Verge Science is here to bring you the most up-to-date space news and analysis, whether it’s about the latest findings from NASA or comprehensive coverage of the next SpaceX rocket launch to the International Space Station. We’ll take you inside the discoveries of new exoplanets, space weather, space policy, and the booming commercial space industry.
Today’s successful launch of the NASA-funded Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander might have made it the US’ first lunar touchdown since 1972. But an “anomaly” kept Peregrine from properly orienting after separating from the launcher, reported The New York Times.
Icons from the original series are “boldly going” into deep space for a permanent space burial — including show creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel (Christine Chapel), Nichelle Nichols (Nyota Uhura), DeForest Kelley (Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy), and James Doohan (Montgomery “Scotty” Scot).
Their remains are aboard the ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket that successfully launched at 2:18AM ET last night.
Six of the 21 new Starlink satellites launched last night support the company’s new Direct to Cell service announced in 2022. SpaceX will now test the service with ordinary 4G LTE-compatible phones on T-Mobile in the US before the text messaging service goes live in multiple countries this year. Voice and data (and IoT devices) will be added in 2025 as more D2C satellites come online.
A November story from Quanta Magazine that was published in Wired today considered the nascent attempts to explain so-called Jupiter Mass Binary Objects (JUMBOs) — gas giant pairs, free-floating and orbiting only each other — littering the Orion nebula.
According to the article, they’re too light to have formed alone and are unexpectedly numerous. One possibility is planets with “tightly-spaced orbits” being dragged out of their solar system by a passing star.
[Quanta Magazine]
In this GIF posted by NASA, you can see how the Curiosity rover’s shadow makes its way across Mars’ dusty landscape while parked during a 12-hour period. The footage extends from 5:30AM to 5:30PM local time, giving us a glimpse at the Martian sunset.
It’s no MCU flick, but it runs down more than 15 missions, experiments, and big events to keep an eye out for next year. From Artemis, to Quesst, to a total eclipse in North America on April 8th, here’s your preview (also available as 1080p download).
HughesNet announced its rural internet service now has up to 100Mbps downloads and 5Mbps uploads. Plans range from $74.99 to $109.99 and throttle once you hit 100GB or 200GB, depending on the plan. As PCMag noted, the best HughesNet offered before was an unthinkable 50Mbps down on a $149.99 plan.
That makes it more competitive with Starlink, which starts at $120 per month for a “Standard” plan with up to 100Mbps down and 5-10Mbps up — and have no specific limit before throttling.
Behold the glory of Taters, who stars in an ultra-high definition video that was beamed to Earth from 19 million miles away. Oh, and the video was streamed via laser. Awesome.
Peter Russell-Clarke, who has been with the company as a hardware designer since 2006, left Apple in October, according to Bloomberg. He had worked alongside Jony Ive, the company’s former head of design.
Vast, a space technology company bent on creating space habitats with artificial gravity, announced today that it had hired Russel-Clarke as an advisor to create an industrial design team.
The James Webb Space Telescope grabbed this infrared photo of Uranus’ north polar cap, nine of its moons, and its rings, including “the extremely faint and diffuse” Zeta ring.
NASA said in a post today that the picture is a combination of long and short exposures to correct for the gas giant’s fast rotation.
Jeff Bezos’ space tourism company was supposed to launch its New Shepard rocket for the first time in over a year, but after a delay due to cold temperatures, Blue Origin confirmed that it is scrubbing today’s attempt completely.
The company blames the cancellation on a “ground system issue” its teams are troubleshooting, adding that it will soon provide a new launch target for this week.
That’s according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, which said pilots reported radio interference across the United States between noon and 2PM ET on December 14th.
The current solar cycle is stronger than expected, making disruptions like this more likely, but the NOAA forecasts an October 2024 peak, a year earlier than originally predicted.
Anyway, here’s a NASA GIF of the eruption.
According to New Scientist, a planetary researcher at Southwest Research Institute in Texas named Ben Teolis talked about the seasonal quirks of Uranus’ moons in a presentation at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting last week.
Based on carbon dioxide experiments and computer models, Teolis reportedly found that as the moons’ poles exit a 42-Earth-year night, solar radiation could rapidly convert surface ice to gas, forming a tenuous exosphere that snows down on the opposite pole to sit for another 42 years.
The FCC issued SpaceX a “Special Temporary Authorization” so the company can test “direct-to-cellular communications payloads” to unmodified cell phones, as reported by PCMag.
SpaceX and T-Mobile are planning to launch texting through the “Starlink Direct to Cell” service in 2024, with more functionality coming in 2025.
Here’s how Amazon describes it:
[Optical inter-satellite links] use infrared lasers to send data between spacecraft as they orbit the planet. Instead of being limited to sending data between an individual satellite and antennas on the ground, OISLs allow satellites to send data directly to other satellites in a constellation.
Every Project Kuiper satellite will have “multiple optical terminals” so that they can connect to a bunch of satellites all at once. The first production satellites are scheduled to launch in the first half of 2024.
The Jeff Bezos-owned space tourism company is planning a return to launches after last year’s mission ended in failure. Blue Origin is now targeting a launch window for its New Shepard rocket that opens on December 18th.
It’s down to just three of the six gyroscopes NASA upgraded it with in 2009 — and one of those is flaking out. According to Ars Technica, the agency’s engineers figured out a way to keep the Hubble going on a single gyro.
In this one-gyro mode, Hubble’s control system would receive inputs from the single gyroscope in combination with magnetometers, Sun sensors, and star trackers.
Unfortunately, it’s also got issues with one of its guidance sensors, and its orbit is decaying, putting it a little over a decade from falling out of the sky. NASA and SpaceX have studied whether they can push it farther out again.
If we want to go to Mars, we need a better way to reliably relay messages through space. The solution could be optical communication, or lasers.
The European Space Agency’s test-fire of Ariane 6’s Vulcain 2.1 engine will start at 3:30PM ET, and will run for the full 470 seconds of the first stage of a real launch.
As Space notes, the Ariane 6 replaces the Ariane 5, which had a 27-year stint before going to pasture. Its first launch is planned for 2024 following years of delays.
The ESA livestream starts at 3PM ET.
The Psyche spacecraft that’s heading to study a metal asteroid has successfully test-fired a communications laser back at the Earth from nearly 10 million miles away — a first for NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system.
NASA said in its announcement that the DSOC test is “one of many critical DSOC milestones” that will make higher throughput communication possible ahead of an eventual manned Mars mission.
From the SpaceX livestream, the team there said about 15 minutes into the 8AM ET launch that Starship’s signal had disappeared, and it appears the craft’s flight termination system ended its journey soon after the planned engine shutdown.
The ship made it much farther along than the previous attempt earlier this year.
SpaceX’s rocket launched just after 8AM CT. The rocket is currently heading towards space. The booster exploded seconds after the stage separation, but Starship itself continued.
After sending its Project Kuiper test satellites into space last month, Amazon confirmed its systems achieved “nominal or better performance.” It even successfully connected to the internet through the satellite and conducted a two-way video call.
NASA has stopped talking to the Mars robots for two weeks. Engadget pointed to NASA’s blog about solar conjunction, a biennial occurrence where the Sun sits between Mars and Earth.
NASA says coronal gasses can corrupt signals NASA sends to its automated explorers, so the agency is playing it safe. In the meantime, the two rovers and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter will continue collecting data while parked on the surface.
The FAA still hasn’t cleared SpaceX to attempt another Starship orbital launch from its Boca Chica, TX, site after the first one caused significant damage to the pad and surrounding environment. SpaceX’s website and this teaser trailer indicate it’s ready to try again as soon as November 17th.
Those are also popping up on the same day as a report from Reuters documenting 600 injuries to SpaceX workers since 2014.
The records included reports of more than 100 workers suffering cuts or lacerations, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 whose hands or fingers were “crushed,” and nine with head injuries, including one skull fracture, four concussions and one traumatic brain injury.
Musk himself at times appeared cavalier about safety on visits to SpaceX sites: Four employees said he sometimes played with a novelty flamethrower and discouraged workers from wearing safety yellow because he dislikes bright colors.
NASA’s free, ad-free, and subscription-free streaming service has officially launched. I’m personally a fan of the “Space Out” series tagged under “NASA & Chill,” which are 30-minute shows featuring incredible shots of planets and space stuff all backed by chill music.
