Space Stuff

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The seven astronauts and cosmonauts on board the International Space Station sheltered inside their respective spacecraft, a Crew Dragon and Soyuz, on Monday morning as the orbiting laboratory passed through an unexpected debris field.

This was not a pre-planned collision avoidance manoeuvre in low Earth orbit, in which the station would use on board propulsion to move away. Rather, the situation required the astronauts to quickly take shelter.

Had there been a collision during the conjunction, the two spacecraft would have been able to detach from the space station and make an emergency return to Earth.
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It appears likely that the debris field that had alarmed flight controllers on Monday was caused by an anti-satellite test performed by Russia's military early on Monday.

The US Department of Defense on Monday issued the following statement on the test: "US Space Command is aware of a debris-generating event in outer space. We are actively working to characterize the debris field and will continue to ensure all space-faring nations have the information necessary to maneuver satellites if impacted."
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New images and analyses reveal extent of Cosmos 1408 debris cloud​

"We took a major step backward on Monday."​

 

New iodine-based plasma thruster tested in orbit​

Iodine doesn't need a high-pressure propellant tank, as it can be stored as a solid.​

Image of a jet of glowing material emerging from a metal box.


Most people are probably familiar with iodine through its role as a disinfectant. But if you stayed awake through high school chemistry, then you may have seen a demonstration where powdered iodine was heated. Because its melting and boiling points are very close together at atmospheric pressures, iodine will readily form a purple gas when heated. At lower pressures, it'll go directly from solid to gas, a process called sublimation.
That, as it turns out, could make it the perfect fuel for a form of highly efficient spacecraft propulsion hardware called ion thrusters. While it has been considered a promising candidate for a while, a commercial company called ThrustMe is now reporting that it has demonstrated an iodine-powered ion thruster in space for the first time.
 

An “incident” with the James Webb Space Telescope has occurred​

NASA is leading an anomaly review board to investigate and conduct additional testing.​

Image of a person next to a set of hexagonal mirrors.

Technician standing near some of the segments of the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror

A short update on the projected launch date of the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope came out of NASA on Monday, and it wasn't exactly a heart-warming missive.
The large, space-based telescope's "no earlier than" launch date will slip from December 18 to at least December 22 after an "incident" occurred during processing operations at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. That is where the telescope will launch on an Ariane 5 rocket provided by the European Space Agency.
"Technicians were preparing to attach Webb to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket," NASA said in a blog post. "A sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band—which secures Webb to the launch vehicle adapter—caused a vibration throughout the observatory."
 

Planetary scientists are starting to get stirred up by Starship’s potential​

"It could provide a revolutionary new way of exploring these worlds."​

A rocket flies toward a ringed gas giant.

Consider that SpaceX might provide a regular rideshare flight to Jupiter every two years. Several large and small probes might be carried by a single Starship, using its power and propulsion to reach the Jupiter system. Once there, each spacecraft could fly into their orbits or destinations and rely on Starship for a communications relay back to Earth. This would provide a huge mass and propellant savings on each spacecraft.

SpaceX could fly its first Starship to Mars in 2024; it will probably be little more than a test flight to prove that the massive vehicle can execute a trans-Mars injection and then go into orbit around the red planet. The schedule is tight for NASA to squeeze any science probes onto this first flight, but the next Mars window opens at the end of 2026. That seems like a more reasonable target for both SpaceX and NASA.
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Most probably pie in the sky but it would be fantastic if it were to transpire.
And both these images are gorgeous to a geek like me.

Starship is stacked on top of a Super Heavy booster for the first time in August 2021.
 

International Space Station forced to swerve to avoid US space junk​

Orbit dropped by 310 metres briefly to avoid collision with fragment from vessel launched in 1994
The International Space Station photographed from a Russian spacecraft after undocking.


The International Space Station performed a manoeuvre to swerve from a fragment of a US launch vehicle, the head of Russia’s space agency has said.
Dmitry Rogozin, the director general of Roscosmos, said the station’s orbit dropped by 310 metres for almost three minutes to avoid a close encounter with a particle from the American vessel, which was sent into space in 1994.
 
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China's Yutu rover spots 'mysterious hut' on far side of the Moon​

Cube-shaped object is probably just a rock. Yutu will check it out anyway​


China's Moon rover, Yutu 2, has sent images of a strangely geometric object.
A post to Chinese social media site qq.com describes the object as a "mysterious hut" thanks to its cubic shape.
The "hut" is just 80 metres from Yutu 2's present position, and Our Space suggests CNSA's boffins are keen to trundle over and have a closer look.

Yutu 2 landed on the Moon in January 2019 and has been active ever since. It even holds the record for length of lunar operations, having passed 1,000 days of exploring in late September. At that time Chinese media reported that the rover had travelled 840m from its landing place in the Von Karman Crater and sent home 3.6 terabytes of data.
The rover's progress is intermittent, as it must endure lunar nights that last 14 Earthly days and are so cold it needs radioisotope heater units to keep its instruments warm enough to remain operational.
Mysterious hut on the moon
The 'mysterious hut'.
 

A sublime landscape: New model explains Pluto’s lumpy plains​

The convection thought to drive the area's geology may come from cooling, not heat.​

Greyscale image of topographic features.

The polygons of Sputnik Planitium.

Expectations for active geology on Pluto were pretty low prior to the arrival of the New Horizons probe. But the photos that came back from the dwarf planet revealed a world of mountains, ridges, and... strange lumpy things that don't have an obvious Earthly analog. One of the more prominent oddities was the plain of Sputnik Planitia, filled with nitrogen ice that was divided into polygonal shapes separated by gullies that were tens of meters deep.
Scientists quickly came up with a partial explanation for these structures: convection, where heat differences cause deeper, warmer nitrogen ices to bubble through the soft material toward the surface. The problem is that the planet has no obvious sources of heat deep inside. Now, however, a group of European researchers is suggesting that the convection could be driven by surface cooling, rather than heat from the planet's interior. The secret is the sublimation of nitrogen ices directly into vapors.
 
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