Interesting developments in Space!
Let’s talk about some of the interesting developments in space recently! The space industry has been really busy. Recently a lot of interesting things have happened. So let’s get started!
SN15
Starship serial number 15 made history on Wednesday May 5! The ascent profile was completely nominal and was similar to SN8, SN9, SN10 and SN11. However history was made when SN15 landed intact (and stayed intact) on the pad. SN15 had many upgrades compared to the other Starship models. It has upgraded Raptor engines that have been tested thoroughly. It has many more heat dissipating tiles and it also has an external methane manifold and hundreds of other things related to software, avionics and the structure.
What’s more is that now that SpaceX has won the deal to send NASA’s astronauts, NASA’s Artemis program now rests on the successful ascent and landing of starship. Elon Musk has already tweeted that they may launch SN15 a second time and SN16 might launch next month. This means that SpaceX is another step closer to its ultimate goal of sending rockets and humans to build settlements on Mars.
The 23-ton core stage of Long March 5B Booster
China had also launched a rocket recently and on board were 3 Chinese satellites. All the satellites on board were successfully deployed to LEO (Low Earth Orbit). However, the Long March 5B booster was also kept in orbit.
Usually, rockets have their stage separation low enough so that the lower booster stage safely falls into the ocean and then can be retrieved. However, this was not the case with the Long march 5B booster, which remained in orbit! Furthermore because of the erratic movement it had, no one could calculate the drag forces on it, and hence no one could predict where it would fall.
This has not been the first time that China has done this. In fact, there have been videos that show boosters falling near cities and last year, another Long March 5B booster damaged buildings in West Africa.
China has repeatedly been criticised for not planning its boosters re-entry and just dropping it at random. Multiple predictions had been made in this case but no one could really pinpoint where it would fall. CNSE however stated that the booster will burn up in the atmosphere. The booster did survive re-entry and in the end, it fell in the ocean. Some might say that because the oceans cover 70% of the earth, there is a very large chance that the debris will fall there. But we never know what might happen.
Ingenuity
Ingenuity made its fifth successful flight on May 7. And it was the first time that it had its ascent from one location and descent in another. It landed just 100 meters south from where it had its ascent. This marks the end of the technological demonstration phase. This means that with the success of Ingenuity NASA has the ability to perform powered flight on Mars! This can be a major addition to future missions because if your rover is moving at 4.2 centimetres per second (which is still fast compared to the other rovers we have sent) you can only cover so much ground. With flight missions we will be able to move farther and quicker, do much more aerial analysis and land on the interesting spots wherever they are.
Now that the technological demonstration is over, the Mars helicopter will actively help Perseverance in the mission. By using its on board cameras, it can send photos back to NASA for analysis. Ingenuity can also help Perseverance mark travel paths and NASA can use those images to for travel paths for future missions.
So that’s all for this week. Space companies are always active and this week has been really interesting. If you liked this article then please leave a clap on it, and follow me to get more such blogs. I write programming blogs too, so if you want you can check them out.
Thanks for reading!
