SpaceX test flights imminent

The big news this month is Elon Musk’s latest announcement on SpaceX’s new rocket and spaceship combination. His Super Heavy Rocket (SHR) and Starship spaceship are almost ready, with a test launch expected before the end of the year. If successful, a launch into orbit is planned for early in 2020.

Starship is the vehicle which is planned to carry astronauts to the Moon and Mars. It can also be used to carry passengers into Earth orbit, so it is likely that it will be available for space tourists to enjoy the thrills of weightlessness and spectacular views of the blue planet beneath them.

It is the Mark 1 version of the Starship which is due for imminent testing. Its inaugural launch will be from NASA’s Cape Canaveral complex in Florida, USA. The launch will result in a brief flight to an altitude of around 20 km (65,000 feet), before the spaceship returns to Earth via a safe vertical landing nearby. The spaceship is designed to be re-usable.

Starship is 50 metres tall, using SpaceX’s Raptor engines as its power source. The Mark 1 version has three engines, capable of launching the spaceship into Earth orbit. Future operational Starships are expected to have six engines.

Starship is exceptional in many ways. Its Raptor engines are powered by methane, rather than more traditional rocket fuels like kerosene or liquid oxygen / hydrogen combinations. The spaceship will also be constructed with stainless steel, rather than the more conventional aluminium. Modern spaceships were expected to use the more lightweight, strong yet flexible carbon fibre, but this is much more expensive than steel: more than 50 times pricier by weight, although carbon fibre is of course much lighter. It will also feature glass tiles to protect it from the high temperatures of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

For flights beyond Earth orbit to the Moon and beyond, Starship will be launched on top of the SHR. This enormous rocket is expected to use an incredible 37 Raptor engines, all firing in unison to power itself and the Starship into orbit. It is this booster that is expected to be undergoing its first test launch early in 2020, carrying a Mark 3 Starship. The SHR will be over 60 metres tall, giving a total height for the SHR / Starship combination of around 118 metres.

Elon Musk, like his British competitor Sir Richard Branson, is renowned for his optimistic time scales. Although sometimes a little over confident, his pronouncements can usually be relied upon to take place, although sometimes to a slightly revised timetable. Hopefully his Starship launch will arrive on schedule. Industry insiders believe it to be realistic.

India’s Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission ends in failure

The Indian attempt to land a spaceship on the Moon seems to have sadly ended in failure. Shortly before its September 2nd scheduled touchdown on the lunar surface, the Vikram Lander lost contact with mission control. Communication was lost around 2 km (1.3 miles) above the lunar surface. It is presumed to have crash landed at its proposed landing site near the south pole of the Moon.

NASA’s InSight lander makes further discoveries on Mars

NASA’s Martian lander has been busy on the surface of Mars since November 2018, yet it continues to make some startling discoveries. InSight has been continually recording useful scientific data, including measurements of the temperature of the Martian surface; recording Martian quakes and determining the characteristics of Martian magnetic field.

This month it has confirmed odd fluctuations and pulses in this magnetic field, and also that it is much stronger than was expected. It has also discovered an unusual and unexpected electrically conductive region deep below the surface of Mars. This layer appears to be around two to three miles thick.

Although it is too early to be certain, there is considerable scientific speculation that the source of this anomaly could be a global reservoir of liquid water. This would certainly be consistent with the observations made and if confirmed, it would transform the chances of finding evidence for life on the planet, either historical or maybe still present.

The prospect of a deep subsurface layer of liquid water could also greatly improve the viability of any human colonies which are proposed for Mars in the future.

NASA funds new project to test 3D printing in space

In a busy month for the US space agency, NASA has also awarded a $75 million contract to test the feasibility of manufacturing and assembling parts for spacecraft in Earth orbit. This technology could be very useful in future for constructing and supplying parts and equipment for deep space missions and space colonies on the Moon or Mars.

The contract was won by the technology company Made In Space, Inc. based in Mountain View, California. Its spacecraft, Archinaut One, is expected to launch sometime after 2022.
Once it has reached low-Earth orbit, the spacecraft will attempt to 3D print two 32 foot (10 m) beams which will stretch out on both sides. Once manufacture is under way, two solar arrays will be slowly unfurled. These will be able to provide up to five times as much power as the traditional, Earth manufactured solar panels which are traditionally deployed on spacecraft of this type.

If successful, additional uses of this technology include in-space construction of essential equipment such as communication antennae, telescopes and other intricate structures. It could also get round the volume restrictions which limited rocket space imposes on satellite launches by completing construction of large satellites in space. Some hazardous spacewalks could also be eliminated by completing tasks which would otherwise have required an astronaut.

Interstellar Comet

A new comet has been discovered on its way toward Earth. First observed by Gennady Borisov, a Ukrainian amateur astronomer, this object is making headlines because it seems to have originated from outside our solar system.

Conventional comets orbit the Sun just like the Earth, only on far bigger, more elliptical orbits. But this comet, with the catchy name C/2019 Q4 Borisov, is travelling much too fast to be in solar orbit. Its speed of over 30km/s, together with its unusual flight path, means that it is almost certain to have come from interstellar space. Its size and brightness means that scientists should be able to discover much about its characteristics and chemical construction by analysing the light it gives off as it passes the Earth.

The comet is expected to make its closest approach to the Sun on December 7th, coming closest to the Earth on December 29th.

Asteroid deflection project

We won’t have to worry about Mr Borisov’s comet colliding with the Earth. The closest it’s going to get to us is around 180 million miles away. But it is not just Hollywood and the likes of Bruce Willis that are concerned about asteroids and comets causing disaster on Earth. This is, after all, what is suspected to have done for the dinosaurs.

Therefore, NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) are planning a new mission to discover if it is feasible to deflect an inbound asteroid, should this drastic action ever be required. AIDA (Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment) is a two stage mission, planned for the next decade.

Firstly, NASA will launch a massive chunk of metal toward a distant asteroid called Didymos. Setting off in July 2021, it will reach the small rocky body toward the end of 2022, crashing into it at close to 15,000 miles per hour. The plan is to deflect it by just a tiny amount – just sufficient to alter its path. This is intended to prove that such a technique is practical, should we ever be faced with a real-life cosmic disaster.

Meanwhile, Hera is ESA’s contribution to the joint mission. Not launching until 2023, this explorer is expected to reach Didymos much later, in 2028. This mission will consist of a pair of tiny spacecraft, one of which will attempt to land on the surface of the asteroid. Cameras and thermal imagers will be used to assess the damage and to make observations of any crater caused by the collision. The idea is to make a full assessment of the impact on the asteroid, in order to be able to tweak plans for any future, more critical mission.

Water found on distant exoplanet

In even deeper space, scientists have made a crucial discovery on a planet far beyond our own solar system. Liquid water has been detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.

The presence of liquid water on a planet is believed to increase the chances of life existing, and is certainly essential for Earth-like life forms. It’s not really practical as a suitable bolt hole for humans though, as the planet, called K2–18b, is around 111 light years away. We can’t even be sure it has a rocky surface, although it seems likely the ambient temperature is similar to Earth’s.

Practical as a second home for humans it may not be, but according to Giovanna Tinetti, a leading scientist in the research of exoplanets, this is “the first time that we have detected water on a planet in the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is potentially compatible with the presence of life.”

Climate change research boosted by space missions

While the search for possible human friendly conditions on other planets continues, efforts continue to preserve a habitable climate here on Earth.

ESA’s Forum mission is planned for launch around the middle of the next decade. It will carry a spectrometer which will enable the satellite to study the planet’s greenhouse effect. Forum is an acronym for Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring. It is this wavelength of light from which water vapour and carbon dioxide absorb energy very efficiently, resulting in the planet getting warmer.

The new observations made possible by the Forum mission should enable scientists to gather more accurate and reliable data. This will make scientific climate modelling more accurate and the resulting predictions of future global warming more reliable.

Meanwhile, NASA’s IceSat 2 mission is already in action. Launched a year ago, it was intended to track the thickness of the Arctic ice cap as it waxes and wanes winter and summer. The average sea ice coverage has been shrinking in both area and depth over recent years: both a sign of and contributor to global warming.

But IceSat has been discovered to possess a very useful additional skill. Its laser light measuring technique can also be used to measure water depth, particularly in shallow seas. This will enable us to map the sea floor around low lying coastlines and study damage from major storms like hurricanes and cyclones. It will also enable us to keep a close eye on the rate of water level rise as ice caps and glaciers melt.

IceSat’s new-found talent can also be used to calculate the volumes of inland lakes and rivers in order to get a better idea of the Earth’s total freshwater reserves. It will also be able to study the formation of melt ponds. These are large areas of meltwater which form on polar and glacial ice surfaces in the warmer temperatures of summer. These can add to the warming effect, because the blue water absorbs the Sun’s heat, rather than reflecting it back into space, as ice does.