lucy probe hurtled away from Earth, towards Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. (Last month Juno glimpsed Europa's northern terrain.)
In space tourism developments, one hundred people have bought Virgin Galactic flight tickets so far.
Glen de Vries, who flew alongside William Shatner (previously), died in a plane crash.
Getting machines into orbit: SpaceX launched 53 Starlink satellites into orbit, then recovered the rocket. China launched three more Yaogan reconnaissance satellites into Earth orbit. Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched nine satellites into orbit. Scientists used data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite to generate a clearer picture of how human carbon emissions declined during spring 2020. An international group signed a Net Zero Space charter, calling for making Earth orbit safer from junk as it gets more crowded; China launched a military satellite to explore that issue. Spaceflight (a company of that name, not the concept) announced it would ferry satellites to orbit next year on its space tug, which would itself reach orbit via a SpaceX launch.
Towards and on the moon: NASA announced it planned for ten lunar landing missions in its Artemis program. The first new human landing is now scheduled for 2025 and will likely use newly designed spacesuits. NASA also announced the south polar destination for lunar mining probe Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1), to launch next year, in collaboration with the Intuitive Machines company. Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced plans to collaborate on a second attempt to land a probe on the moon, Bereshet 2.
Also in the Earth-moon system, two researchers believe near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa contains lunar materials, perhaps because it was torn off of the moon.
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) probe, a test of how to attack dangerous asteroids, aimed at near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, will be able to launch starting November 21.
Near the Sun: the Parker Solar Probe is getting blasted not only by radiation, but high velocity dust.
Venus: NASA published a video illustrating how it hopes its forthcoming (in 2029) Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission will fare.
Mars: China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft adjusted its orbit to conduct more surface mapping. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter took another flight, its 15th, for nearly 13 seconds. Perseverance scraped at interesting rocks.
Jupiter: astronomers spotted more rocks crashing into the solar system's biggest planet. NASA's Lucy probe hurtled away from Earth, towards Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. (Last month Juno glimpsed Europa's northern terrain.)
what they dont want us to know is that humans can actually breath in space its not really a vacuum they just dont want us thinking we can escape
posted by glonous keming at 11:43 AM on November 13, 2021
posted by glonous keming at 11:43 AM on November 13, 2021
what they dont want us to know is that humans can actually breath in space its not really a vacuum they just dont want us thinking we can escape
Avenue 5 already did it.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:09 PM on November 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Avenue 5 already did it.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:09 PM on November 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was going to post an extended comment about global warming and space tourism; but then Frances Forever came on the radio and I chilled out
posted by interogative mood at 12:15 PM on November 13, 2021
posted by interogative mood at 12:15 PM on November 13, 2021
Great post. I didn't know about the Chinese space station at all, very cool.
posted by octothorpe at 3:15 PM on November 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 3:15 PM on November 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
SN20 the SpaceX Starship prototype on deck for a full orbital test in the next couple months had a "static fire" test yesterday.
(just to go full fanboi, one starship class ship will have almost the same interior space as the current ISS, and has plans to launch several times a week, total game changer :)
posted by sammyo at 3:34 PM on November 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
(just to go full fanboi, one starship class ship will have almost the same interior space as the current ISS, and has plans to launch several times a week, total game changer :)
posted by sammyo at 3:34 PM on November 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
Mitheral! SpinLaunch is the most, most fascinating thing I've seen in ages (but they really need a new musical director - awful shades of many dystopias evoked by their soundtracks) - gallery First Launch vid is quite impressive.
IDK how far up the atmosphere goes but would this mean nothing is vented into the atmosphere? ie it seems to offer shifting space exploration to be far less carbon-intensive and damaging.
posted by unearthed at 3:38 PM on November 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
IDK how far up the atmosphere goes but would this mean nothing is vented into the atmosphere? ie it seems to offer shifting space exploration to be far less carbon-intensive and damaging.
posted by unearthed at 3:38 PM on November 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
SpinLaunch feels off to me. You're launching at a significant angle, which means punching through more atmosphere (and thus consuming more energy) than a traditional launch, and then you have to build satellites that can withstand the high Gs of the centrifuge and then whatever the hell it is that happens to matter slamming into the atmosphere at mach six. I really do hope they can get it working, though.
posted by phooky at 5:55 PM on November 13, 2021
posted by phooky at 5:55 PM on November 13, 2021
From what I remember SpinLaunch's proposed rocket looks pretty much like a pressure fed Electron (in terms of stages, payload, and mass fraction), so there's not enough yeet to replace a whole stage. At least no turbopumps should make them cheaper to produce.
whatever the hell it is that happens to matter slamming into the atmosphere at mach six.
They've reportedly already done subscale tests at their planned operational release speed (2.3km/s). I wouldn't like to be standing nearby if they have any release timing screwups!
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:44 PM on November 13, 2021
whatever the hell it is that happens to matter slamming into the atmosphere at mach six.
They've reportedly already done subscale tests at their planned operational release speed (2.3km/s). I wouldn't like to be standing nearby if they have any release timing screwups!
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:44 PM on November 13, 2021
The current launcher is a scaled back test bed; the commercial version may not be at that or any angle. For orbital insertions I don't believe they intend to do it all with the launcher. More that the launcher replaces some or all of the first stage and the payload integrates conventional secondary stages.
Bulk stuff like water or oxygen aren't going to mind the Gs of the launch.
posted by Mitheral at 6:58 PM on November 13, 2021
Bulk stuff like water or oxygen aren't going to mind the Gs of the launch.
posted by Mitheral at 6:58 PM on November 13, 2021
build satellites that can withstand the high Gs of the centrifuge and then whatever the hell it is that happens to matter slamming into the atmosphere at mach six. I really do hope they can get it working, though.
SpinLaunch is technically feasible. Everything but the full scale centrifuge has been done before. Between the Sprint missile and HARP (the really big gun), we know electronics can be made to survive the G forces and the atmospheric heating. The full scale centrifuge should be able to loft the stage to about the same altitude and velocity that Falcon 9 lights its second stage on missions where the first stage is recovered. While the forces are exponentially larger than with the third scale test they just did, there's no reason to think they are impossible to deal with.
The biggest question isn't if it can be done, it's can it be done more cheaply than the alternatives. Problem is that if Starship works, costs are going to get really cheap for any payload into commonly used orbits. Some smallsat launchers are meeting that possibility by being able to launch from almost anywhere. They'll still be more expensive per kilogram, but will have a lot more flexibility.
That said, electricity can be very cheap even compared to a SuperHeavy's worth of LOX and methane (which are themselves pretty damn cheap). A pressure-fed second stage may well be cheap enough that the fuel savings on the first stage outweighs the expense of building a second stage for every launch, but it would have to be very cheap to do that.
posted by wierdo at 7:06 PM on November 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
SpinLaunch is technically feasible. Everything but the full scale centrifuge has been done before. Between the Sprint missile and HARP (the really big gun), we know electronics can be made to survive the G forces and the atmospheric heating. The full scale centrifuge should be able to loft the stage to about the same altitude and velocity that Falcon 9 lights its second stage on missions where the first stage is recovered. While the forces are exponentially larger than with the third scale test they just did, there's no reason to think they are impossible to deal with.
The biggest question isn't if it can be done, it's can it be done more cheaply than the alternatives. Problem is that if Starship works, costs are going to get really cheap for any payload into commonly used orbits. Some smallsat launchers are meeting that possibility by being able to launch from almost anywhere. They'll still be more expensive per kilogram, but will have a lot more flexibility.
That said, electricity can be very cheap even compared to a SuperHeavy's worth of LOX and methane (which are themselves pretty damn cheap). A pressure-fed second stage may well be cheap enough that the fuel savings on the first stage outweighs the expense of building a second stage for every launch, but it would have to be very cheap to do that.
posted by wierdo at 7:06 PM on November 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
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posted by Mitheral at 11:32 AM on November 13, 2021 [4 favorites]