Space Stories: Spaceplane Planned for ISS, AI Assists Astronomy, and Water Older Than the Sun

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Dream Chaser DC-100 spaceplane. (Sierra Space)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—New Atlas: “World’s First Commercial Spaceplane in Final Stages Before Debut ISS Flight“

The world’s first winged commercial spaceplane has arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, its final destination before its first mission to the International Space Station (ISS) later this year. Following rigorous testing at Ohio’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility, the Dream Chaser DC-100 spaceplane named Tenacity got the green light to commence final pre-launch preparations, such as finishing its thermal protection system and payload integration, before it hitches a ride on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket to deliver 7,800 pounds (3,540 kg) of food, water and science experiments to the ISS.

—MIT Technology Review: “Astronomers are Enlisting AI to Prepare for a Data Downpour“

In deserts across Australia and South Africa, astronomers are planting forests of metallic detectors that will together scour the cosmos for radio signals. When it boots up in five years or so, the Square Kilometer Array Observatory will look for new information about the universe’s first stars and the different stages of galactic evolution.  But after syncing hundreds of thousands of dishes and antennas, astronomers will quickly face a new challenge: combing through some 300 petabytes of cosmological data a year—enough to fill a million laptops…In preparation for the information deluge, astronomers are turning to AI for assistance, optimizing algorithms to pick out patterns in large and notoriously finicky data sets. Some are now working to establish institutes dedicated to marrying the fields of computer science and astronomy—and grappling with the terms of the new partnership.

—BBC Sky at Night: “Earth’s Water is Even Older Than the Sun, Having Formed Billions of Years Ago, Say Astronomers“

How old is Earth’s water? Could it be older even than the planet itself? A team of astronomers say they’ve found the “missing link” that shows how water is delivered from gaseous star-forming regions in space to planets like Earth. The research suggests that Earth’s water is even older than the Sun. The news comes as a result of studies of a dusty planet-forming disc surrounding a star 1,300 lightyears from Earth