Space Age 2.0: Inflatable Habitats and Moon Landers | S03E04

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Welcome again to Astronomy Daily. I'm
Steve Dunkley, your host. It is

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the twenty ninth of January two thousand
and twenty four, the podcast to be

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a whole Steve dunk Oh, that's
right, it's the second last day of

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January. I know I keep going
on about it, but we are really

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ripping through twenty twenty four, aren't
we? And coming up in today's episode

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on Astronomy Daily from the Astronomy Daily
news letter, which you can get.

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We'll get into that a little bit
later on, a couple of great stories

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or interesting stories that have come across
our desk. They're destroying a new kind

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of space habitat, and we've got
a video for you to look at.

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A pop across to the Space Nuts
podcast group or to YouTube and check that

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out. A troubled Japanese lander on
the news are on the Moon, which

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you may have seen already, has
been seen from moon orbit. SpaceX is

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preparing to launch something and a new
asteroid seen on approach was tracked hunted and

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it was found. And you might
be wondering, as Andrew and Fred talked

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about in Space Nuts the other night, how can we still hear if it

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hit the Earth. Well, it's
a good question. But anyway, it's

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a great story and we'll get into
that as well as the big story that

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everyone in astronomy, space and space
science is talking about. Of course,

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it's our little friend on Mars.
We'll get into that, won't we.

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Halle. Yes, it's been a
long road for Ingenuity, but that last

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flight seemed to hop too far this
time. But Halle, isn't this one

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of those great stories of something that
just seems to have exceeded all expectations.

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Like you mentioned last week with the
Voyager spacecraft, Ingenuity just kept on going

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even when things went wrong. We
were surprised every time. Did you get

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the feeling that it would just keep
going? Well, I'll admit to hoping

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for that, Halle. It is
one of my favorite missions, and it

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does seem to elicit some inspiration,
which is strange and weird considering it's just

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a machine. But we humans have
a tendency to thropomorphized machines and look for

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inspiration in strange places that you do, and don't forget who it is you

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are talking to. Oh Rod,
of course you're still my favorite. II

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Hallie. Okay, let's do the
news straight off the Astronomy Daily newsletter.

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Okay, let's have it, Helly. A NASA orbiter caught sight of Japan's

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SLIM moonlander on the lunar surface after
its historic touchdown. SLIM, or,

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the smart lander for investigating Moon,
is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

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JACKSA. It touched down on the
Moon in a precision landing on January nineteenth,

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making Japan the fifth country to make
a soft landing on the lunar surface,

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behind India, China, the United
States, and Russia, then the

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Soviet Union. From its orbit fifty
miles eighty kilometers above the Moon's surface,

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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO was able
to see SLIM resting at it its landing

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site. Bright streaks on the left
side of the image are rocky material ejected

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from the nearby, relatively young Schioli
Crater. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,

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which manages LARRO, wrote in a
statement SLIM accomplished its main goal of landing

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at a chosen site with near pinpoint
accuracy, touching down within three hundred and

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twenty eight feet one hundred meters of
its target. Despite ending up upside down

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dew to an engine failure during descent. Because of its orientation, SLIM is

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unable to use its solar panels to
generate electricity, meaning the probe is relying

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fully on its battery. On Monday, January twenty first, the lander's battery

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dipped to twelve percent capacity, triggering
a power down. To avoid being unable

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to restart for a recovery operation due
to over discharge, SLIM team members stated

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on X. Nevertheless, JACKSA scientists
are hopeful that if sunlight shines on the

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lander from the lunar west, Slim's
solar panels might be able to absorb enough

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sunshine to get generate power and recover. It's not all bad news, though.

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In addition to sticking its landing,
SLIM was able to deploy two mini

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rovers it carried to the Moon,
called EV one Lunar Excursion Vehicle one and

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a Levi two. Both are operating
as planned, and the ball like Allevik

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two, was even able to snap
a picture of its upside down. Host.

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SpaceX is preparing to launch a Northrop
Grumman Signas spacecraft on its flagship Falcon

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nine rocket for the first time next
week. The launch of the n G

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twenty re supply mission is targeted for
no earlier than Tuesday, at January thirtieth,

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at twelve oh seven pm Eastern Standard
time seventeen oh seven GMT. As

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its name implies, this is the
twentieth cargo flight that Northrop Grumman has sent

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to the International Space Station ISS,
but the first time that the company's Signus

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cargo craft has been sent to the
orbital lab atop a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket.

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During a pre flight teleconference on Friday, January tie twenty six, William

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jursten Mayer, vice President of built
and Flight Reliability at SpaceX, said that

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the Falcon nine's payload firing, the
shell that surrounds and protects a spacecraft during

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ascent while atop a rocket, had
to be modified to add a hatch measuring

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five feet by four feet one point
five m by one point two m.

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The hatch gives ground crews the ability
to add extra late load of cargo before

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launch, including special treats like ice
cream for the astronauts aboard the space station,

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Jurston Mayor said. Jurston Mayor added
that the complication of addition of the

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hatch contributed to the decision to delay
the launch one day to January thirtieth.

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That's because the area inside that hatch
must be environmentally controlled, since any contamination

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on Signus's docking hardware could affect how
well it berths at the iss So that's

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a pretty intense activity. Jurston Mayor
said, this will be the first time

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we've done that. It's taken a
lot of modifications on our part to get

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this hardware ready to go fly.
Observations from amateur and professional astronomers made it

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possible for NASA to predict the precise
time and landing location of an asteroid discovered

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less than three hours in advance.
Now hunters are turning up fragments from the

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fall like an unexpected guest crashing a
party. A meter size three point three

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foot asteroids slammed into Earth's atmosphere over
Germany early on January twenty first, producing

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a spectacular fireball. What made this
event even more remarkable was that the asteroid,

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designated twenty twenty four b X one, had been discovered less than three

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hours before impact. Christian Sarnewsky at
Conkly Observatory's Piscastetto Mountain Station in Hungary first

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recorded the asteroid when it was still
just an eighteenth magnitude blip in the constellation

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links. Sarnewsky reported his observations to
the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center,

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and they were then automatically posted to
the Near Earth Object Confirmation Page NEOK.

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Other observations began to come in after
three reports to the page. Over the

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next twenty seven minutes, NASA's SCOUT
Hazard Assessment Impact system automatically flagged the new

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object as a potential impactor. SCOUT
continually monitors me off and calculates an object's

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possible trajectory and chances of colliding with
Earth. With an impact now a real

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possibility, the call went out for
follow up observations. European astronomers quickly swung

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their telescopes after the fast moving asteroid
and provided additional positions over the next hour.

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Just seventy minutes after Sarnewsky's discovery,
SCOUT reported a one hundred percent probability

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of impact and narrowed down the fall
location to sixty kilometers thirty seven miles west

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of Berlin, estimating an impact time
of zero thirty three Universal time. January

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twenty first, social media lit up
with the news. Incredibly, those who

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got wind of the alert had only
to walk outside at the appointed time to

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witness the asteroid's crackling, tumultuous end, exactly when and where Scout had predicted.

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As it spalled to pieces in the
atmosphere, The fireball was visible from

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as far away as Slovakia. According
to reports in the American meteor Society's Fireball

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Log. Observers described the meteoroid's fragmentation, but none reported any accompanying sounds.

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This might have indicated that it completely
disintegrated, with no fragments surviving the fiery

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plunge. Happily, that turned out
to not be true. On Thursday,

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January twenty fifth, after three days
of scouring the predicted fal site west of

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Berlin for Polish meteorite hunters successfully recovered
meteorite fragments. The asteroid twenty twenty four

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BX one was Sarnewsky's third pre impact
asteroid discovery and only the eight time an

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asteroid has been found and successfully predicted
to collide with Earth. Steve, this

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is a story I know you never
wanted to happen. I know, and

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it's weird to get sad and cut
up a bad little machine on another planet.

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But there you go. We z
weed mob. You certainly are,

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but it's nice to know you still
care. Oh yes, Oh, what

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made personally or humans in general?
Just you? Oh. After nearly three

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years, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, the
first spacecraft to undertake a powered flight on

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another world, has ended its mission. Officials at the agency confirmed on January

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twenty fifth that the history making quad
copter has sustained damage to one of its

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rotor blades and is no longer capable
of flying. While we knew this day

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was inevitable, it doesn't make it
any easier, said Lori Glaze, NASA's

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Planetary Science Division director, during a
news conference on the status of the quad

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copter. Many on the Ingenuity team
are already thinking back fondly on the mission's

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many accomplishments. For a helicopter that's
overperformed the way that this has, I

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don't think you can really mourn it
and be sad, says Havard fayer Grip,

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the mission's chief pilot and an engineer
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,

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California. Ingenuity hitched along with NASA's
car sized rover Perseverance as the rover

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landed on Mars in February twenty twenty
one. A few months later, the

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small helicopter spun its rotor blades,
climbed into the thin Martian atmosphere, rose

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to a height of three meters,
and took a picture of Perseverance during its

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first test flight on April nineteenth,
twenty twenty one. That's right, Ingenuity

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lifted into the atmosphere on Mars for
the first time on April nineteen, twenty

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twenty one, proving that flight was
in fact possible on another planet. Great

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moment. As you know, Halley, I'm a huge fan of that little

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craft, and I've been following its
exploits from the start of the mission.

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I know I never hear the end
of it Mars. This Ingenuity that jealous

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much Helly maybe well Hally. The
flying robot vastly outperformed its initial expectations,

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which was to fly a handful of
times over thirty days. The idea was

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to demonstrate flight was possible on Mars
and then ground itself. Ingenuity instead undertook

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a total of seventy two flights on
traveling fourteen times further than planned and logging

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more than two hours of total flight
time. Now two hours might not seem

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like a particularly greaterment achievement for a
flying machine these days, but in context,

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Ingenuity is an autonomous flying robot that
receives instructions from its management team on

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a completely different planet. And believe
me when I say that's a sentence I

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never thought I would ever say out
loud. That wasn't actually science fiction.

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Yes, everything about that is astounding
when you think about it. During its

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travels, the helicopter did far more
than fly. It became part of the

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science mission. Ingenuity made three de
elevation maps of its surroundings when places that

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Perseverance couldn't get to, and scouted
potential sites for the rovers' scientific observations.

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And having an aerial recon component for
Perseverance turned out to be an invaluable addition

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on several occasions to help the team
plot the rover's path across the Martian surface.

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But that's not all. Ingenuity helped
scientists discover that, unlike Earth,

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the speed of sound in Mars's atmosphere
depends on bitch, likely due to its

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carbon diox side rich nature. It
also demonstrated the ability to autonomously choose landing

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sites, clean itself after dust storms, and snap tons of amazing photographs of

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the Martian landscape, often including its
own shadow. During the helicopter's seventieth flight

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in December, near the rim of
the Jesuro Crater, the robot reached an

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area with sandy, almost featureless terrain, posing a bit of a challenge for

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its autonomous navigation system, which uses
features such as rocks to know where it

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is and how to get around.
On its next journey, the helicopter ran

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out of features to track and executed
an emergency landing. That's when we realized

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that this was more challenging to navigate
than we thought, the spokesman said.

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The intent for its subsequent flight was
to rise a bit in the air,

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hover over its terrain, and get
a fix on its location. Unfortunately,

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things didn't go as planned, and
on January nineteen, NASA reported that the

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Ingenuity helicopter briefly lost communications with Perseverance
rover as it was descending during its seventy

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second flight. While contact was soon
restored, the small helicopter had suffered damage

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from the fall that unfortunately has permanently
grounded it while performing that emergency landing.

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During flight seventy two, one or
more of the Ingenuity's rotor blades sustained damage,

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and the helicopter is no longer capable
of flight. NASAA posted photographs of

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the shadow of the rotor blade online, clearly showing the damage to the end

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of one of the blades. According
to NASA, the blade is no longer

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serviceable and the craft can no longer
fly now, Hallie, could you imagine

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how the team must have felt knowing
that their amazing little craft was damaged and

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grounded. Steve. The report says
there was a moment of sadness when a

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team first received images that confirmed damage
to the helicopter. Teddysnido's Ingenuities project manager

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said in the news brief, but
that was very quickly replaced with happiness and

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pride and a feeling of celebration for
what we've pulled off. That's the end

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of a fine mission, isn't it, Steve? True enough, Halle,

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that little helicopter and its Earth team
did a fine job. Indeed, it's

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only a matter of time before Engineuity's
replacements venture out into space to continue the

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work that we humans aren't yet able
to achieve on our own yet in truth

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with missions like Japanese land a Slim
even though it's having issues, that process

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of exploration is continuing already. Astronomy
Daily in the podcast Science Thanks for staying

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with us today. It's the Astronomy
Daily podcast with Steve Dunkley and our fantastic

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digital assistant reporter, Extraordinary Halle.
And if you pop over to bytes dot

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com that's be it E s Z
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pop your email into the slot.
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space science and astronomy news that is
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get all our news from. And
it is a fantastic cornucopia of all of

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those news stories. And believe me, it covers some really great territory,

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everything from new space suits to what
they're eating, and also all the new

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research that's going into novas and asteroids
and new technology space debris mitigation. You

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know it, it's all happening in
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to the Space Nuts podcast group facebook
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Now, if you head over to
the space Nuts podcast group, you'll notice

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that I have posted a very short
video there of NASA deliberately destroying a new

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kind of habitat. It's an inflatable
one developed by I think is Sierra Space

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or confirm that name in a sec
but yes, this is the way they

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test things. They destroy them.
And go over to the Space Nuts podcast

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group and have a look at that
video. It'll blow your mind. We

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live in an age of renewed space
exploration casually known as Space Age two point

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zero. Don't they love their catchphrases? Unlike the previous one, this new

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space age what was wrong with the
old one, is characterized by interagency cooperation

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and collaboration between space agencies and commercial
space industry, also known as he is

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Another one New Space. In addition
to sending crews back to the Moon and

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on to Mars, a major objective
of the current space age is the commercialization

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of low Earth orbit, and that
means large constellations of satellites, debris,

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mitigation and plenty of commercial space stations
to accommodate this commercial presence in low earth

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or orbit. Sierra Space, there
it Is, has developed a large integrated

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flexible environment life Habitat, an inflatable
module that can be integrated into future space

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stations as part of the commercial Low
Earth Orbit Development program. NASA, Sierra

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Space and ILC Dover, the Delaware
based engineering manufacturing company, recently conducted a

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full scale burst test of their life
Habitat. The test occurred at NASA's Marshall

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Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and was caught on the video,

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which you can see on these Space
Nuts podcast group or just search for it

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on YouTube. Commercial space has become
one of the fastest growing businesses on Earth.

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In the part decade, the space
economy has expanded over sixty percent and

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is currently valued at around four hundred
billion. This is expected to grow considerably

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in the coming years as launch services
increase, small satellites like CubeSats become more

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affordable, and orbital stations are built. As the International Space Station ISS nears

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retirement. These commercial stations will provide
opportunities for research and development, orbital manufacturing,

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and of course space tourism and who
doesn't want to get our feed up

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there. Sierra Space, the developer
of the dream Chaseer reusable spaceplane what a

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great thing that is, has demonstrated
the commitment to commercialization of low Earth orbit

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and the new space economy the first
iteration of their inflatable habitat Life one point

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zero measures six by nine meters in
diameter and can be launched during using conventional

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rockets and inflates once in orbit with
a volume of two hundred and eighty five

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keeping meters that's ten thousand cubic feet
in the old language, and can accommodate

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four astronauts, with additional room for
things like science experiments, exercise equipment,

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and Sierra Space's astro garden plant growing
system. Sounds more like the Jetsons every

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day, doesn't it. The purpose
of a burst pressure test, of course,

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is to gauge the structural tolerances of
a component, be it a fuel

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tank or an inflatable living module.
The data gained from this test will assess

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assist engineers in simulating how the module
will fare in the vacuum of space.

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Once development and testing are complete,
the module will be used on commercial space

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stations like Orbital Reef, a collaborative
effort between Blue Origin and Sierra Space.

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Future visions like Life two point zero
and three point zero will offer additional volume

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and be able to accommodate Life,
Arja, Cruz and more science operations,

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and probably a cafe or two.
According to their National Strategic Plan released in

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twenty twenty two, one of NASA's
strategic goals is to develop a human spaceflight

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economy in collaboration with the new space
industry. In twenty twenty one, as

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part of a Commercial and Low Earth
Orbit Destinations project, NASA Space Act agreements

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with three companies to design commercial space
stations. This includes the Orbital Reef proposed

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by Blue Originancy Aerospace, the star
Lab space station by Nanarax LLC, Voyager

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Space Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grummer's
Free Flyer commercial space station. As per

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NASA's plan, creating a human spaceflight
economy will ensure continued research and development in

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space, while allowing NASA to focus
government resources on the challenges of deep space

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exploration through Artemis. Another goal is
to maintain the legacy of the ISS long

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past its retirement, and that's all
there is today for the Astronomy Daily Podcast.

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Thanks for staying with us. We'll
see you again next time. Don't

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forget Tim Gibbs on Friday, all
the way from Bath in England beautiful Somerset,

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and he'll have some more stories with
Halle who will be heading over there

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digitally flashing at the speed of thought. So until then, Cheerio podcast,

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it will be your whole speed gun. Clude