The Space Roundup - Dec 19th, 2021
Hello, hello, my dear space lovers!
Are you ready for yet another week of space awesomeness?
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3, 2, 1, zero! Lift-off!
Touching the Sun
For the first time, a spacecraft has literally touched the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe flew through the Sun’s upper atmosphere, its corona, last April. The next approach will be in January 2022. It took six decades of research and development to get to this massive engineering and scientific feat that will help us better understand how our star works. Wow.
Martian updates
Tons of Martian news this week!
After a communication issue, data coming from Ingenuity indicated that flight 17th was a success. Ingenuity was in excellent condition and it broke a record: it pushed the total flight time past the 30-minute mark!
And then, this week, it successfully completed its 18th flight! It has pushed the limits of Ingenuity’s radio range. After their latest experience, the team has modified the flight sequence to communicate in a low-data-rate mode, providing an additional signal-strength boost to the radio link.
NASA’s Perseverance rover mission has discovered that the rock it has been driving on since February is likely formed from red-hot magma. “Rocks in the crater have interacted with water multiple times over the eons and that some contain organic molecules.”
And more water! The ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has identified "a large, not-too-deep, easily exploitable reservoir of water” at Valles Marineris in Mars. It is still too early to know whether it’s liquid, mineral, or water ice, but according to ESA, it "could be easily exploitable for future explorers”. Boum! Great!
All I want for Christmas is a space telescope
NASA confirmed Christmas Eve for the James Webb Space Telescope launch. So, finally, December 24th will be the launch date… oh, man, we’ll be all glued to our screens when this moment arrives! More than 20 years of work and about $10 billion will be at stake that day…no pressure, team! XD
Commercial space
Axiom Space was selected by NASA to lead the second private astronaut mission to the ISS next year. As a follow-up of the civilian-crewed AX-1, scheduled on February 2022, AX-2 will focus on scientific research and outreach activities.
At approximately $55M per ticket, it’s cheaper than the $80M ticket that the Japanese Maezawa just spent but still ways to go to make it truly accessible to most of us. We’re getting closer step by step!
After their successful experience, Russia has identified space tourism as a way to earn hard cash to keep financing the space industry and now is focusing on how to ramp up to up to four commercial launches per year.
Who else wants to take astronauts to the ISS? Yes, Boeing. Boeing is now planning to launch its Starliner spacecraft to the ISS in May 2022. It will be their second attempt. Good luck!
And what about SpaceX? SpaceX has been very busy these days (as usual!). They have broken the record of booster relaunches after launching and recovering a Falcon 9 booster for the ELEVENTH time. OMG. Ten times was already a crazy dream just a couple of years ago, and now it is a reality. This launch was one of the three back-to-back launches they are attempting to do in four days.
They also keep making progress on the Starship development: testing ground equipment, testing engines (watch this video!)
, and making sure everything’s ready for their first test launch… I honestly can’t wait to see this monster fly. It’ll be the highlight of a decade.
Goodnight Moonbase!
Brett Hoffstadt, a long-time subscriber of The Space Roundup, is releasing a new children’s book to motivate our future space explorers! Brett is an aerospace engineer and children’s book author and after a successful crowdfunding campaign, he’s announced that the eBook and coloring book edition will be released this upcoming week!
If you have a “little one” (or three, like myself! XD) who is as excited about space exploration as his/her mum/dad (you!), this book sounds like the perfect match!
Feel free to visit his website to find what formats are available now or to pre-order future formats. I have already preordered mine for my kids!
Chinese updates
China is getting more and more serious about its space plans. They are investing heavy amounts of money into developing their space capabilities and launch cadence. This week they’ve shared they will have a new heavy-lift rocket capable of sending astronauts to the moon by 2026. Given the constant delays of NASA's Artemis missions, there’s a serious chance that the Chinese will get to the moon sooner than the Americans. Well, there you have a real race!
They are also making fast progress in the private arena: last week the startup Galactic Energy successfully launched its Ceres rocket with 5 satellites onboard. They reached orbit for the second time, becoming the second Chinese private company to achieve this milestone after iSpace. Also this week, another startup, Huayi Spacetime successfully launched their first suborbital rocket taking a satellite to an altitude of 250 kilometers.
But not all are good news from China. This same week two commercial satellites were lost after a Kuaizhou-1 rocket failed right after liftoff. Let’s hope they find the reasons and fix it soon.
With the last successful launch of the Chang Zheng 3B/E rocket last Dec. 14, China has successfully launched 47 rockets this year so far, with the US running second with 41 launches. Amazing launch cadence from both countries!
Sound of the week
This week I wanted to share not a picture but a sound. It is the audio of the Juno spacecraft when approaching Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. It is the largest and most massive of the Solar System's moons, and in this recording, you can hear the approach of the spacecraft to the moon’s magnetosphere. Mesmerizing.
Launches of the week
Watch out! Lots of launches planned for the week!
Sunday, Dec. 19th - Falcon 9 • Turksat 5B
Tuesday, Dec. 21st - Falcon 9 • SpaceX CRS 24
Tuesday, Dec. 21st - H-2A • Inmarsat 6 F1
Wednesday, Dec. 22nd - LauncherOne • Above the Clouds
Thursday Dec. 23rd - Angara-A5 • Test Flight
Friday, Dec. 24th - Ariane 5 • James Webb Space Telescope
And that’s it for this week!
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Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut