Dear readers,
Welcome to the Quartz newsletter on the economic possibilities of the extraterrestrial sphere. Please send it widely and let me know what you think. This week: We are watching a launch of the Moon, Falcon Heavy gains another payload and what is really going on behind these images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
After 18 years of work, NASA is finally ready to demonstrate how it will bring the next group of humans to the lunar surface. The US space agency plans to launch an unmanned mission to orbit the moon as early as August 29.
The launch, known as Artemis 1, will kick off a multi-year campaign to explore the Moon. Although much is known about Earth’s closest neighbor, Apollo visits in the 1970s avoided the most interesting sites for security reasons. Since then, robotic exploration has identified water ice on the Moon, which could allow for longer stays and more science there.
Artemis 1 will be the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, among the most powerful vehicles ever built, carrying the Orion spacecraft. After leaving the planet, the Orion spacecraft (with test mannequins Helga, Zohar and Commander Moonikin Campos on board) will orbit the Moon autonomously, demonstrating its ability to safely carry humans into deep space and return them.
The most important goal, according to Mike Sarafin, the NASA executive in charge of the mission, will be to test the thermal shield built by Lockheed Martin that protects Orion when it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere. Returning from the Moon, the vehicle will go at 24,500 mph, or about 32 times the speed of sound, and hitting the atmosphere at that speed will generate about half the heat of the sun. There is no way to replicate these conditions on Earth.
The four- to six-week mission is also expected to show that the launch vehicle and the spacecraft are working well overall and that the deep space environment, especially with its higher levels of cosmic radiation, will not affect to Orion. It is also an opportunity for the agency to practice spacecraft recovery after the splash and launch some additional scientific payloads. If all goes according to plan, it will create a manned lunar orbit, perhaps in 2025.
Reader Warning: Release dates tend to move, especially during hurricane season in Florida. Still, that NASA is moving toward specific dates is an important step after trials of SLS launch preparation had more problems than expected. The success of this mission will be a step towards the realization of NASA’s still amorphous lunar plans.
That doesn’t mean everything is going well. This week we heard bad news about two companies that have been hired by NASA to send scientific payloads to the surface of the Moon before human arrival.
NASA’s VIPER rover, which was initially expected to take off on a mission operated by Astrobotic next year, is now delayed until 2024. The space agency will pay the company an additional $ 70 million to perform more tests of your landing to make sure it works when the tokens are lowered. This concern is not a big sign, but additional evidence is not uncommon when NASA hires a private company as a service provider; we saw similar actions with the SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Meanwhile, Masten Space, another company with a NASA landing contract, appears to be on the verge of failure after leaving its employees in unsuccessful search for new investors. Parabolic Arc reports that the company does not offer to NASA because executives thought the mission could also carry a private payload, but it appears reputable customers withdrew. It is still unclear what will happen to Masten or his mission in 2023.
However, there are eight other companies hired for these missions, with the first Astrobotic mission still scheduled for later this year. The reality is that NASA chose this model, hiring private companies instead of building these rovers, to pursue a higher risk and reward exploration approach. This includes these commercial lunar payload service missions, as well as the pioneering satellite launched into a single orbit between Earth and the Moon last month.
These faster, cheaper missions are helping NASA fill in the blanks of its plans as the agency’s heavy Moon rocket prepares for its first launch. But the real fun has just begun: before the first woman or person of color landed on the moon, NASA will also need space suits and a landing vehicle built by private companies.
The James Webb Space Telescope has generated fascinating images, but this is the most stressful one: an analysis showing the effect of a meteor hitting the telescope’s giant primary mirror. This image shows the expected operation of the mirror on the left and the current results on the right, with a white dot indicating the location of the damage.
Image copyright: NASA
Scientists knew that space debris would affect the mirror and have ways to realign it to minimize problems, but the size of this blow has raised concerns that the 20-year hope of telescope operations could be shortened.
SPATIAL RESTRIBULATIONS
Why not Mars? Relativity Space says it has partnered with Impulse Space (PLEASE urge founders to stop putting space on the company’s name) to launch a private mission to Mars. It is unclear who would send payloads, but the two could expect to attract scientific clients. Getting to Mars at low cost has long been a dream in commercial space transportation. Can this team notice?
Why not Nancy? NASA awarded a $ 255 million contract to SpaceX to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in 2026. This was striking because last year, SpaceX won a $ 178 million contract to launch a spacecraft. to the moon of Jupiter Europe in 2024. The additional cost could be explained. by specific NASA requirements for the mission, or a price hike driven by the lack of other competitive rockets capable of flying the large telescope.
What about those JWST images that stop. The images we see of space telescopes are, in fact, visualizations of data that are based on a complex combination of science, design, and history.
Russia’s erratic space leader is out of work. Dmitri Rogozin, a key figure in Russia’s space program since 2011, has been replaced by parliamentarian Yuri Borisov. Known for his absurd rhetoric and his tendency to insult, Rogozin may not miss his counterparts around the world, but he may miss his old work, given rumors that he will play a new role. in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Starlink growth pains. As SpaceX rushes to add subscribers to Starlink thanks to its new approval for mobile users, residential users are complaining about increased network congestion at peak times, perhaps a growing pain on the network still incomplete, but that could indicate more difficulties in advance.
The Pentagon has not yet invested in space. The U.S. military has approved a $ 1.3 billion contract to buy 28 prototypes of satellites that will be used for early warning and tracking of hypersonic weapons.
Your friend
Tim
This was issue 143 of our newsletter. I hope your week is out of this world! Send your Artemis 1 release forecasts, Starlink delay experiences, tips and informed feedback to tim@qz.com.