The Space Roundup - March 14th, 2021
Hello, my dear space lovers!
Busy, busy week in the space sector...and I love it! :)
Before I get started with a new avalanche of weekly space awesomeness, I wanted to publicly thank my new patron Alejandro (and of course the previously existing ones) for his support of this project! Your generosity blows my mind! Also thanks to Ricardo, who has given a ton of constructive feedback that I’m putting in place as of today, and finally, a warm welcome to all the new subscribers of the week!
Now let’s get to the business. 5,4,3,2,1...lift-off!
Hubble!
Busy week for the Hubble space telescope! Due to a software problem, the Hubble telescope entered “safe mode” this week, which stops all scientific work and closes the protection covers until it gets restored. But no worries! All equipment and sensors are safe, and it has been fully recovered just four days later. The last time this happened, in 2018, it was recovered after three weeks, so much better this time.
Although it had this problem, it didn’t stop the telescope from delivering amazing data and images: this same week it delivered a new picture of the gorgeous NGC 2336 galaxy, but also delivered a very unexpected discovery: the existence of a regenerated “Second atmosphere” on a super-earth exoplanet that had lost its previous atmosphere. Read more about it here -
New exoplanet!
This wasn’t the only exciting exoplanet-related discovery of the week. A group of Spanish astronomers has discovered Gliese 486b: a very special and unique exoplanet.
Why is it special? It is very “close” to us (just 26 light-years away, making it one of the closest planetary formations), it most probably still retains its atmosphere, it is rocky and almost Earth-like (just above twice the size).
This makes it unique and makes it a clear target for direct observation and atmospheric investigation by upcoming powerful telescopes such as the JWST telescope to be launched later this year.
Mars!
This week we have received the first scientific results of tests done by the Perseverance rover on Mars. Using the Supercam, it delivered data which includes sounds of a laser zapping a rock in order to test its composition. The rover also dumped its belly pan to the ground, so that the sample gathering and cache system get ready to be used and the Ingenuity helicopter can be released very soon. Here’s to more and more exciting tests!
And what about bringing back to Earth the precious samples Perseverance is going to collect? This week NASA awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to create a rocket that will take Mars samples from the Martian surface and take them to orbit so that they can be returned back to us.
The UAE’s Mars Hope probe surprised us with a video of the tallest mountain on Mars (three times the height of Mount Everest!), and also with a very rare announcement: after successfully completing the commissioning and testing phases they have decided to enter Mars science orbit ahead of schedule. Nice! The sooner we start getting science data the better.
Meanwhile on Earth, another Mars mission is getting ready to go to the red planet: this week ESA and ROSCOSMOS have been thoroughly testing the Exomars 2022 mission equipment: the lander, the Russian surface science platform, and the European rover that will be able to drill up to 2m below the surface to gather potential biomarkers protected from the surface radiation. All tests were successful and they are getting closer to be ready for next year’s mission. Go, Exomars!
Moon!
Not the only news coming from Moscow: another important update from ROSCOSMOS is the memorandum of understanding they have signed together with China to build an international lunar research station as a logical continuation of their planned robotic lunar missions (Russia’s Luna missions and China’s Chang-e missions). A lot of details still to be defined, but it’s good to see more players move forward towards building a permanent base on the Moon.
Talking about the Moon: how can we simulate the Moon's gravity on Earth? We need to test robots for in situ resource utilization before going there and many more things, but it’s really hard to simulate it in our labs. That’s why NASA has signed an agreement with Blue Origin to use its New Shepard suborbital rocket for flights that will simulate the reduced gravity on the surface of the moon.
Japan, which is also going to send landers to the Moon, has increased its budget for space activities to a record $4 Billion in this year alone. Wow. I hope to see new prototypes and exciting Japanese missions very soon
New rockets and launches!
And what about all the rockets that are currently being built?
NASA has completed this week the stacking of their SLS Booster that will take us to the Moon and is planning their hot fire test for next week.
SpaceX’s SN11 prototype is already on the launchpad ready to be tested and launched as early as NEXT WEEK too (wow, that’s a rapid turnaround!), and the Italian Vega rocket has passed all tests and will launch next month after two previous very serious failures.
This week we’ve also witnessed two SpaceX launches and two Chinese launches. First a successful SpaceX Starlink mission (I never get tired of these launches and landings that are becoming so familiar
) and a record-breaking launch that reused a rocket for the 9th time! Incredible. And finally! China launched its Long March-7A for the first time after its failed debut mission 300 days ago. Congrats! :)
Picture of the week
I know we have had so many updates about Hubble this week, but I can NOT ignore this new picture we’ve received this week. It displays AFGL 5180, a stellar nursery showing us how stars like our sun are born … isn’t it absolutely amazing? You can read more about it here.
Upcoming launches & events
Tuesday, March 16th - Starship SN11 | 10 km Flight
Saturday, March 20th - Soyuz 2.1a/Fregat-M | CAS500-1 & rideshare
Saturday, March 20th - Rocketlab Electron | They Go Up So Fast
Sunday, March 21st - Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink 22
And that’s it for this week! :)
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Cheers from sunny Spain!
Juan, the Curious Astronaut