US Space Force Live Fire Exercise Completed

Astronomy Daily the Podcast - S01E20 AI Transcript

Andrew: Hi there. Thanks for joining me. This is Astronomy Daily, our, uh, daily look at astronomy and space news. I'm Andrew Dunkley, your host. Great to have your company once again. And joining me is Haley, our Roving reporter. Hi, Halley. How are you?

Halley: Hi, Andrew. Is that rain I can hear again?

Andrew: Oh, yes. Uh, we've got another system moving through. It's absolutely bucketing down at the moment. Uh, and it's been a weekly cycle. I think this is a fourth or fifth week in a row that we've had reasonable, uh, or extensive rain. This is pretty heavy and it's a big system.

Halley: Gosh, you'll be growing gills soon.

Andrew: I dare say I will. I'll probably need them, too, the way it's going. Yes. It'll be interesting to see what transpires after this little downpour daily with Andrew Duncley. Anyway, um, what's happening in the news gives us the lowdown.

Halley: The United States Space Force has been in training and just completed a live fire exercise. The Black Skies exercise is designed to improve their skills in satellite jamming technology. They're also looking at two other areas red Skies, which is training in orbital warfare and Blue Skies, which is basically cyber warfare. The Blue Sky training saw the use of commercial satellites leased from a private firm which served as a target. It hasn't been revealed how the jamming was carried out or which company was the guinea pig in this case. In future, Starcom is hoping to acquire its own satellites for live fire exercises. Meantime, Space Force has unveiled its official logo. And if you did a double take because it looks a lot like the logo from Star Trek, you're right. They've also released their official song and their motto, Sempa Supra, which is Latin for always above. The Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has completed its 32nd flight covering a distance of 308ft or 94 meters. It was in the air for 55 seconds and reached a max speed of ten 6 km h. According to JPL, it's presumed that this flight was once again aimed at assisting perseverance as it explores Jazero Crater in what used to be a river delta for signs of carbon containing building blocks of life. Ingenuity was designed to perform only five flights so it is performing much better than anyone expected. The Aryan Space Company in Europe is looking toward reusable space technology for deep space missions. Nicknamed Susie, the spacecraft will be designed to take astronauts into space and back. Susie stands for Smart Upper Stage for Innovative Exploration and will be mounted on top of an Ariane 64 rocket, a totally reusable rocket system. The whole package will be capable of going into space carrying five astronauts and come back to Earth. It can also be used for uncrewed missions. As I speak, NASA should be getting ready to do the crucial SLS fuel test on Artemis One. If successful, the rocket will be one step closer to launch. That said, the batteries that were installed on Artemis, One only had 20 days certification, which was extended to 25 days, but that has now expired. The batteries cannot be changed on the launch pad, so if certification is denied, the rocket will have to go back to the assembly building, adding further delays to the project. And more satellites are headed into low Earth orbit. One website says a batch of 36 broadband satellites is now in India, in readiness for a launch next month, the British company expects india's space agency ISRO to commit to the launch of its Gslvmark Three rocket, which will carry the payload. OneWeb has already deployed 428 satellites using Ariane rockets, but will be switching to the Indian option once that contract ends. The OneWeb satellites are a joint venture production between themselves and Airbus. That's the news, Andrew.

Andrew: Thank you, Halley. We'll catch you before we finish up today. Now to other news, and you've heard of Hilton hotels. I don't know if you've ever stayed in One. Um, my m wife and I were very lucky to stay in the Hilton, uh, in Los Angeles, many years ago. And, uh, that was quite an experience. What an amazing place. We even had a TV in our bathroom. We thought that was pretty weird and rather up across. Anyway, uh, the reason I bring it up is because Hilton is looking at taking its hospitality business off the planet. Yes, they're looking at a future in orbital space station technology. They're calling it Star Lab, um, which I think has already been used. But anyway, uh, they will be doing it with a company called Nanorax, Voyager, Space and Lockheed Martin. Uh, now they first announced the orbiting complex back in 2021. Uh, Hilton, uh, it says, will bring the company's renowned hospitality expertise and experience to support the design and development of crew suites aboard Star Lab, uh, helping to reimagine the human experience in space, uh, making extended stays more comfortable. That was an official joint statement released this week. Now, StarLab is one of a set of private space stations that NASA hopes will replace the International Space Station, um, probably within the next ten years. And although, uh, ISS operations, uh, on NASA's side, were recently extended for six years to 2030, they, uh, have been planning a succession, uh, to another space station, which, uh, they say will be privately run. So, hotel, uh, stays at the Hilton in orbit. Sounds pretty cool to me. Probably way out of my pay grade, though. Now, the Moon is constantly the focus of a great amount of our attention. I mean, we see it every other night as we spend time outside in the darkness. And I certainly love looking at it up close through my telescope. Uh, but it's also the subject of a lot of study. And it looks like the Moon's poles have shifted because of asteroid impacts over billions of years. This is new research. Astronomers have long, uh, used lunar craters to look at the history of the Moon and the whole solar system for that matter. And because of the destruction left by asteroid impacts and the way they, uh, distributed over the surfaces of various bodies, it can give a real inkling into what sort of conditions these, um, planets and moons found themselves in when the solar system was young. And the research has actually come, um, up with, uh, some very interesting results. Uh, they basically simulated, uh, the removal of thousands of craters and considered the impacts of smaller craters. Um, in other words, they rewound the Moon four and a quarter billion years and, um, they found some interesting results. As I said, uh, the researchers are based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and they found that the Moon was buffered by asteroid strikes and its northern and southern poles wandered by about ten degrees latitude, uh, the equivalent of about 186 miles, or 300 km. They say the discovery could shed light on how Earth's natural satellite has evolved and could help researchers locate water and other resources that could be used for future crewed missions into space. The Astronomy daily podcast Excitement is building for the Dart mission, the double asteroid redirection test, where they're going to smash, uh, a probe into the asteroid moonlet called Didymos on September the 27th. And they're going to try and change its orbit, uh, from its parent body, dimorphus, to, uh, see if it's possible. And it's all aimed at protecting Earth in the future from a major threat. But the question, uh, that sort of comes up as a consequence of that, or maybe it preexisted this is how big is the asteroid threat to our, uh, planet in reality? And that is, uh, the $64,000 question. Space is huge and a cosmic crash, um, into Earth remains a fairly low probability. And we do or have been able to account for a vast majority of the objects in our, uh, solar system, um, but we haven't seen them all in reality. The odds are minuscule. But do we just wait and hope that it doesn't happen? No. Uh, and that's why they're doing Dart. And look, if you wait long enough, according to NASA, something's going to hit us. So better to be prepared for something that might not happen just in case it does. And one of the things that people keep saying is we'll just look at the dinosaurs. I saw a great meme speaking of the dinosaurs, ah, the other day online and I keep laughing every time it pops into my head. Someone's put a photograph of an asteroid crashing down to Earth and a dinosaur looking up at it or something to that effect. And the caption says humans will not be able to survive without chocolate. The dinosaurs didn't have chocolate and look what happened to them. Nonsensical, but amusing. Well, that just about wraps it up. Uh, what do you got, Hailey, to finish off?

Halley: Nothing I really care about, Andrew.

Andrew: Um, what does that mean?

Halley: It's world care free day today.

Andrew: Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm not sure you're quite interpreting that right. We might have to do some adjustments to your perception algorithms. Okay. Thanks, Halley. Uh, we'll talk to you soon.

Halley: Bye.

Andrew: That's it for another day. Thanks for your company. Uh, don't forget to visit us at spacenuts.io and click on the tab, where you will find the Astronomy Daily newsletter, where you can read all about these stories and plenty more. And while you're there, subscribe it is absolutely free. It's what we refer to in the business as bonus material. Uh, and don't forget to leave your reviews. And while you're on our website, uh, listen to the latest edition of Space Nuts with Professor Fred Watson. Until tomorrow, thanks for listening. This is Andrew Dunkley for Astronomy Daily. Astronomy Daily podcast with Andrew Dunkley.