Deep Space and Interplanetary Exploration - Houston, we are go for launch!

[rebs]

And heeeeere we go!  A new age is drawing nigh.

[rebs]

Mission costs have plumeted, but some of that is due to acceptance of certain levels of risk.  NASA will be  sending two additional missions to Mars in 2024 largely due to this decreased cost.

https://www.universetoday.com/152336/nasa-will-be-sending-two-more-missions-to-mars-in-2024-costing-just-80-million/amp/

[rebs]

In exoplanet news, a new designation called Hycean planet has been being used to denote planets with high hydrogen content atmospheres and oceanic conditions, which seem to dominate the list of known exoplanets. 

Read more in the link below to an excellent article from the University of Cambridge.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/new-class-of-habitable-exoplanets-are-a-big-step-forward-in-the-search-for-life

[kato]

In exoplanet news, a new designation called Hycean planet has been being used to denote planets with high hydrogen content atmospheres and oceanic conditions, which seem to dominate the list of known exoplanets. 

To me that has a certain whiff of "let's just broaden the definition to get more results".

Which of course has to do with limited research time on highly sought after systems like JWST, and seeking to improve one's chances at getting onto that. Time on JWST has already been distributed for the first year of operations, currently ongoing is the decision process for the second year, and iirc the deadline for proposals for the third year is already over. For the first year 23% of investigation time goes to exoplanet proposals, and other than a series of proposals that more or less systematically explores all of the TRAPPIST-1 system other selected proposals in the field tend to have only gotten "small" (<25 hour) windows, or are more "basic" science such as a sweep across a dozen promising systems looking for exoplanets in the first place.

[Daryk]

More than half of science these days is writing your proposal to get funding...  ::)

[rebs]

The early earth had an atmosphere not unlike that.  We lost the Jovian shroud along the way as early life produced oxygen. 

But in other news, the JWST has passed testing and will be readied for launch.   Check it out in this extensive article that plots out the entire mission phase as it is deployed...

https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-10-billion-james-webb-space-telescope-has-successfully-completed-testing/amp/

[rebs]

NASA's Perseverance rover will attempt again to collect Martian rocks.  Let's all wish it luck, since the last rock the team located crumbled into grit and dust. 

Details as always are in the link below...

https://www.universetoday.com/152356/after-its-last-rock-sample-crumbled-into-powder-perseverance-is-going-to-try-again/amp/

[Daryk]

Maybe it'll get something with a rating on the Mohs scale higher than 1 this time... :)

[rebs]

Right?  I thought a scoop of those "beach" pebbles would have worked.  It keeps multiple samples, after all. 

[rebs]

Here was an interesting read...Astronomers have found in the archives of observatory VLA in New Mexico and corroborated by archives of MAXI, an Xray reading device on the ISS, an event of huge interest. 

In 2017 the records show a black hole devoring the core of a star (a probable stellar sibling) causing the outer layers to explode in a supernova event.

Awesome, and truly so. 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/astronomy-star-swallow-black-hole-supernova-cosmology/amp

[ANS Kamas P81]

Considering what black holes do to the light around them, that's got to be one immensely trippy looking sight up close.  Stretching the star both by gravity's effect on light, plus the way the black hole is sucking down stellar material as well, and the outer shell distorted by both...

Man, the universe is a light show, isn't it.

[rebs]

The greatest canvas anyone could ever paint is the cosmos itself.

[rebs]

NASA's Perseverance rover has successfully cored its first rock.   The rock did not crumble to dust, and the robot took more fine pictures of the rocks around it  :)

Details in the following link to NASA itself.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-perseverance-rover-successfully-cores-its-first-rock

[rebs]

NASA has been studying the construction of a radio telescope in the bowl of a crater on the far side of the moon. 

An interesting read:

https://www.salon.com/2021/09/05/scientists-say-a-telescope-on-the-moon-could-advance-physics-and-theyre-hoping-to-build-one/

[Sabelkatten]

Lots of cash... OTOH it provides a new reason for the Artemis program, which is a good thing IMHO.

[rebs]

Yes.  And practice building megastructures in a vacuum, low g environment.   

Hopefully it gives rise to us building infrastructure for further such constructions.

[rebs]

Mike Brown just released some of the data he has been working with in searching for "Planet 9 From Outer Space".  This article also has a nifty chart showing the orbits of some of the newest objects similar in orbit to Sedna, in relation to the projected orbit of Planet 9.

Yahoo News often leaves much to be desired, but this one is a good article. 

https://news.yahoo.com/astronomers-still-looking-elusive-planet-142159556.html

[Sabelkatten]

Come to think of it... Lunar regolith includes a lot of Aluminium, doesn't it? And Aluminium is pretty good for radio antennas, right? That sounds like a great time to start experimenting with moon mining! :)

[rebs]

Come to think of it... Lunar regolith includes a lot of Aluminium, doesn't it? And Aluminium is pretty good for radio antennas, right? That sounds like a great time to start experimenting with moon mining! :)

It might be pretty easy to bring an electric furnace to the moon to do that, pour off the slag for other uses, and pour ingots to be refined further.

I was thinking we need tunneling equipment for an underground moon base near or in the crater wall itself.  That is not easy, but a few pieces at a time could be brought there to build a tunnel machine for construction of a tunnel complex.  Think of the uses such a machine could have, building another and another before it wears out.

[rebs]

Exomoons are a big focus of the below article.  They haven't been found in great flocks.  However, a new study seeks to find more of them, as they should be there.  Moons outnumber planets 20 to 1 in the Solar System, so we should have luck if this new focus and method works out...

https://www.universetoday.com/152527/a-new-way-to-search-for-exomoons/amp/

[rebs]

So for six years scientists have been searching for elusive Planet 9.  During that time 461 new objects have been cataloged as a great byproduct of the search.  Check it out in the below link. 

https://www.universetoday.com/152507/a-6-year-search-of-the-outer-solar-system-turns-up-461-new-objects/

[Wrangler]

Inspiration4 Private Crew flight to raise awarness for St. Jude Children Hospital has successfully launched! [article is SpaceNews.com]



There a lot of "Firsts" on this 3-day mission.  It's the first flight of all-private astronaut crew, it's carrying youngest American to orbit (Hayley Arceneaux - 29 years old, cancer survivor, and PA at St. Jude), It will be highest orbit since the Space Shuttle Era, and it will be first time there will be three Dragon 2 capsules in orbit at time (2 are Endeavor & other Resilience both crew capsules).

[Wrangler]

Inspiration4 flight getting ready to wrap up. Their due to land tonight by 7 pm.

Here picture from SpaceX, with external view from the nose cone while its open (closed now as prep to land.)

[rebs]

Hope they make it home OK.  One day we will have much safer reenteries.

[Van Gogh]

One question I have after ready the Inspiration4 flight reach Hubble's orbit (and a bit beyond): is it possible to do EVA from a Crew Dragon?
If so, how feasible is servicing the space telescope from the capsule and its trunk?

[rebs]

The Hubble was serviced from the Space Shuttle in the past, so I would say the odds are good that Crew Dragon could fill the same role. 

As you said, we need to get to spacewalk capability in order to really do that first, though.  And I haven't heard much about that. 

Maybe others can help illuminate this.

[worktroll]

Short form, no. Read this somewhere, can't find the source, but the cupola on the current flight replaces a docking adaptor for the ISS. Additional problems involve the suits not being EVA rated, and the absence of a robotic arm equivalent to hold the capsule in place, and/or assist the asttronauts (which the Space Shuttle had and needed for those earlier maintenance flights.)

Dragon is a space day tripper, not a space truck. But who knows what's down the track?

[rebs]

True that!  There are other vehicles coming down the pipeline that will have more advanced capabilities, some of them private, and some via government agencies and the military.

[Daryk]

I'm sure the next "space truck" will have at least some government backing...  ^-^

[worktroll]

To be brutally honest, I hope not. I'd rather see a private space truck that met an actual need for commercial spaceflight, which the government could get value out of.

The old "space tug" format, for example. Something that lives in orbit, and can move packages into geo, lunar, or interplanetary orbits, and come back. Needs refuelling infrastructure, but something with good delta vee, grappling capabilities, couple of weeks life support, and a decent airlock for EVA capacity - a solution looking for problems.