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On today's episode, we are getting
into the latest space news, including NASA's

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Psyche asteroid probe finally launches with the
help of Falcon Heavy. SpaceX defends their

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Starlink constellation in the face of a
new FAA report, and Spin Launch gets

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a wealthy new partner. This is
the space race. On a saugy Friday

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morning, NASA's Psyche Asteroid Survey mission
finally got underway, lifting off from Pad

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thirty nine A on a Falcon Heavy
rocket. The October thirteenth launch went off

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without a hitch after more than a
year of delays, forcing the one point

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two billion dollar probe to wait for
the start of its journey to a metal

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rich body in the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter over two point two billion

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miles away. Psyche is named after
sixteen Psyche, the asteroid it will be

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studying, discovered in eighteen fifty two. Sixteen Psyche is the biggest known metal

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rich asteroid in the system, of
which we only know nine. This big

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metal object is one hundred and seventy
three miles by one hundred and forty four

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miles, roughly potato shaped, and
orbits so far from us that scientists can

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only make it out as a small
pinprick of light, so they aren't even

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sure of its composition. They know
it has high metal content, of course,

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but are unsure about the other parts
of its makeup, which could be

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rock or sulfur or anything really,
and it's this mystery that the Psyche probe

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was made to unravel. The six
thousand pound probe is going to take six

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years to reach its destination, using
Hall effect electric thrusters to slowly but steadily

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accelerate halfway there before decelerating. This
system uses power from the probe's two to

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five panel solar wings to ionize the
atoms of its xenon fuel in a very

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efficient reaction. Once in orbit around
the large asteroid, the Psyche probe will

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use two multi spectral cameras, a
pair of magnetometers, and both a gamma

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ray and neutron mass spectrometer to check
for the chemical composition up close. It's

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also equipped with a radio expair that
will attempt to measure the asteroid's gravitational field.

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That's a lot of equipment, especially
for a mission that had been delayed

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so long. Sixteen. Psyche had
been chosen as a mission target for the

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Discovery program back in twenty seventeen,
this being the same program that produced the

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Pathfinder and Insite Marslander missions. Originally
targeting a twenty twenty three launch, the

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date was moved to twenty twenty two
to match a more efficient trajectory, but

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then along came COVID and messed everything
up, forcing the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to

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push the launch date back to twenty
twenty three again. An independent investigation of

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JPL and the delays to Psyche found
that a lack of staffing was primarily responsible,

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which yeah, COVID had been keeping
people out of the lab for most

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of twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, so no surprise there. And then

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just when they were preparing for an
October fifth launch, the team found an

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issue with the engines and the whole
thing was forced to delay one more wins

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until Psyche finally got its date with
a Falcon Heavy on the thirteenth. And

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that sort of effort, price,
and scale of mission tips us off that

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Psyche is a little more important than
it looks on the surface, and that's

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because sixteen Psyche represents a unique opportunity
to see what the inside of our own

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planet could look like. Metal rich
bodies like this asteroid are relatively rare at

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this size. Again, we only
know of nine in the whole system so

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far, and scientists at NASA believe
there are two possibilities for how it formed.

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One sixteen Psyche was the core of
a protoplanet, a molten ball of

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rock that got smashed out of its
planet during the formation of our Solar system.

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Or two, it's an unmelted bit
of metal that was part of the

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original material drifting around our star when
everything was forming. Either way, we

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get a good chance to see what
the core of our own planet looks like,

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position, gravity, magnetic fields,
and maybe even how it formed.

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And it doesn't hurt that the Psyche
probe will be helping NASA test the current

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strength of our deep space laser communications
grid, a system that we are currently

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building out and will be extremely important
for our operations around Mars and beyond in

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the next couple of decades. Unfortunately, any dreams of mining this asteroid are

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not realistic. While the amount of
metal sixteen Psyche contains makes it worth somewhere

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in the ten quintillion dollar range,
that's only a raw estimation that looks fun

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in video titles and headlines. Truthfully, we don't have any technology that could

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safely bring sixteen Psyche close enough for
mining to be feasible, and the amount

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of metal it has would flood markets, making it relatively worthless, So we'll

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just have to keep it in mind
if we're ever in need of raw materials

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for space manufacturing when we have that
technology. For now, the real value

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of this asteroid is in what it
can tell us about our own planet and

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planets like Mars. These sort of
surveys help with everything from material sciences to

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asteroid defense, just like the Osiris
REX mission, which recently returned a capsule

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full of regolith from Benu, a
much more common type of asteroid, while

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the main vehicle went on to study
the potentially dangerous asteroid apifice. In that

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case, the samples returned could help
us with strategies for dealing with those sort

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of objects if they are ever projected
to hit Earth, but also find out

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about how more organic materials made it
into Earth's composition in the first place.

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Sometimes it's enough just to be curious
about something. After all, there's a

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lot we still don't understand about our
universe. On October fifth, the Federal

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Aviation Administration posted a report on the
risks associated with the re entry of low

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Earth orbit satellite constellations, and in
a rare move, SpaceX has already fired

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back. Back in twenty twenty,
the FAA was ordered by Congress to hire

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an inn dependent body to report on
the potential risks of all these new satellite

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constellations popping up, of which SpaceX's
Starlink was and still is the most prominent.

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But while the report suggests that by
twenty thirty five, we should expect

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debris from deorbiting constellations to injure or
kill one person every two years, SpaceX

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says that the report's authors, a
company called the Aerospace Corp, used outdated

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information and guesswork. First off,
reports like these are almost always guesswork based

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on available statistics, so that part
isn't what's wrong with the report. Aerospace

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Corp was asked to calculate risk based
on available data, and they did that,

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finding that on average, the space
industry hasn't quite met the required ninety

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percent success rate for disposal of debris
after emission, which primarily includes debris from

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launching rockets, and to be fair
to Aerospace Corp. Knowing that SpaceX has

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permission to grow their Starlink constellation to
twelve thousand satellites and wants to continue growing

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to over forty thousand low Earth orbit
units, their right in thinking that math

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equates to a significant risk from just
SpaceX alone, never mind other constellations like

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Amazon's Project Kuyper. But here is
where the SpaceX rebuttal raises some really good

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points. First off, SpaceX principal
engineer David Goldstein, who wrote the company's

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reply, says that the original analysis
makes the assumption that SpaceX has the same

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aftermission disposal rates as the rest of
the industry, when it is in fact

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one of the industry's leaders in that
regard, performing at a ninety nine percent

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disposal success rate post missions, mostly
due to the reusability of company vehicles like

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the Falcon nine. But second,
and most importantly, SpaceX designed their Starlink

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units to fully demise, as Goldstein
puts it, meaning their components and structure

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are so delicate that nothing survives the
heat of the re entry process, and

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this has been proven as over three
hundred and fifty Starlink satellites have reportedly de

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orbited to date, and no news
of debris has cropped up. And this

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is where the report really falls flat. The analysis done by the Aerospace Corp

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Uses a twenty three year old study
from NASA about debris survival rates of old

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iridium communications satellites, which are so
far removed from the way that modern satellites

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are made that this data couldn't accurately
predict danger statistics for any current constellations.

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Now this isn't to say that Aerospace
Corp Is the only one at fault here.

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Yes, they used bad data and
they never bothered to reach out to

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companies like SpaceX to get updated models
for re entry, something that SpaceX would

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likely have complied with seeing as how
Aerospace Corp Was working for the FAA at

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the time. The real issue is
that the FAA accepted the report and published

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it without double checking. And look, government agencies tend to be underfunded and

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understaffed, but this is the FAA's
whole job. They published a report that

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did it take into account data newer
than two decades old, that didn't consider

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constellations from foreign governments like China's upcoming
Guang Network, and didn't consider recent changes

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to FCC filings assuming over fifty four
thousand licensed Starlink satellites as opposed to the

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current number, which is about seventy
five hundred or so. The report itself

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also seems to have focused on the
growth of the SpaceX system sidelining other constellations

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like Amazon's Project Kuiper, which I
mean, we make jokes about Amazon not

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being any competition, but we're not
a regulatory body. The biggest issue with

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this flop is that this sort of
report is actually needed. SpaceX has a

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great record, but even they lose
track of a fairing or have an uncontrolled

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re entry of a rocket, and
they're far from the only ones operating right

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now. Consider what the space race
will look like by twenty thirty five.

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Regulations need to be made, but
this report is just a waste of resources.

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The FAA will need to find a
more trustworthy independent body and star Earlier

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this month, space technology start up
Spin Launch, makers of the world's first

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kinetic orbital launch system, announced that
they had formed a partnership with Japan's Sumitomo

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Corporation. The Japanese investment firm has
agreed to take on not just its usual

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investment type role, but they also
want to represent spin Launch into all of

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its hardware within Japan's borders, with
the stated goal being to foster sustainable space

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technologies. Some of you might remember
that spin Launch has basically developed a high

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powered catapult using a giant centrifuge inside
of a vacuum sealed chamber to throw a

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payload at over forty seven hundred miles
per hour into the upper atmosphere. Once

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the vehicle reaches an altitude of about
sixty kilometers, it activates its engines and

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finishes the orbiting process. This method
removes the need for a traditional first stage

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booster, the part of a vehicle
that easily takes up the most weight of

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a rocket. But the spin Launch
system is not without its own drawbacks.

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Just the logistics alone are a huge
problem, with a three hundred foot diameter

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vacuum chamber being needed for the final
full size model as well with the speeds

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involved with the wind up of the
centrifuge arm, any potential malfunction could be

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catastrophic. But that's nothing new in
the rock tree field, of course,

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and it seems like Sumitomo was impressed
with spin Launch after its smaller scale tests

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back in twenty twenty one. That
scaled down accelerator was one hundred and eight

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feet in diameter and hurled its test
projectile up to nine point one kilometers in

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altitude. It was an extremely impressive
display of engineering. Spin Launch has come

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up with a pretty unique way to
get payloads into space, and it's great

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that they've secured a huge investing partner
to help them across the finish line.

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Seeing the full sized version is going
to be incredible.