Space Roundup Dec 13th, 2020
Hello, dear space lover!
This week we have witnessed one of the most amazing tests ever: SpaceX SN8 had a 95% success after lift-off, flight to 12,5kms of altitude, belly flop, flip maneuver, and then...boom! It crashed and exploded. If you haven’t seen the video yet, stop reading and watch it now, it’s totally worth it!
It was an astonishing spectacle and now SpaceX has all the data to keep improving the process until they nail it. They are now getting ready for SN9, their next prototype.
Moon
Chang’e-5 successfully stashed lunar samples in orbit and is now returning back to Earth. Yay! The arrival is expected for next week: December 17th. The ascent vehicle was smashed down into the moon's surface and the lander is now on the surface just waiting for the moon night to “kill” it after their mission has been successfully accomplished.
Talking about the moon, NASA presented the group of astronauts chosen for their Artemis program. Get to know this fantastic team of superhumans here.
After Canada announced their active involvement in Moon exploration with the development of a rover, this week Israel joined the international team of countries willing to explore the moon. They announced that they planning an orbiter with TWO landers around 2024. The more countries participate in space exploration the faster progress we’ll make as species, so...go, Canada & Israel, go, go!
Mars
Ah, Mars! Don’t forget Mars! One of the critical challenges in Mars exploration is reliable and robust communications between the red planet and Earth. NASA is now considering building a commercial satellite constellation on Mars.
Scrubs, Scrubs, Scrubs!
Out of all launches scheduled for this week, ULA’s Delta-4 was successful, but there have been four scrubs: SpaceX’s Falcon 9, RocketLab’s Electro, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, and Astra’s second orbital flight attempt - let’s see if and when they get to fly. I wish it’s very soon...
Picture of the week
Galaxy NGC 6240. This galaxy contains two black holes that are “merging”. They are the two bright dots in the center of this image. The black holes are getting closer and closer and they will eventually become one supermassive black whole millions of years from now. Credit: Chandra Observatory.
Launches of the week
Dec. 14 Angara-A5 • Test Flight
Dec. 17 PSLV • CMS 1
Dec. 17 Falcon 9 • NROL-108
Dec. 17Soyuz • OneWeb 4
Dec. 19 LauncherOne • ELaNa-20
Dec. 20 Long March 8 • XJY 7
And that’s it for this week! :)
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Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut