Avery: Welcome to Astronomy Daily, the podcast that
brings you the latest news from across the
cosmos. I'm Avery.
Anna: And I'm Anna. Uh, on the docket today, a,
uh, last minute launch scrub for SpaceX's
massive rideshare mission. A new way to track
interstellar visitors using data from Mars,
and a look at how NASA's upcoming Roman
telescope is already set to exceed
expectations.
Avery: Plus, we'll cover a Thanksgiving Day launch
to the International Space Station and a
successful flight for South Korea's home
grown Nuri rocket. Let's get right into it,
Anna.
Uh, what happened with SpaceX?
Anna: Well, it looks like a huge fleet of tiny
satellites will have to wait a little longer
to get into orbit. On Wednesday, SpaceX
scrubbed the launch of their Transporter 15
mission.
Avery: Oh, that's a shame. How close did they
get?
Anna: They were very close. The call came just
over 15 minutes before the planned liftoff
from Vandenberg Space Force Base in
California.
Avery: Any word on why? Technical issue?
Weather.
Anna: SpaceX hasn't disclosed a specific reason for
the delay, but during the live commentary, a
spokesperson emphasized their cautious
approach.
Avery: Right.
Anna: They said, and I'm quoting here, there are a
thousand ways that a launch can go wrong and
only one way that it can go right. So if the
team sees anything that looks even slightly
off, they'll stop the countdown.
Avery: That's a very good point. Better safe than
sorry, especially with a payload that large.
How many satellites were on board?
Anna: Again, A staggering 140
satellites. It's a rideshare mission, so it's
an eclectic mix of customers. For example,
Planet Labs has 36 of their small
SuperDev satellites on board, plus two of
their larger Pelican satellites.
Avery: Wow, that's a lot of eyes on Earth.
Anna: Exactly. The European Space Agency
also has a pair of satellites to monitor
Earth's water cycle. And there are dozens
more from companies and agencies all over the
world, from Taiwan to Italy. There's even
a from the company Varda, which launches
experiments that can return to Earth in re
entry capsules.
Avery: And this was on one of their veteran
boosters, wasn't it?
Anna: It was the first stage of this. Falcon 9
has already flown 29 times before.
The plan was and still is for it to land
on the drone ship. Of course I Still Love
youe in the Pacific to be prepped for its
30th flight.
Avery: Incredible. So when is the next attempt?
Anna: M the next launch opportunity is Friday,
November 28th at 1:19pm
Eastern Time. We'll be keeping our fingers
crossed for them.
Avery: 30 flights for a single booster is astounding
it really speaks to the maturity of their
reusability program.
You mentioned the company's cautious
approach. Is there any speculation on the
specific nature of the issue that caused a
scrub M? Was it related to the vehicle, the
payload, or ground systems?
Anna: SpaceX maintains a tight lid on the details
of these holds, but sources familiar with the
operation suggest it was likely a sensor
reading on the ground support equipment that
was trending out of its expected range. It
could be something as simple as a temperature
or pressure reading in a propellant line. The
automated countdown system is designed to
halt for any anomaly, no matter how small,
to give engineers time to evaluate the data.
It's a philosophy that has served them well.
Preventing potential failures.
Avery: That makes sense. And with a veteran booster
like B1062, which has 29 flights under
its belt, are there additional checks and
balances in place? I imagine there's a lot of
focus on potential metal fatigue or wear on
components that have been through dozens of
launch and landing cycles.
Anna: Absolutely. That's a huge part of the
refurbishment process. Between each flight,
the booster undergoes extensive non
destructive testing, including ultrasonic
and X ray inspections to check for
microscopic cracks in the structure and
welds. They also swap out high
wear components like engines and
grid fins on a regular schedule long
before they are expected to fail. Each
flight provides a wealth of data that refines
their understanding of the vehicle's life
cycle, allowing them to confidently push the
boundaries of what these reusable rockets can
do.
Avery: Absolutely. From keeping things on the ground
to tracking things flying through deep space.
Our next story is an Update about the third
interstellar object ever detected. Three
I ATLs.
Anna: Right. These are fascinating visitors
from beyond our solar system. The big
challenge is always figuring out where they
came from and where they're going.
Avery: And getting an accurate trajectory is key.
Astronomers just got a huge boost in that
department thanks to a very innovative
approach using data from a spacecraft
orbiting Mars.
Anna: Mars? You mean the ExoMars
Trace Gas Orbiter?
Avery: That's the one. Until October, we could
only track 3i atls from
Earth based telescopes. But as it flew past
Mars, the TGO and Mars Express
orbiters got to see it from a completely
different angle.
Anna: Ah. Uh, so they could triangulate its
position. That makes sense.
Avery: Exactly. And it was a huge success. By
combining the data from Mars with the
observations from Earth, they improved the
prediction of the comet's path by a factor of
10. This is actually the first time
data from a spacecraft orbiting another
planet has been used to do this.
Anna: That's a fantastic milestone.
So where is 3i atls now?
Avery: M. It just made its closest pass to The sun
on October 30 and is now blazing out of
the solar system at speeds up to 250,000
thousand kilometers per hour.
Anna: Wow. And it's not coming anywhere near
us, right?
Avery: Not at all. It'll pass Earth on December
19th at a very safe distance of
270 million kilometers.
That's almost twice the distance between the
Earth and the Sun. But this improved
trajectory means telescopes and other
spacecraft can now track it with much greater
accuracy to learn more about it.
Anna: And there's a bigger picture here too. This
isn't just about this one object. This
entire exercise serves served as a valuable
test for planetary defense.
Avery: A, uh, kind of rehearsal.
Anna: Yes. And the implications of this improved
accuracy are significant. A, uh, more
precise trajectory allows astronomers
to more confidently trace the object's path
backward in time, helping to narrow down its
potential origin among the nearby stars.
It's like cosmic detective work trying to
find its home address. This also allows for
much more efficient follow up observations
from other telescopes, including space based
assets like the James Webb Space Telescope,
which can now be pointed with greater
certainty.
Avery: And what are they hoping to find with those
powerful telescopes? Is there Anything
particularly unusual about 3i
ATLAS composition compared to the
comets born in our own solar system?
Anna: That is the million dollar question. So
far from a distance, it appears to be a
fairly typical water ice rich comet.
But that in itself is a profound
discovery. It suggests that the chemical
makeup of planet forming disks might be quite
similar across the galaxy. The detailed
spectroscopic analysis that will now be
possible will break down the light from its
coma to identify the specific ratios
of different ices, organic molecules and
dust. This is our only way of
directly sampling the raw ingredients from
another solar system.
Avery: It's great to see these capabilities being
tested and proven.
All right. Moving from the solar system to
the stars themselves. Our next story is
about a telescope that hasn't even launched
yet.
Anna: You must be talking about NASA's Nancy Grace
Roman Space Telescope. It's scheduled for
launch between 2026 and 2027,
but it's already making waves.
Avery: I know it's designed to study dark matter and
dark energy, but new findings suggest it's
going to do much more, especially when it
comes to the that host exoplanets.
Anna: That's right. According to a new paper in the
Astrophysical Journal, Roman's capabilities
in astroseismology could be a game changer.
Avery: Astroseismology, that's the study
of starquakes, right? The seismic waves that
ripple across the star's surface precisely.
Anna: And Roman is uniquely equipped for it.
Its field of view is 100 times
broader than Hubble's. This will allow it
to observe a staggering number of stars in
incredible detail and detect those subtle
seismic waves on over
300,000 Red Giants.
Avery: And by studying those waves, we can learn
about the star's interior.
Anna: Mhm. We can determine its mass, size
and age with unprecedented accuracy.
As the study's leader Trevor Weiss put it,
that information will give us a lot of
insight on exoplanets themselves.
Understanding the host star is crucial to
understanding its planets, their potential
for habitability, and the future of that
planetary system.
Avery: This ties into one of Roman's main missions,
right? The Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey.
Anna: It does. That survey will use gravitational
microlensing to find exoplanets. But
this added astroseismic data means we'll get
a complete picture of not just the planets,
but the entire system. And since the
galactic bulge contains some of the oldest
stars in our galaxy, studying them will also
give us profound insights into our galaxy's
history and evolution.
Avery: So Roman will basically be a time machine
looking back at the history of star formation
in our galaxy.
Anna: What an incredible instrument it really is.
The data it collects will be the largest
asteroseismic data set ever compiled.
Avery: Okay, let's bring it back closer to home. For
our final stories of the day. We have a crew
launch and the successful rocket flight to
cover.
First up, a very timely trip to the
International Space Station.
Anna: That's right, one NASA astronaut and two
Roscosmos cosmonauts are counting down to
liftoff on Thanksgiving Day from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They're about to
begin an eight month mission aboard the
station. Who's flying? NASA astronaut
Chris Williams along with Roscosmos
cosmonauts Sergey Kud Sverchkov
and Sergei Mikayev. Their
Soyuz MS.M28 spacecraft
is set to launch at 4:27am M.
Eastern Time on Thursday. And it's a quick
trip, right? Very quick. They'll orbit Earth
just twice before docking with the raspet
module at 7:38am um, Eastern,
just over three hours after launch, they'll
expand the Expedition 73 crew from
seven to 10 members.
Avery: What a way to spend Thanksgiving.
And while they're getting ready to launch,
another country just had a big success.
Anna: Yes. South Korea's homegrown Nuri
rocket has flown for the first fourth time.
And it was another success. The rocket lifted
off from the narrow space center on November
26th.
Avery: That's great news for their space program.
What was the payload?
Anna: The main payload was an Earth observation
satellite called Cass
503, which will study
auroras and another atmospheric phenomenon
called airglow. It also carried a dozen
smaller rideshare cubesats for various
companies and research institutions.
Avery: This launch was significant for a couple of
other reasons, too.
Anna: Wasn't MHM was the first launch since the
establishment of the Korea Aerospace
Administration, or casa, back in May.
It was also the first time that a private
system integration company was in charge of
the rocket's production and assembly, marking
a big step towards commercialization for
South Korea's launch industry.
Avery: Fantastic to see that progress.
And that brings us to the end of another busy
day in space news.
Anna: From launch scrubs on Earth to interstellar
tracking from Mars, and a successful flight
for South Korea, it's been quite the day.
Thanks so much for tuning in to Astronomy
Daily.
Avery: Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your
podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Until
next time. I'm, um, Avery.
Anna: And I'm Anna.
Avery: Keep looking up.
The story.