Speaker 1: Hey, space enthusiasts, you're tuned into another exciting episode of
Speaker 1: Astronomy Daily, where we bring you the most fascinating stories
Speaker 1: from the frontiers of space exploration. Today's lineup is packed
Speaker 1: with incredible developments from across the space industry. We'll be
Speaker 1: diving into Blue Origins latest plans for their massive new
Speaker 1: Glen rocket, and some significant changes within the company. We'll
Speaker 1: also check in on Icepace's resilience Lunar Lander as it
Speaker 1: makes its way toward a historic moon landing attempt. In
Speaker 1: other news, we'll explore how the James Webb Space Telescope
Speaker 1: might help us better understand a potentially hazardous asteroid that's
Speaker 1: caught the attention of astronomers worldwide. Plus, we'll get you
Speaker 1: up to speed on SpaceX's latest starship preparations. And to
Speaker 1: wrap things up, I've got some absolutely remarkable stories about
Speaker 1: spacecraft that have literally come back from the dead. Trust me,
Speaker 1: These tales of space resurrection will blow your mind. So
Speaker 1: strap in and get ready for your daily dose of
Speaker 1: space news and discovery. Let's dive into our first story
Speaker 1: of the day, some major developments from Blue Origin. The
Speaker 1: company has announced plans for their second new Glen launch
Speaker 1: targeting late spring this year. Note that's late spring in
Speaker 1: the Northern Hemisphere, so for Southern Hemisphere listeners that will
Speaker 1: be late fall or autumn. This comes after their first
Speaker 1: launch in January, which, while achieving many mission objectives, encountered
Speaker 1: some issues during the booster recovery attempt. Dave Limp, Blue
Speaker 1: Origins CEO, recently shed some light on what went wrong
Speaker 1: during that first flight. It appears they experienced a propulsion
Speaker 1: related problem that prevented the massive booster from making its
Speaker 1: planned landing. According to Limp, while most engine conditions were nominal,
Speaker 1: they had trouble getting everything properly flowing from the tanks
Speaker 1: to the engines during the critical re entry burn. The
Speaker 1: good news is that Blue Origin believes they've identified the
Speaker 1: root cause and the fixes needed aren't particularly complex. This
Speaker 1: is crucial because the ability to reuse these massive boosters
Speaker 1: is central to Blue Origins busysiness model. The company already
Speaker 1: has a second booster in production, and they're confident this
Speaker 1: investigation won't significantly impact their launch timeline. While they haven't
Speaker 1: announced what payload will fly on this second mission, Limp
Speaker 1: mentioned they're considering several options. They're treating their first three
Speaker 1: flights as development missions, so while they're open to flying
Speaker 1: commercial payloads, they're prepared to use mass simulators if necessary. However,
Speaker 1: this news comes alongside a significant restructuring at Blue Origin.
Speaker 1: The company announced this week that they're reducing their workforce
Speaker 1: by about ten percent, affecting more than one thousand employees
Speaker 1: across various departments, including management, engineering, R and D, and
Speaker 1: project management. Limp explained that the company had grown and
Speaker 1: hired very rapidly in recent years, which led to increased
Speaker 1: bureaucracy and less focus than needed. The restructuring aims to
Speaker 1: streamline operations and improve manufacturing efficiency as they scale up
Speaker 1: their launch case cadence. Despite these cuts, Blue Origin isn't
Speaker 1: hitting the brakes on growth entirely. They're still planning to
Speaker 1: hire hundreds of new employees this year, but with a
Speaker 1: more targeted focus on manufacturing and operations. The company is
Speaker 1: particularly keen on ramping up production of their new Glen
Speaker 1: rockets and advancing work on their Blue Moon lunar lander,
Speaker 1: which they hope will reach the lunar surface later this year.
Speaker 1: Next up, the Japanese space exploration company I Space is
Speaker 1: making exciting progress with their second lunar mission. Their Resilience Lander,
Speaker 1: which launched on January fifteenth aboard a SpaceX Falcon nine rocket,
Speaker 1: is now preparing for a crucial lunar flyby that marks
Speaker 1: a significant milestone in its journey to the Moon. Unlike
Speaker 1: the more direct routes taken by some lunar missions, Resilience
Speaker 1: is taking what we might call the scenic route, an
Speaker 1: energy efficient, circuitous path that will ultimately save valuable fuel.
Speaker 1: Last week, the spacecraft successfully completed a critical maneuver that
Speaker 1: set up this upcoming lunar fly positioning it perfectly for
Speaker 1: this fuel saving gravity assist What's particularly fascinating about this
Speaker 1: flyby is that while it will create the mission's largest
Speaker 1: change in velocity, the spacecraft won't actually feel any acceleration.
Speaker 1: It's all thanks to the elegant physics of gravitational forces.
Speaker 1: The close pass by the Moon will naturally alter Resilience's trajectory,
Speaker 1: setting it up for the second phase of its journey
Speaker 1: using what's called a low energy transfer. As of this week,
Speaker 1: Resilience was already positioned beyond the Moon's orbit, about two
Speaker 1: hundred eighty six thousand miles from Earth. If all goes
Speaker 1: According to plan, the spacecraft will attempt to land in
Speaker 1: mare Frigoris, the Sea of Cold in the Moon's northern hemisphere,
Speaker 1: around late May or early June. The lander isn't traveling
Speaker 1: alone on this ambitious journey. It's carrying several payloads, including
Speaker 1: the tenacious microrover, which will conduct mobile exploration of the
Speaker 1: lunar surface. This mission represent and it's an important step
Speaker 1: forward for private lunar exploration, especially following I Space's previous
Speaker 1: landing attempt. Interestingly, Resilience shared its launch with another lunar
Speaker 1: bound spacecraft, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Lander, which has already
Speaker 1: successfully completed its translunar injection burn and is on track
Speaker 1: for its own lunar encounter Next up, I felt we
Speaker 1: needed a small update to this next story. As you
Speaker 1: may have noticed, the popular press seems to be getting
Speaker 1: themselves into quite a state. What's the popular saying, We're
Speaker 1: all going to die? Not quite, but this a developing
Speaker 1: story that's certainly capturing the attention of astronomers worldwide. And
Speaker 1: now the James Webb Space Telescope is being called upon
Speaker 1: to help determine the potential impact risk of asteroid twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four yr four. This space rock currently has a
Speaker 1: two point one percent chance of colliding with Earth on
Speaker 1: December twenty second, twenty thirty two, a probability that's actually
Speaker 1: increased slightly from the initial one point two per estimate
Speaker 1: in late January. So far, more than fifty observatories have
Speaker 1: contributed over three hundred and fifty observations of this asteroid,
Speaker 1: but pinning down its exact trajectory has proved challenging. The
Speaker 1: object is currently more than sixty five million kilometers away
Speaker 1: and rapidly fading from view, making it increasingly difficult to
Speaker 1: track with ground based telescopes. The full Moon is currently
Speaker 1: interfering with observations, and as the asteroid continues to dim
Speaker 1: to magnitude twenty four, only the largest telescopes on Earth
Speaker 1: can still detect it. This is where WEB comes in.
Speaker 1: The space telescope is scheduled to make crucial observations in
Speaker 1: March and May, long after the asteroid becomes too faint
Speaker 1: for other instruments to track. A team led by Andy
Speaker 1: Rivkin at Johns Hopkins University has secured four hours of
Speaker 1: web's observing time. Their observations will serve two crucial purposes,
Speaker 1: first to better estimate the asteroid's size and then to
Speaker 1: help refine its orbital parameters. This data could prove decide
Speaker 1: in determining whether Earth is actually in danger. Efforts to
Speaker 1: find previous observations of the asteroid from twenty sixteen, when
Speaker 1: it last passed close to Earth have so far come
Speaker 1: up empty. Despite thorough searches through archival data from various observatories,
Speaker 1: no confirmatory images have been found. While these negative observations
Speaker 1: can sometimes be useful, they must be treated with extreme
Speaker 1: caution when calculating orbital predictions. This situation has led to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four YR four receiving a ter Reino Scale
Speaker 1: rating of three, the second highest ranking ever assigned to
Speaker 1: a potential impact threat. Only asteroid Opophos previously reached a
Speaker 1: higher rating of four back in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: though it was quickly determined to pose no danger unlike
Speaker 1: a pofas. The uncertainty around twenty twenty four YR four's
Speaker 1: trajectory means we may not have a definitive answer about
Speaker 1: its impact risk until its next close approach in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight, Unless Web's observations can help resolve the misty sooner. Next,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at what Starship has been up
Speaker 1: to this week. As SpaceX gears up for its eighth
Speaker 1: Starship test flight, the company has been conducting crucial preflight
Speaker 1: tests at their Starbase facility in Texas. Just last weekend,
Speaker 1: they completed a full duration static fire test of the
Speaker 1: super Heavy booster, successfully igniting all thirty three Raptor engines
Speaker 1: on the massive two hundred thirty three foot rocket stage.
Speaker 1: Following the booster test, SpaceX turn their attention to Starship itself,
Speaker 1: conducting engine tests on Tuesday evening at a separate test
Speaker 1: stand near the launch facilities. This test was more extensive
Speaker 1: than the boosters, putting the engines through various thrust levels
Speaker 1: to simulate the different conditions the propulsion system will experience
Speaker 1: during actual flight. The company has also introduced some new
Speaker 1: hardware modifications for this upcoming launch, though specific details haven't
Speaker 1: been disclosed. Once these tests are complete, the Starship vehicle
Speaker 1: will be transported to join its super Heavy parkartner at
Speaker 1: the launch pad, where the two will be stacked together.
Speaker 1: When fully assembled, this engineering marvel stands an impressive four
Speaker 1: hundred and three feet tall with the Starship portion alone,
Speaker 1: exceeding the height of the Statue of Liberty. This launch
Speaker 1: follows January's Ift seven mission, which saw mixed results. While
Speaker 1: that flight achieved some successes, including a successful catch of
Speaker 1: the super heavy booster by the launch tower's chopstick arms,
Speaker 1: contact with the Starship Portion was lost about eight point
Speaker 1: five minutes into the flight. The vehicle was later observed
Speaker 1: breaking up over the Caribbean. Space X is targeting a
Speaker 1: launch date at the end of February, though this timeline
Speaker 1: depends on several factors, including receiving the necessary launch license
Speaker 1: from the Federal Aviation Administration. This will mark their second
Speaker 1: Starship launch of twenty twenty five, as the company works
Speaker 1: toward their ambitious goal of completing twenty five launches this year.
Speaker 1: These test flights are drawing increasing attention as NASA's time
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven Artemis three mission approaches, a mission that
Speaker 1: will rely on Starship to land astronauts on the lunar surface.
Speaker 1: I love this next story in the fascinating world of
Speaker 1: space exploration. Not every mission that goes dark stays that way. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: against all odds, spacecraft we thought were lost forever managed
Speaker 1: to phone home again. Let me share some remarkable stories
Speaker 1: of these space based resurrection events. Take the case of Serbi,
Speaker 1: a small satellite launched in twenty twenty three to study
Speaker 1: Earth's radiation belts. After completing its initial four month missions
Speaker 1: so successfully that NASA extended it, Serbey suddenly went dark
Speaker 1: in April twenty twenty four. The team was devastated, especially
Speaker 1: when massive solar storms hit Earth in May, exactly the
Speaker 1: kind of event Serbi was designed to study. But then
Speaker 1: something extraordinary happened. On May twenty third, out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: Serbi's signal returned, though it only stayed alive for two
Speaker 1: and a half days before falling silent again. It wasn't
Speaker 1: finished yet. The plucky little spacecraft came back once more
Speaker 1: on June tenth, this time for good, at least until
Speaker 1: it's planned re entry in October. Even more remarkable is
Speaker 1: the story of NASA's Image, spacecraft launched in two thousand
Speaker 1: to study Earth's magnetosphere. Image operated flawlessly for five years
Speaker 1: before suddenly going silent in December two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: For over a decade, everyone assumed it was dead. Then
Speaker 1: in January twenty eighteen, an amateur radio astronomer accidentally picked
Speaker 1: up its signal while searching for something else entirely. When
Speaker 1: NASA re established contact, they discovered something fascinating. The spacecraft
Speaker 1: had been stuck in a bizarre loop, rebooting itself every
Speaker 1: seventy two hours for thirteen years straight, unable to properly
Speaker 1: power its communication system. It was like a patient in
Speaker 1: a coma, alive but unable to reach out to the world.
Speaker 1: These revivals aren't always accidental. Sometimes spacecraft are deliberately put
Speaker 1: into hibernation, like the European Space Agency's Jotto mission after
Speaker 1: visiting Halley's comment in nineteen eighty six. It was powered
Speaker 1: down to conserve energy, only to be awakened four years
Speaker 1: later for another comet encounter. Even NASA's Wise Telescope got
Speaker 1: a second life. After completing its initial mission and being
Speaker 1: shut down. It was reactivated as new WIS to hunt
Speaker 1: for potentially hazardous asteroids. These stories remind us that in
Speaker 1: space exploration, sometimes patients and persistence can bring seemingly lost
Speaker 1: missions back from the brink, providing unexpected opportunities for new discoveries.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up today's episode of Astronomy Daily. I'm
Speaker 1: Anna and I've enjoyed bringing you these fascinating stories from
Speaker 1: the world of space exploration and astronomy. From blue origins,
Speaker 1: latest developments to miraculous spacecraft revivals, It's been another exciting
Speaker 1: day in space news. If you want to stay up
Speaker 1: to date with all the latest developments in space and astronomy,
Speaker 1: visit our website at Astronomy Daily dot io. There you
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Speaker 1: This has been Astronomy Daily. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: keep looking up. There's always something amazing happening in the Cosmos.
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