Even if you dialed the time machine back to the middle of the ‘60s, it would be hard to find a week with more space-related action that this one. SpaceX had a launch. Russia had a launch. SpaceX had another launch. ArianSpace had a launch. China had a launch. And while all that was going on, one probe made a rendezvous with a Near Earth Asteroid and another listened to the winds on another world. So … let’s get started.
BBC News: Chang'e-4 heads for the far side of the Moon.
Paul Rincon
No matter how much you like Pink Floyd, there is no dark side of the Moon. The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, so it keeps one face turned our way, but that doesn’t mean all parts of the place (with the exception of some deep craters) don’t get their time in the Sun. So while there is no “dark side” there is a “far side,” and China is sending it a visitor.
The Chang'e-4 mission will see a static lander and rover touch down in Von Kármán crater, located on the side of the Moon which never faces Earth.
The payload blasted off atop a Long March 3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center.
The mission will pave the way for the country to deliver samples of Moon rock and soil to Earth.
The landing will not occur until early January, when the probe will descend on thrusters and touch down on the rugged terrain of the lunar far side.
In your space trivia for the week: Von Kármán crater is named for the same person as the Kármán Line—the semi-official divider between Earth and Space. That would be Theodore von Kármán. The Hungarian-American isn’t exactly a household name, unless your house is floating above 62 miles up. However, he was possibly the most celebrated practical mathematician in the field of aerodynamics, particularly when it comes to supersonic and hyper-sonic flight. You may not run into his name in your job, but if you’re ever trying to calculate the turbulence around a moving object, or design a high-speed wing …
And … oh yeah. The Moon. China is going to the Moon! That Von Kármán Crater is regarded as one of the oldest on the Moon and is the result of an impact that took place billions of years ago. So it’s an interesting place to look for clues about the Moon’s origin, history, and interior. Plus, in move that will bring a smile to any fan of The Martian, China is going to try something new on the Moon — growing potatoes.
CNN: NASA’s Mars Insight probe records the sounds of the Martian wind.
Christina Maxouris
What would you hear if you were on Mars? Well, there might be a considerable amount of screaming or gasping because the air is about 1/170th as thick as that on Earth. Plus, there’s no oxygen. But at least that screaming wouldn’t sound very loud, even in your own ears, because … the air is only about 1/170th as thick as that on Earth. Still, the instruments on Mars Insight picked up vibrations from Mars’ tenuous winds.
Grab your headphones and prepare to be blown away.
NASA just announced it has heard the first-ever "sounds" of wind on Mars. But if you're expecting howling, swooshes and crackles, you're in for a surprise. These are vibrations, captured by NASA's InSight lander, which touched down on the Red Planet just last week. The craft will stay put until November 24, 2020, measuring quakes that happen anywhere on Mars.
This week, the craft recorded something unexpected.
"InSight sensors captured a haunting low rumble caused by vibrations from the wind, estimated to be blowing between 10 to 25 mph (5 to 7 meters a second) on Dec. 1, from northwest to southeast," the agency said.
Motherboard: Don’t just launch model rockets, land them like SpaceX.
Motherboard Staff
I’ve been following Joe Barnard’s YouTube channel for some time. His amazing progress shows that someone can go from a standing start to rocket scientist with determination and very little investment. He also shows that just because a rocket is small and not bound for orbit, doesn’t mean it can’t be interesting and challenging as a hobby, and an obsession, for adults. The folks at Motherboard have done a bang-up job in producing an intro to Barnard’s work. Watch it and see why he convinced me to get out a soldering iron for the first time in years.
Scientific American: Provides a more detailed overview of China’s latest Moon mission.
Jonathan O'Callaghan
China will use the preceding three weeks in lunar orbit to take images of the surface, and ensure the landing site is clear of obstacles. Whenever it occurs, the seven-step landing process—which will be entirely autonomous—will last just 11 minutes from the deorbit burn to touching down on the surface. Chang’e 4 is intended to land in the 186-kilometer-wide Von Kármán Crater in the South Pole–Aitken Basin on the moon; the latter feature is the moon’s largest-known impact crater at about 2,500 kilometers across. This scientifically fascinating region could yield invaluable data about how the moon formed and evolved, owing to exposed mantle at this location.
China hopes to follow this up with some missions that would return samples from the Moon as early as 2019.
SpaceX: SpaceX dunks a new Falcon 9 Block-5 Booster, but mission was successul
After making one launch on the West Coast over the weekend, SpaceX was back on Wednesday for a second launch, this time taking supplies to the ISS. The mission was a complete success in terms of the launch and delivery of the Dragon cargo capsule to the station. That includes a batch of mice who delayed the mission for a day when it was discovered that their food was moldy.
However, on the way back to a landing at Kennedy Space Center, a new Falcon 9 booster suddenly began to spin rapidly just a few kilometers above the ground. As Elon Musk tweeter later, it appears that the hydraulic pump controlling the titanium grid fins that help steer the returning booster failed, making the booster hard to control. Still the on-board computer and engines worked overtime and brought the booster down to a relatively soft water landing a few hundred meters off shore. SpaceX has recovered the booster and says that it still may be cleaned up and reused for a future launch of internal research.
For those who (like me) wondered if this would affect NASA’s willingness to let SpaceX drop boosters on KSC, it turns out there’s a built in safety factor. The boosters always stay out over the ocean until the last minute, only correcting the position to land on the pads if everything is going right. This landing isn’t expected to affect SpaceX’s scheduling or delay future launches.
Space.com: OSIRIS-REx arrives at Bennu for a multi-year series of experiments.
Mike Wall
Yesterday (Dec. 3), NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe sidled up to its diamond-shaped target, the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, ending a deep-space chase that lasted 27 months and covered more than 1.25 billion miles (2 billion kilometers).
The images from Bennu are already incredible, but the probe will soon begin imaging the surface in incredible detail ahead of making a landing and taking a sample. Exciting stuff.
CNN Business: Virgin Galactic plans to be in space before Christmas.
Jackie Wattles
This month’s space excitement is far from over.
Richard Branson says Virgin Galactic is on the verge of a major achievement: It will send astronauts into space by Christmas.
The billionaire entrepreneur told CNN Business' Rachel Crane this week he is "pretty confident" his space tourism venture can achieve its milestone by the end of the year.
"We have a brilliant group of astronauts who literally believe 100% in the project, and give it their everything," he said.
Rocket Lab: Prepare for Electron number four.
Rocket Lab has plans to make their launches such a regular event it will make Falcon 9 launches seem rare. And the next step on getting to “another week, another launch” is to get this flight off the ground.
US small satellite launch company Rocket Lab is gearing up for the company’s third orbital launch of the year, the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa)-19 mission for NASA. The launch is a significant moment for the small satellite industry, as it’s the first time NASA CubeSats will enjoy a dedicated ride to orbit on a commercial launch vehicle, thanks to NASA’s forward-leaning Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) initiative. VCLS is managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program headquartered at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
SpaceNews: Not every launch is successful — Astra’s “Rocket 2” fails to reach space.
Jeff Foust
Astra has been one of the stealthiest of the NewSpace companies. So stealthy in fact, that no one knew about their launch failure until the FAA used it as an example of their efforts toward range safety.
In a speech Dec. 6 at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce space conference here discussing the agency’s approach to commercial spaceflight safety, FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell mentioned a recent, but previously unreported, accident involving a launch taking place from Alaska one week ago.
“The recent launch mishap is an example of why I’m confident we’re on the right track,” he said. “Look, rockets are complex, powerful vehicles that fail every now and again. But because of our approach to licensing and the precautions operators take, no one in the public has ever been hurt.”
“We saw that in Alaska a week ago today,” he continued. “Even though all five engines failed, all debris landed in the spaceport boundary and there were no injuries or property damage to the uninvolved public.”
Astra performed a more successful launch from the same Alaska location in July.
LAUNCH SCHEDULE
The end of the year has been pretty packed with launches, and that continues into the next couple of weeks.
December 8
Delta 4-Heavy | NROL 71
ULA’s big dog carrying a classified military payload. Delayed by a day so I get a chance to mention it again.
December 12
Electron | VCLS 1
Rocket Lab espects these things to start flying with almost jaw-dropping regularity. Kind of sad that they don’t seem to be giving them all “It’s business time” or “Just Testing” names. This launch carries 10 educational cube sats for NASA. Nudged back a couple of days, but still on track for this week.
December 18
Falcon 9 | GPS 3
SpaceX carries first of the Air Force’s next generation GPS satellites. Delayed for the better part of a year because … we don’t know why.
Soyuz | CSO 1
It’s a Soyuz, but this launch is from Arianespace. It’s carrying a French military recon satellite
December 19
GSLV Mk.2 | GSAT 7
India’s GSLV does it’s geosynchronous orbit thing for a communications satellite for the Indian military.
December 25
Proton | Blagovest 13L
Communicaitopms satellite for Russia.
There are also a couple of Chinese launches expected to occur in the next two weeks, but as is typical, I don’t have specific dates.