Space Stories: New Lunar Water Estimates, Coronal Mass Ejection, and Oxygen on Mars

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Shadows on the Moon’s south pole. (NASA)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Southwest Research Institute: “New Findings Suggest Moon May Have Less Water Than Previously Thought“

A team recently calculated that most of the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) are at most around 3.4 billion years old and can contain relatively young deposits of water ice. Water resources are considered key for sustainable exploration of the Moon and beyond, but these findings suggest that current estimates for cold-trapped ices are too high.

—Scientific American: “Massive Sun Outburst Smacks NASA Spacecraft“

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was built to withstand the ravages of the environment near our sun—and with good reason. The car-size spacecraft has now flown through a giant solar outburst of charged particles called a coronal mass ejection (CME). If that CME had it hit Earth instead, it may have caused vast, continent-wide blackouts, scientists say. Some of those searing particles whipped through space at about three million miles per hour.

—BGR: “NASA Successfully Generated Oxygen on Mars“

NASA’s Perseverance rover has done the unthinkable. Or, at least, a small device on the rover has. According to a tweet and article shared by NASA’s Perseverance team on Twitter, a device known only as MOXIE has proven that we can generate oxygen on Mars using the planet’s CO2-concentrated atmosphere. This tech is a huge boon, and the success of this story could help pave the way for future oxygen generation on the Red Planet, something that would make long-term exploration of the planet far more feasible.

Audit Results: SLS Program is Unaffordable

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the SLS. (NASA)

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently completed a review of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), which is the cornerstone of the Artemis program. GAO assessed the extent to which (1) NASA has established plans to measure the SLS program costs post-Artemis I, and (2) the program has made progress with its plans to reduce projected SLS costs.

The GAO report, Space Launch System: Cost Transparency Needed to Monitor Program Affordability, highlights a number of continuing issues related to project costs and budgeting.

So what is the bottom line? This quote is most concerning: “Senior NASA officials told GAO that at current cost levels, the SLS program is unaffordable.”

The SLS is the vehicle that is supposed to demonstrate our ability to return to the Moon as well as our readiness for a Mars mission. But all of this is contingent on continued funding from Congress, and the congressional auditors have raised a red flag.

I expect you could find similar audit issues with the earlier Apollo missions as well as other space missions, yet NASA does not need to give Congress a reason to put money elsewhere. Let’s hope NASA’s leaders take the audit seriously and show some progress to keep all of the parties happy and the funding alive.

Another Crew Heads for the ISS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft blasts off to the ISS from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on September 15, 2023. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Earlier today, US astronaut astronaut Loral O’Hara as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub departed from Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket that will take them to the International Space Station (ISS). The space station will be crowded again until the three relieved crew members, including US astronaut Frank Rubio, can return to Earth.

You can watch today’s launch at this NASA site on YouTube. You can also follow the mission via NASA’s blog.

Pic of the Week: Astronaut Frank Rubio Still at Work on the ISS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): NASA astronauts Frank Rubio (left) and Josh Cassada (back to camera) working outside the ISS last November. (NASA TV)

This week’s image shows astronaut Frank Rubio hard at work last year outside the International Space Station (ISS). He has now exceeded the U.S. space duration record, which was 355 days. All of this was unplanned, come as the result of a faulty Russian capsule that kept him on the station longer than his scheduled six month tour.

Mr. Rubio is set to return to Earth on September 27. At that point, he will have spent 371 days in space.

This CBS News segment discusses some of the risks related to a longer stay on the station.

Space Stories: Strange Asteroid Behavior, Another Earth in Our Solar System, and the Study of Galaxy Clusters

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Photo of Dimorphos taken by the DATA spacecraft. (NASA)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Futurism: “Something Weird is Going On with the Asteroid NASA Smashed“

Nearly a year ago, NASA successfully smashed an asteroid for the first time, in a landmark test to see whether we could divert a killer space rock before disaster — but now, the asteroid in question is behaving strangely. As New Scientist reports, a schoolteacher and his pupils seem to have discovered that the orbit of Dimorphos, the space rock socked by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) last September, has apparently continued slowing down, unexpectedly, in the year since the refrigerator-sized craft smashed into it.

—Kindai University: “Possible Existence of Earth-Like Planet Predicted in the Outskirts of the Solar System“

Researchers from Japan predict, based on computer simulations, the likely existence of an Earth-like planet in the distant Kuiper Belt. There are many unexplained anomalies in the orbits and distribution of trans-Neptunian objects, small celestial bodies located at the outer reaches of the solar system. Now, based on detailed computer simulations of the early outer solar system, researchers from Japan predict the possibility of an undiscovered Earth-like planet beyond Neptune orbiting the Sun. Should this prediction come true, it could revolutionize our understanding of the history of the solar system.

—European Space Agency: “X-ray mission lifts off to study high-energy Universe“

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) lifted off on a H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 08:42 JST / 00:42 BST / 01:42 CEST on 7 September 2023. The successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to explore the growth of galaxy clusters, the chemical make-up of the Universe, and the extremes of spacetime. XRISM is a collaboration between JAXA and NASA, with significant participation from ESA.