Space Stories: SpaceX ISS Launch, Israeli Space Telescope, and Japanese Asteroid Results

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of Israel’s ULTRASAT space telescope. (Weizmann Institute of Science)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Reuters News: “SpaceX Ready to Retry Launching NASA’s Next Space Station Crew“

Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX was ready to try again at sending NASA’s next long-duration crew of the International Space Station to orbit on Thursday, about 72 hours after a first attempt was scrubbed due to a clogged filter in the launch system. Two NASA astronauts will be joined by a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates for a six-month science mission made up of experiments ranging from human cell growth in space to controlling combustible materials in microgravity.

—NASA: “NASA to Launch Israel’s First Space Telescope“

NASA will launch Israel’s first space telescope mission, the Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite (ULTRASAT). ULTRASAT, an ultraviolet observatory with a large field of view, will investigate the secrets of short-duration events in the universe, such as supernova explosions and mergers of neutron stars. Led by the Israel Space Agency and Weizmann Institute of Science, ULTRASAT is planned for launch into geostationary orbit around Earth in early 2026. In addition to providing the launch service, NASA will also participate in the mission’s science program.

—Carnegie Science: “Organic Molecules Found on First Primitive Asteroid Sample Returned to Earth“

Approximately 20,000 organic molecules composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, or sulfur were found in samples returned to Earth from the asteroid Ryugu by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 mission, according to  new work published in two Science papers from an international team that included Carnegie’s George Cody, Jens Barosch, and Larry Nittler. Named after a Japanese folktale, Ryugu is a near-Earth object, half a mile across, shaped kind of like a spinning top that orbits the Sun every 16 months. Hayabusa2 was the first mission to bring material back to Earth from a primitive asteroid, offering unique insight into the building blocks from which our Solar System was formed and the possible origin of organic material that contributed to Earth’s habitability.

Space Mission: IBEX is Not Communicating with NASA

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

NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) is having some problems. On February 18, the IBEX flight computer reset itself and placed the spacecraft into contingency mode. This is not good for it ongoing mission to map the boundary of our solar system. The spacecraft’s system should do a full reset again in a few days, so NASA may get a break and be able to communicate with IBEX again shortly.

The IBEX spacecraft was launched back in October 2018 as the first spacecraft specifically designed to collect data across the entire sky about the heliosphere and its boundary. The mission has already been very instructive, as NASA explains:

Scientists have used this [IBEX] data to make the first maps of our heliosphere boundary. Our heliosphere boundary does not emit light that we can detect, which means it would be impossible to image using conventional telescopes. Instead of collecting light, like other telescopes do, IBEX collects particles coming from the boundary so that we can learn about the processes occurring there. The boundary of the Solar System protects us from harmful cosmic rays. Without it, four times more cosmic rays would enter our Solar System and potentially damage our ozone layer and DNA. It is important to study this region to know how it works.

Image (Credit): Artist’s rending of our solar system’s heliosphere. (NASA/IBEX/Adler Planetarium)

Update: As of March 2, the IBEX spacecraft is fully functional again. You can read more about it here.

Traffic Delays: SpaceX Aborts Crewed Mission to ISS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit):The SpaceX rocket with the Crew-6 mission at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (SpaceX)

Today’s SpaceX launch of a four-man crew to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed. Just three minutes before the planned launch of the Crew-6 mission, designed to carry astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, and Emerati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, SpaceX experienced  a problem with the engine igniter fluid.

The next window for the launch is this Thursday in the hopes that better weather will be available (compared to tomorrow’s weather).

The four crew members’ photos are provided below. Below you can also find a profile on each crew member:

Credit: SpaceX

Continued Traffic to the International Space Station

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is soyuz-ms-23-docking_blog.png
Image (Credit): Soyuz M-23 capsule approaching the ISS. (NASA)

Yesterday, Russia’s M-23 capsule has safely arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). It was carrying supplies but no crew. Now the M-22 crew has a safe way to return to Earth when the are ready.

And tomorrow, SpaceX is preparing to launch a new crew to the ISS:

SpaceX and NASA are targeting no earlier than Monday, February 27 for Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon’s sixth operational human spaceflight mission (Crew-6) to the International Space Station from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The instantaneous launch window is at 1:45 a.m. ET (6:45 UTC), with a backup opportunity available on Tuesday, February 28 at 1:22 a.m. ET (6:22 UTC).

Things are starting to return to normal up there. Boring is welcome at this point.

Image (Credit): SpaceX Crew 6 mission on the launchpad. (SpaceX)

Massive Galaxies Stump Astronomers

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): JWST images of six candidate massive galaxies 500-800 million years after the Big Bang. (NASA)

I was reading the recent news that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) astonished astronomers again. We continue to get big benefits from this relatively new distant telescope.

The latest news involves massive compact galaxies that should not be there if our theories about galaxy formation are valid. The researchers behind this latest finding state the six observed galaxies were from a period about 600 million years after the Big Bang.

Lead researcher Ivo Labbe of Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology said in a statement:

The revelation that massive galaxy formation began extremely early in the history of the universe upends what many of us had thought was settled science…It turns out we found something so unexpected it actually creates problems for science. It calls the whole picture of early galaxy formation into question.

The more we look the more we learn, and the more theories we can toss out the window.

You can read more about this finding in the study published in the journal Nature.