The Week in Space - #3
Starship has a mostly successful flight, astronauts move closer to the Moon and China will soon get their hands on new lunar rocks.
SpaceX successfully flew a Starship to an altitude of 12.5km. Though the rocket exploded on landing, the flight is the most successful so far for Musk’s new giant rocket. Before liftoff Elon Musk downplayed the chances of success, estimating a just one in three chance of touching down without incident. In the end low fuel tank pressure (more fuel used than expected?) led to a high touchdown velocity and a dramatic explosion. SpaceX hopes to one day send Starship to the Moon, Mars and even the outer Solar System.
China’s Moon probe Chang’e 5 docked with its orbiting Earth return vehicle last Saturday. The docking, carried out in orbit around the Moon, was the first ever fully robotic docking done in Lunar orbit. After transferring rock samples from the Moon’s surface the remaining ascent module was jettisoned and commanded to crash into the Moon. The rock samples will be returned to Earth sometime next week.
NASA is considering constructing a communications network around Mars. The network, if built, would provide a dedicated data link between Earth and Mars, allowing far more data to be transferred from future missions. NASA is likely to partner with commercial space companies to construct the network, though plans are still in an early phase.
Pressing ahead with plans to return to the Moon, NASA announced eighteen astronauts have been selected for the first flights. Among them are nine men and nine women, following through with NASA’s intention to place the first woman on the Moon. Under the Trump administration NASA was aiming to land people on the Moon by 2024. That target was always ambitious, and is likely to be delayed by Biden.
As the new Solar Cycle starts to ramp up astronomers are arguing about the likely strength it will display. A recent article in Solar Physics predicted the cycle will be roughly twice as strong as the last one, raising the risk to Earth of a major solar flare. By contrast, a panel of experts from NASA and the NOAA predict a weak cycle, much more like the last one.
This week’s featured image shows the density of stars observed in the night sky from Earth. The band of the Milky Way can clearly be seen, along with the Magellanic Clouds. These clouds, visible in the lower right, are two small galaxies that orbit our own. Image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Acknowledgement: A. Moitinho and M. Barros