Category: Robotics

Los Angeles-based startup Relativity Space aims to become the first space company to launch a fully 3D-printed launch vehicle into orbit. After almost eight years of development, the company planned the first orbital flight of the Terran 1 rocket on January 31, 2023.

Another new company that plans to conquer space in the coming year is the Australian Gilmour Space Technologies. The first orbital launch of the Eris rocket is scheduled for April 2023. If the launch is successful, Australia will become the 12th country in the world to send its own orbital rocket into space.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX company has been working for several years to create a fully reusable superheavy Starship rocket (translated from English as “starship”). This development is expected to become the largest launch vehicle, surpassing the SLS, which sent the Orion spacecraft to the moon in 2022.

SpaceX has already conducted a number of flight tests of prototypes and components of the future rocket. Although the exact date of the first orbital flight has not been announced to date, experts predict that it may take place as early as the first half of 2023.

The first flight of the New Glenn orbital rocket, developed by Jeff Bezos’ company, is also scheduled for the end of the year.

The European Union is not far behind! The German company Rocket Factory Augsburg from Bavaria is planning the first launch of its rocket “RFA One” at the end of 2023. The completion of the development and plans for the first launch in 2023 were also announced by the Scottish Skyrora and the German Isar Aerospace.

We are closely following the news

On December 14, Juno passed the periovium of its orbit for the 47th time.

After completing the flyby, Juno started transmitting the collected data to Earth and encountered a glitch. The problem was the inability to access the onboard memory. According to the researchers, it was caused by the impact of the most powerful radiation belts of Jupiter.

In order to protect against radiation, all Juno electronics are enclosed in a special 181-kilogram titanium storage. But some of the radiation still manages to break through the protection, which can lead to various negative effects.

To solve the problem, the mission controllers switched the device to safe mode and restarted its computer. According to JPL’s statement, this helped restore memory access.

The company announced the completion of ground tests of critical technologies needed to conduct a demonstration experiment on the transfer of solar energy from orbit to Earth in 2025.

The key element tested is the transmission of converted solar energy in the radio band by a directed beam to special receiving antennas. It is planned to scale the components by the launch of the prototype.

An international group of American and French astronomers believes that the landing of the probe is not necessary: it is enough to fly over the surface of the satellite several times and analyze the composition of the gases emitted by it.

This will allow us to determine with confidence the presence of life on Enceladus and will eliminate the need to develop a probe capable of penetrating through a multi-meter thickness of ice.

The diameter of the object is 90,000 light—years, the distance from Earth is 220 million light-years.

Using various instruments of the telescope, scientists have discovered very young areas of star formation, as well as direct evidence of the destruction of small dust clusters within a radius of several hundred light-years from the core, which in turn proves that the active core of the galaxy affects the surrounding interstellar environment.

The Juno probe, operating in the Jupiter system since 2016, continues to study its satellites. On December 15, scientists sent a team to it, which will transfer it to a new orbit. On it, the device will be able to teach Io during close flights.

Juno has previously studied the other two of Jupiter’s four major moons — Ganymede and Europa. In the first case, it caused a real flurry of scientific work on the largest satellite of the Solar System. In the second, which occurred in the fall of 2022, data processing is still ongoing, but people have already managed to admire the first 3D images of this icy world.

With the help of a microphone mounted on the SuperCam instrument, the Perseverance rover working in the Lake crater managed to record the sound that accompanied the passage of a dust vortex over it.

It was possible to calculate that the vortex was 25 meters across and 118 meters high. He was moving at a speed of 5.3 meters per second.

The sound of grains of sand hitting the rover made it possible to determine three dust waves inside the vortex. At the same time, the densest one turned out to be in its center, although usually the concentration of dust is lower in the heart of such vortices. Probably the reason is that this vortex was only nascent.

https://thespacehistory.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/The-Perseverance-rover-recorded-the-sound-of-a-Martian-dust-vortex-passing-over-it.mp4

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe continues to travel around the Sun and explore its atmosphere. Today is the 14th rendezvous of the spacecraft with our star. At the closest point to the surface of the Sun, Parker Solar Probe was located at a distance of 8.5 million kilometers. At that time, he was moving at a speed of 586,829 km/h.

The device continues to collect data, which is then analyzed and investigated by scientists working on the mysteries of the Sun. At the same time, the current rapprochement will not be a record for this mission.

https://thespacehistory.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Parker-Solar-Probe-undergoes-another-approach-to-the-Sun.mp4

The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered that a peculiar little galaxy is one of the most incredible examples of galaxies with extremely low metal content. This suggests that the chemical composition of the galaxy has hardly changed in more than 13 billion years.

Shortly after the Big Bang, only hydrogen and helium were present in the universe. All other elements, called metals in astrophysics, were formed after the very first stars burst into supernovae. These supernovae “polluted” the parent galaxies and led to the formation of new stars and planetary systems.

But the Peekaboo galaxy hasn’t experienced much of this, and for that reason has remained metal-poor all this time.

The team conducted two more soil samples on Mars in the Jezero crater.

Studies of the Martian regolith will be valuable not only from the point of view of studying the geology of the planet, but also for a better understanding of the impact of this fine dust on instruments and the human body.