The Space Roundup - April 25th, 2021
Hello, my dear space lovers!
What a week full of space awesomeness!
Before we start I wanted to thank my Patreon supporters: you rock! :)
Now, are you ready? 5,4,3,2,1...lift-off!
Learning to fly and breathe on Mars!
What a week on Mars! We’ve experienced the first and second flights of the Ingenuity helicopter on the Martian surface. We now know that we can fly and develop drones to explore the planet much faster than with heavy rovers, and access new areas that up to now were impossible to access.
And if it wasn’t enough, MOXIE was able to generate oxygen out of the Martian atmosphere. The brief test with this experimental small device was enough to generate oxygen for an astronaut to breathe for 10 minutes. Wow. Imagine building a properly sized device generating oxygen in serious amounts: we could start producing rocket fuel, breathable oxygen, and even drinkable water using local resources, instead of having to send them on a rocket. This is truly game-changing.
SpaceX Crew-2 mission
Wohoo! SpaceX Crew-2 mission has been a complete success, taking four astronauts (two Americans, one French, and one Japanese) to the International Space Station last Friday. Why is it exciting to me? Because SpaceX has demonstrated its operational capabilities (now this is business as usual!) and also that it is safe to fly on a reused rocket and a reused capsule with a commercial company. This allows space flights to be much cheaper, and more accessible to all, so it is super relevant.
Space debris
The Crew-2 astronauts flying to the ISS had a brief issue when they were warned about the possible impact of space debris. Scary. This is a very serious problem and it will get worse and worse if we don’t do anything about it.
That’s why I am very excited about Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle, and its successful mission MEV-2 last week. MEV is the first vehicle that is able to dock with dying satellites and make them operational again instead of just worsening the space debris problem.
Last week, the MEV-2 vehicle docked with a satellite that was running out of batteries since its launch in 2004, and now for the next five years, they will be flying together, being propulsed by the MEV-2, until the contract finishes. Once that happens the satellite will enter an orbit that will burn the satellite in the atmosphere and the MEV will move on to save another satellite that is waiting in the graveyard orbit.
I wish there were more and more missions like this in the coming years!
Space is good for the Earth!
My Italian friend Gian Carlo is on a quest to demonstrate and explain to the public how positive the research of space is for human life here on Earth. You’ve probably heard over and over again questions like “why don’t you spend all that money on us instead of researching space?”: I recommend reading his blog to discover many ways in which space exploration is well aligned with the UN’s Development goals. Read his latest blog post here, subscribe, and share his great content!
China
The first module of the Chinese Space Station is ready to be launched next week. They have announced that together with this Space Station they will be launching a Hubble-like space telescope that can be attached to the Station for maintenance and improvements. This telescope will have the same lens size as the Hubble (an amazing 2m diameter lens) BUT will have a field of view 300 times greater. Incredible.
This same week they have signed an agreement with Russia to start evaluating the creation of a Lunar Station together with any other international partners that want to join them.
Space Discoveries
The top two astronomy discoveries on my list this week are very exciting: first, researchers have found FIVE double star systems potentially suitable for life. And then (drumroll) they’ve found “The Unicorn” a black hole in a nearby star on our own galaxy…. hu… scary! It’s the closest black hole to Earth ever discovered…it’s just 1500 light-years away…still inside our Milky Way.
TransAstra updates
Joel Sercel, TransAstra’s CEO announced several good news on Twitter. They are best known as the company that is developing technology to mine resources on asteroids and the Moon, and they shared that they have been awarded several contracts from NASA to make progress in several areas of interest: how to convert asteroid regolith into soil by using fungus, to explore lunar ice mining, to research lunar polar power systems and finally to ground demo a space telescope system for asteroid prospecting. Amazing, isn’t it? And you know what’s even better? He told me that the bigger news is yet to come. I can’t wait! :) We’ll be closely watching them.
Picture of the week
Hubble celebrates his 31st birthday with a giant star on the edge of destruction. More details here.
Upcoming launches & events
Look at that!! What a busy week ahead! There are launches and events E.V.E.R.Y. D.A.Y. from today until next Friday! That’s what I call a good week for space lovers ;)
Sunday - April 25th - Soyuz • OneWeb 6
Sunday - April 25th - Mars Ingenuity Test Flight #3
Monday - April 26th - Delta 4-Heavy • NROL-82
Tuesday - April 27th - Vega • Pléiades Neo 3
Tuesday - April 27th - Long March 6 | Qilu-1, Qilu-4, and others
Wednesday - April 28th - Falcon 9 • Starlink V1.0-L24
Wednesday - April 28th - the return of SpaceX and NASA Crew-1
Thursday - April 29th - Long March 5B • Tianhe 1
Friday - April 30th - Soyuz 2.1a | Bars-M No. 3
?? SpaceX - SN15 10km test flight - date unkown
And that’s it for this week! :) If you enjoy my Space Roundup, PLEASE SHARE IT by clicking the SHARE button below, consider supporting me on Patreon (or buy me a coffee!) to help me share our excitement about human space flight with the world:
Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut