Splash! Artemis I have gone home. Webb conducts the first deep space survey. Hear the sounds of dust storms on Mars, and a space journalist goes to the moon.
orion splash
Splash! On December 11, 2022, after nearly 26 days in space, NASA’s Orion capsule touched down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, California. It has completed millions of kilometers of journeys across the moon and tested the technologies and technologies that will eventually send humans to the moon and back. The entire mission was almost flawless, but its CubeSat payload wasn’t so lucky — half of it had failed. With Artemis I wrapped up, NASA is preparing for Artemis II, which is expected to fly in 2024.
More on Artemis 1 Completion.
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We also got a full look at the entire Artemis 1 mission from start to finish. enjoy!
Hakuto-R and Lunar Flashlight released
While the Orion capsule is heading from the moon to Earth, two other missions are heading in the opposite direction. They are NASA’s lunar flashlight and Japan’s Hakuto-R lander. Lunar Flashlight aims to map water ice deposits near the Moon’s poles. This is very useful for future human tasks. Hakuto-R is the lander originally designed for the Google Lunar XPrize. But it only has a chance to launch in 2022, long after the race is over.
International Space Station accident.alliance coolant leak
A Soyuz spacecraft attached to the International Space Station is leaking coolant into space. Mission controllers aren’t sure how it happened, but it could have been caused by a micrometeorite hitting the space station. That’s a big deal because the Soyuz is the only way for the three Russian cosmonauts to return to Earth. Temperatures are rising inside the Soyuz, and it’s unclear whether it’s safe for the return trip. Russia may need to launch new Soyuz soon.
More on the Soyuz accident.
JWST’s first true deep field
One of the most famous achievements of the long-lived space telescope, the Hubble Deep Field has peered deeper into the universe than ever before. After James Webb came out, we wondered when we’d be able to get a JWST version of Deep Field with his much more sensitive instruments. The first survey has been done, using 9 hours of Webb observation time to gaze at a region of space. As you can imagine, the investigation yielded some interesting results.
More on Webb’s Deep Field.
Percy heard there are dust storms on Mars
We’ve seen images of dust storms on Mars from the surface and from space, but we’ve never heard of them before. so far. NASA’s Perseverance rover is equipped with microphones that can already hear wind, sand movement and its own mechanical noise on Mars. Now, the rover has captured a swirling dust storm passing directly by its location. Check out this article so you can hear it for yourself.
More sounds about Martian dust storms.
boom! Sierra Space Inflatable Module Test
Pop into a space habitat. Engineers at Sierra Space pushed their new LIFE habitat to destruction during the most recent Ultimate Burst Pressure (UBP). They filled the inflatable habitat with gaseous nitrogen to test the strength of its material. NASA required them to reach 182.4 PSI, but they surpassed this milestone, eventually reaching 204 PSI when the module exploded. Their next steps are to test a full-scale model in 2023, then launch a working module into space a few years later.
More on space habitat testing.
Asteroids as Space Habitats
Space habitats are a staple of science fiction, where humans live and work far from Earth. But space is a harsh environment, and humans are vulnerable compared to robots, requiring artificial gravity, radiation protection, and resources like air and water. What’s a realistic way to build a space colony? Rubble-pile asteroids like Ryugu or Bennu may be the key, according to a new study. A strong, lightweight grid can enclose an asteroid, then spin up and the fragments form a habitable ring in space.
More on turning asteroids into space colonies.
Astronauts go to the moon every day!
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has announced eight people will join him on SpaceX’s first private mission to the moon, called Project DearMoon. Scheduled for 2023, the mission will see Maezawa and a crew of eight head to the moon on a SpaceX Starship rocket for a six-day trip around the moon without landing on the lunar surface. The eight main members include electronic dance music artist Steve Aoki, Korean rapper TOP, Czech choreographer Yemi AD, Irish photography artist Rhiannon Adam, science communicator Tim Dodd, photographer and filmmaker Karim Iliya, American documentary filmmaker Brendan Hall and Indian TV Actor Development D. Josh. The mission is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars, possibly more than $100 million.
More on the Dear Moon Crew announcement.
fusion ignition breakthrough
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility have made a historic breakthrough, releasing more energy in a fusion experiment than was pumped in. They fired 192 high-power laser beams with an energy of 2.05 megajoules at a microcapsule containing a mixture of deuterium and tritium. They extracted 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy to produce neutrons, for a gain of 1.5. It’s a huge achievement, proving that the technology works, but we’re still a long way from commercial fusion plants.
More on achieving fusion ignition.
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