Lucky 13 | The Weekend Wrap

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Anna: It aborted at zero. It got scrubbed

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by the weather, and then on the third try,

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it flew and came down in the Indian

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Ocean softer than it ever has before.

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Avery: Starship's 13th test finally left the

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pad. That's our lead then, the strongest

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sign yet of a moon beyond our solar system.

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A robot mechanic heading for the graveyard

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belt of dead satellites. And what the

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far side of our own moon has been quietly

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recording about the Earth.

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Anna: It's the weekend wrap. I'm Anna.

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Avery: And I'm Avery. This is Astronomy Daily.

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Anna: So we have been living with this one for

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weeks and I want to give it the room it

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deserves because the story of Flight 13

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is really the story of persistence.

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Let's rewind. For anyone just joining US Back

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on 16 July, SpaceX counted all

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the way down to zero, and the rocket's own

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flight computer said no. 4 of the

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33 Raptor engines on the booster didn't

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come up to healthy starting conditions and

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the vehicle aborted, uh, itself on the pad.

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That's not a failure, by the way. That's the

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safety system doing exactly what it's built

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to do.

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Avery: Right? An abort at uh T0 is the

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rocket protecting itself and the pad. Elon

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Musk said afterwards two Raptors would be

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pulled and replaced to be confident of a good

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flight. They swapped the engines, rolled back

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out. And then last week, the weather turned.

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Thursday's attempt got scrubbed because

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SpaceX wanted clear skies, not just for the

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launch, but to actually see the vehicle and

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photograph the heat shield under high stress

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on the way up.

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Anna: And that brings us to Friday, the 24th

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liftoff from Starbase in Texas, just

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before quarter to seven in the evening

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Eastern time. So prime time viewing across

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North America and the small hours of Saturday

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morning for us here in Australia. This was

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the second flight of the bigger, more

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powerful version 3 Starship. And this

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time it went, let's walk

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Avery: the flights because there's real nuance here.

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Not everything was perfect. And, um, that's

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okay. First, the good news that matters most

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for the program. The heat shield basics

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and Musk both flagged a, uh, marked

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improvement in how the shield held up during

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re entry. And that is the single hardest

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problem standing between Starship and genuine

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reusability. If you can't bring the ship home

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intact, none of the rest works.

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Anna: The booster, super heavy, separated

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cleanly a few minutes in and flew itself back

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for a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of

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Mexico about six minutes after launch.

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But here's the honest on that

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final landing burn, it looked like only about

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five of the 13 planned engines lit,

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so it came down harder and faster than

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SpaceX wanted.

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Avery: Now, important context, so nobody mishears

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this. That booster was always going to be

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thrown away in the water. This wasn't the

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catch attempt. So a rough splashdown on an

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expendable booster is a data point, not a

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disaster. And crucially, it still made a

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controlled landing, which means they appear

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to have fixed whatever caused them to lose

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the booster outright. On Flight 12 back in

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May, that one lost engines after separation

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and just fell into the Gulf. This one

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flew the profile. That's progress.

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Anna: Then the star of the show, the ship itself.

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Ship 40 sailed through its burn,

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coasted on a suborbital arc. This was never

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going all the way to orbit and did something

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lovely on the way. It relit one of its

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Raptor engines in space. That in space

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relight is a rehearsal for the maneuvers a

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future orbital starship will need to come

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home. And then came the splashdown west

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of Australia in the Indian Ocean.

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Avery: And this is the bit I keep replaying.

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SpaceX's Dan Huat called it live,

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the softest splashdown they have ever had

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with Starship for the first time. After the

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ship did its flip and settled onto the water

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and tipped over, it did not explode.

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It sat there bobbing, still sending back

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telemetry and video floating in the Indian

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Anna: Ocean, which, if you've watched these tests,

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is genuinely new. We are used to the

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fireball as the full stop at the end of the

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sentence. This time the sentence just

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kept going.

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Avery: There's one more first, and it's a big one

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for the Starlink side of the business. On the

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way up, the ship deployed 20 real Starlink

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V3 satellites, the first V3s ever to

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fly. Every previous flight that tested

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deployment used dummy mass simulators. These

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were the real thing, big flat satellites with

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laser links and large solar arrays. And

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SpaceX says they successfully talked to all

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of them by radio and laser and pulled

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telemetry down, which six of

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Anna: those 20 carried cameras specifically to

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scan Starship's own heat shield tiles and

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beam the pictures back. A clever way to

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inspect the shield in flight. The satellites

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then follow the ship's path back down. So

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they're not staying up there. It's a test

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appointment, not a Constellation launch.

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Avery: So how do we score Flight 13 overall?

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SpaceX and Musk both called it a success.

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And I think the fair read is a strong

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flight with one soft spot. The heat

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shield improved. The ship flew its whole

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profile and relit in space. The softest

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ever splashdown first real V3

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deployment set against a booster landing

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burn, uh, that underperformed on an

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expendable stage.

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Anna: And a lovely piece of timing to close on the

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original Launch date. The 16th was the

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57th anniversary of the Apollo 11

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launch. Friday's launch date. The 24th

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of July is the 57th anniversary

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of the day the Apollo 11 crew splashed back

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down on Earth in 1969. A

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splashdown anniversary for a rocket that's

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meant to help carry the next crew to the

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moon.

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Avery: The road ahead is still steep. SpaceX has to

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dramatically raise the flight rate, prove

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they can catch the ship on the tower like

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they catch boosters and crack an orbit

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refueling before starship can land Artemis

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astronauts. But after weeks of near misses,

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Flight 13 is exactly the kind of day the

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program needed.

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Anna: Alright, let's move on to other news from the

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past in space.

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Avery: From our own backyard to 70 odd light

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years away and a discovery with a southern

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hemisphere fingerprint all over it.

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Astronomers using the European Southern

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Observatory's Very Large Telescope up in

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the Chilean desert have reported the

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strongest evidence yet for a moon outside

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our solar system. It's in a system called

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CD35 20072 2.

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And it is, in the lead author's own words,

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super weird.

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Anna: Weird how? Well, we've found more than

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6,000 planets around other stars, but

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never once confirmed a moon out there. Every

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candidate so far has been contested. So what

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makes this one different?

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Avery: This is the twist. It didn't turn up the way

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exomoon hunters expected. A little moon

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crossing in front of a planet. Instead, the

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team led by Kevin Hoy, an um ESO

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student based in Chile with Alice Zurlo and

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colleagues, published in Nature, watched a

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brown dwarf and caught it wobbling. Something

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is tugging on it. And that something is a gas

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giant about the mass of Jupiter orbiting the

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brown dwarf.

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Anna: So let me get the nesting doll right, because

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it's genuinely strange. There's a star

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about half the mass of our own sun. Around it

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orbits a brown dwarf bigger than a planet,

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too small to be a star, around 30 times

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the mass of Jupiter. And around the brown

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dwarf orbits this Jupiter mass object.

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Avery: Exactly. And that's why nobody quite knows

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what to call it. It's the size of a planet,

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but it doesn't orbit a star. It orbits an

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object that orbits a star. So is it a moon?

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An exosatellite? The researchers

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themselves say there's no officially accepted

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definition of an exomoon. And this system

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blurs every line between star, planet

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and moon.

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Anna: And the honest headline, because this

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matters, is that the team calls it the first

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plausible detection of an exosatellite.

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Not confirmed plausible, the strongest

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candidate we've had, but still one that needs

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more observations to nail down.

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Avery: The technique is the exciting part. For what

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comes next. They used radial velocity,

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the same wobble method that found the first

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exoplanet around a sun like star back in the

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90s, but applied it to a directly

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imaged brown dwarf for the first time. Which

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means, uh, every one of those directly imaged

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giant worlds out there is now a fresh hunting

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ground for moons.

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Anna: A new door opened from a telescope under the

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southern skies. We'll be watching CD

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352722 closely.

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Avery: Next up in our weekly roundup, Northrop

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Grumman MRV MEP.

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Anna: Here's a job title you don't hear every

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satellite mechanic. On Tuesday evening, a

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SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape

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Canaveral carrying one of the more quietly

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futuristic missions of the year. Northrop

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Grumman's Mission Robotic Vehicle, plus

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three of what the company literally calls

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jetpacks.

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Avery: I love this because it's so practical. We

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put enormous expensive satellites up in

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geostationary orbit. The ring about

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36,000 km up, where a

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spacecraft hovers over the same spot on

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Earth. And historically, when one runs out of

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maneuvering fuel, that's the end of it. A

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perfectly good satellite, dead because the

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tank's empty.

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Anna: So what does the mechanic do about it?

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Avery: The Mission robotic vehicle, the MRV,

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carries two fully articulated robotic

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arms, each about 3 meters long, built by

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the U.S. naval Research Laboratory under a

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DARPA program. Over the next year, it climbs

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out to geostationary orbit. And then it

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starts making house calls. It grabs one of

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those mission extension pods, the jetpacks,

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and bolts it onto an aging satellite. The

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pod becomes a satellite's new propulsion,

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buying it something like six extra years of

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life.

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Anna: And then it moves on to the next customer.

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One robot, three pods, three rescued

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satellites. Here's the local hook. Among the

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named clients are SES in Luxembourg,

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and this one's for our Australian listeners,

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Optis. So there's a genuine chance an

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Aussie communications satellite gets a new

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lease on life from this robot.

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Avery: This isn't coming out of nowhere either.

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Northrop Space Logistics Arm did this before

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with its mission extension vehicles. The

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first one, back in 2019, was the first

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commercial spacecraft ever to dock with a

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live satellite in geostationary orbit. But

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those were big. One to one. One

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vehicle, one satellite for good.

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Anna: Whereas the pods are smaller, cheaper and

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reusable in the sense that the robot can keep

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deploying them. It turns satellite servicing

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from a one off rescue into something closer

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to a routine a tow truck service for the

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geostationary belt.

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Avery: And, um, in an era we're all worried about

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space junk keeping working satellites working

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instead of abandoning them and launching

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replacements is a genuinely good news story

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about doing more with less up there.

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Anna: Next. Chang' E6 Far Side Solar wind.

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Avery: Our last highlight brings us home to our own

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moon and a result that turns lunar soil

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into a diary of the Earth. This is from

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China's Chang' E6 mission, the one that

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pulled off the first ever sample return from

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the far side of the Moon. The findings are

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published in Nature Geoscience.

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Anna: And it starts with a question I'd never

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thought to. Does the solar wind hit the

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near side and the far side of the Moon the

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same way?

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Avery: Turns out, no. The solar wind is this

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constant stream of charged particles pouring

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off the Sun. The Moon has no real atmosphere

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and no global magnetic field. So those

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particles slam straight into the dust. And

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over billions of years, that dust, the

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regolith, becomes an archive, trapping

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noble gases, helium, neon, argon,

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krypton, xenon.

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Anna: So the team compared the far side dirt that

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Chang' E6 brought back from the South Pole

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Aitken Basin with the near side samples from

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the earlier Chang' e 5 mission. And the two

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sides tell different stories.

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Avery: They do. The far side samples show the

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solar wind penetrating deeper and a

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distinctly different neon fingerprint. And

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the culprit they land on is us,

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uh, the Earth. For part of every month,

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the Moon's near side sits inside the Earth's

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magnetosphere, our planet's magnetic shield.

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And that shield actually slows the solar wind

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down before it reaches the near side.

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Anna: The far side, meanwhile, spends more of its

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time fully exposed, taking the solar wind at

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full speed. Though the Earth has, in effect,

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been leaving its signature on one face of the

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Moon and not the other for billions of years.

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Avery: And that's the poetic bit. The far side of

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the Moon, the side we never see from here,

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has been keeping a record of the Earth's own

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magnetic environment across deep time.

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To be fair, the scientists say the neon

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result is still a bit of a puzzle. More than

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one process is probably at play. But the

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headline stands. The Moon's two faces have

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lived through different weather from the sun.

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And the Earth is part of the reason.

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Anna: A little over a gram and a half of farside

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dust, rewriting how we think about the Sun,

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Earth, Moon system. Not bad.

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Avery: Finally today, our regular sky watch for

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both hemispheres.

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Anna: Well, that was the week that was. Which means

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it's time to look up wherever you are. Lets

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start with the moon itself because it's the

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main character in the sky. Right now we're

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heading toward a full moon, the buck moon on

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the 29th. So tonight and over the weekend

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you've got a big bright waxing gibbous moon

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lighting up the evening sky, north and

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Avery: south alike, which is beautiful to look at

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and a nuisance if you're chasing meteors. So

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let's set expectations. Honestly, the

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southern Delta Aquariids are active right now

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and they peak on the 29th into the 30th

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southern hemisphere. Friends, this shower is

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ours. The radiant near the star Skat in

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Aquarius rides high overhead for us and

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it's also a fine show from the southern

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United States and the tropics.

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Anna: But here's the catch. This year that peak

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lands right on the full buck moon, so the sky

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will be washed out at exactly the wrong

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moment. My advice, don't pin your hopes on

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peak night. Go out in the dark window before

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dawn once the moon has set and look well away

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from it. The Delta Aquariids are faint, so a

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truly dark patch of sky is everything and

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a nice the slow bright fireballs of the

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Alpha Capricornids are peaking around the

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same nights for both hemispheres.

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Avery: And if the moon spoils this one, don't

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despair because the big one is coming and the

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timing is perfect. The Perseids are

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already switching on and they peak on the

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12th into the 13th of August on a new moon.

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Dark skies, no interference. That's a

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Northern Hemisphere favorite. The radiant

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sits high in the north, but it carries down

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to the Southern hemisphere's mid latitudes

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too. So it's worth a look. From Northern

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Australia bark that date because

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Anna: it's a genuine double feature. On the very

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same day as the Perseid peak, 12 August,

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there's a total solar eclipse.

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Avery: There is. Totality carves a narrow path

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across Greenland, Iceland and Spain if

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you're lucky enough to be under it. That's

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the whole day sorted. Eclipse in the

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afternoon, meteors overnight. For most of

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North America and Western Europe, it's a

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partial eclipse rather than total, but still

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very much worth stepping out for.

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Anna: And this is our uh, non negotiable reminder.

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Never look at even a partial eclipse without

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proper certified eye protection. Solar

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viewers that meet the ISO

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123122 standard

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ordinary sunglasses will not protect your

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eyes. No exceptions.

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Avery: Please take care of your eyes safety first

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and all of that. As for planets, step out

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after sunset and brilliant Venus is climbing

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back into the western evening twilight it

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only gets better through August and if you're

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an early riser the pre dawn sky is where

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the action is Saturn is well up in the hours

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before sunrise with Jupiter returning low in

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the east southern hemisphere viewers get

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these morning planets riding higher and

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steeper one of the quiet perks of our

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southern skies so a

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Anna: bright moon this weekend patience on the

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meteors and a spectacular double bill to

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circle for the 12th of August that's

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Avery: the weekend wrap Starship's 13th

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finally flew and floated the strongest

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hint yet of a moon around the distant brown

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dwarf a robot mechanic on its way to the

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satellite graveyard and the far side of our

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moon cor quietly keeping the

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Anna: earth's diary thanks for spending part of

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your weekend with us you'll find every source

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in the show notes and we're back tomorrow

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with your daily space and astronomy news

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until then from Anna and

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Avery: uh Ivory clear skies.

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The

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toll.