¶ Space Year Kickoff and Launch Updates
Happy New Year and welcome to Space Week , where we bring you weekly space for everyday people . We're your hosts , Paul Miller and Blake Brown . We hope you all enjoyed your holidays . Our sure were busy , but we're back and ready to kick off this new year in the year . Hopefully , most of you listened to our 2023 recap episode .
If you haven't , I recommend you check it out first , and if you did , you'll already know . We have some Artemis news to talk about , and Japan's lander will be in the next episode because it's scheduled to land later this month . Regardless , we have a lot happening in the Real Miss Space Flight already this year . So here we go .
India wasted no time at all and claimed the first launch of the new year with their PSLV rocket or Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle at 9.10 in the morning , January 1st . I got a lot of India and their naming conventions , because you can pretty much know what the mission is going to be just by the name of the vehicle . It's on .
Yeah , that's what it sounds like . I mean , oh hey , this satellite is probably going to be in a polar orbit .
Yeah , polar Satellite Launch Vehicle . Hey , what do you know ? So they had two main payloads on board , the first being the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite , or ExpoSat , and the second was the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module 3 , or Poem 3 .
Exposat is India's first dedicated polarimetry mission and will be used to study the various dynamics of neutron stars , black holes , supernovae and more . Now I'm sure if you're anything like me , you're probably wondering what the heck polarimetry is . Lucky for you , I looked this up .
Was this the one where you spent like three hours just learning how to explain it to ?
Exactly . Yeah , I learned it in depth so that I could figure out how to explain it best and simply in a short format , and I hope this comes through okay . So , put simply , polarimetry is a technique to measure the polarization of light .
So light from stars and other celestial objects , especially those emitting high amounts of X-rays , emit unpolarized light because it oscillates in all directions . So imagine a wave like you would normally picture in your science class . Kind of get that in your head . It's a two-dimensional . It has crests and troughs . It's a wave .
Some waves have higher frequencies , meaning they oscillate faster and some slower . We all kind of bring that back now , or kind of PTSD of high school physics and whatnot . Well , not necessarily .
PTSD , but definitely some stress yeah .
So hopefully you've got that image in your head of a wave . Well , in three-dimensional space , light waves from stars don't just oscillate up and down , but also side to side and in every direction in between . These are unpolarized . Have you got that ?
I think I'm following you , so picturing up and down wave and now just turn that sucker every which way direction . It oscillates in every direction , now , not just up and down , but side to side every which way . Light waves from your phone or a TV screen , on the other hand , just oscillate in one direction and are therefore polarized .
So some of you may own a pair of polarized sunglasses . Well , what do they do ? They filter light based on its orientation . Have you ever tried looking at a screen with those glasses ?
on Plenty of time because we're pilots and they actually suggest not to use polarized glasses because it will mess with your instruments Exactly , or at least the well . They call it glass , but like the digital instruments .
Right , any screens you have , right . So that was kind of my next question , right , is what happened If you looked at a screen with those polarized glasses on what happened ? And if you turn the glasses in the right direction , you know , if you tilt your head , just right , that screen became darker . Okay , yeah .
You've probably seen that that screen became darker , maybe even completely blank . That's because the polarized light from the screen has met with the same orientation that your glasses filter out . Okay , so if the screen is emitting light that goes up and down and your glasses filter out light that goes up and down , well there you go .
You're not going to see anything . Turning those glasses the other way in , your screen becomes bright again . Make sense . So for you photographers out there , this is essentially the same thing that your polarizing filter on your lens does . You know you might have a circular polarizer that , as you turn , you know it may polarize more or less light .
It's a mixture of like two , basically two polarizing filters together , but you get the idea . So , getting back to our original topic , exposat will look at these objects in space with unpolarized light and through a series of polarizing instruments , cut through the glare , just like your sunglasses do , to see the details that lie within .
And basically , that concludes today's lecture . I accept Venmo and PayPal . Thank you .
And .
Patreon subscriptions . Hey Now poem three was actually the repurposed fourth stage of the rocket and 10 smaller payloads on board with experiments ranging from fuel cells to tantalum testing , which is an element that is highly corrosion resistant . So they're looking at using it in coatings on spacecraft .
But poem three was lowered in altitude to responsibly reduce its lifetime , get this in orbit and the potential to create space debris . So they , you know , purposely lowered poem three to a lower altitude where it will experience atmospheric drag over time and essentially deorbit itself .
Oh interesting , so yeah .
So they're kind of watching out for space debris in that sense . So , hey , thanks India .
¶ Ovzon-3 & Vulcan
Our second launch was actually a Starlink launch , but I'm going to wait till the end to cover those . So our third launch of the year still comes from SpaceX , in the form of a Falcon 9 carrying Swedish internet provider OVZone's , I think . Ovzone , ovzone , there we go . Ovzone , there we go . Ovzone , there we go . Ovzone , there we go .
That's an extraordinary set . Ovzone 3 is the first privately funded and developed Swedish geostationary satellite ever to be launched . It's also the most powerful GEO satellite ever to be put in orbit , according to OVZone , covering one third of the earth via its steerable spot beams .
Over the next three to four months , ovzone 3 will use its internal electric propulsion system I'm guessing this is some form of ion thruster or similar to transfer to its final position . So yeah , it's pretty neat .
I mean , it's going to cover one third of the entire earth , which is pretty significant considering most GEOs are limited , I think , in the latitude that they can cover .
Yeah .
But yeah , our next launch marks the inaugural flight of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket . Vulcan Centaur is a two-stage heavy lift vehicle meant to replace the Atlas V and Delta IV heavy . Vulcan actually refers to the first stage and Centaur to the second .
For example , the Centaur III upper stage was used on Atlas V and the new Centaur V is being paired with Vulcan . You'll find Vulcan in four different configurations , with two , four , six or no SRBs or solid rocket boosters attached .
Ula has an easy way of designating the different variants Vulcan is given the letter V , centaur the letter C and then a number for the number of boosters and finally a S or L depending on the size of payload , fairing , standard or long .
So , for instance , a Vulcan rocket with two boosters , a Centaur upper stage and a long fairing would have the designation VC2L . That makes sense . So Vulcan Centaur , two boosters , long fairing yeah , vc2l . In the case of our launch on January 8th , it was in the VC2S configuration . So the same as our example , but with a standard fairing .
Vulkan was carrying the Peregrine commercial lunar lander for a company by the name of Astrobotic , and Blake is going to tell us all about it right after this segment . That's right , looking forward to that . So , moving forward ,
¶ Japan's H-2A
on January 12th in Japan they launched the 8th Intelligence Gathering Satellite Optical . So I'm guessing that's a variant or IGS Optical 8 aboard a H2A202 launch vehicle from Launchpad 1 . And I'm going to try my best at this . Good luck At the Tainegashima Space Center . Hopefully that was right , close enough .
It will head to a Sun synchronous orbit , or SSO , at an altitude of about 500 kilometers . Now , sso is a type of polar orbit where the satellite is in sync with the Sun . Okay . Therefore , it can pass over the same location at the same time every day , which is very useful for an intelligent satellite that wants to see how some place changes over time .
You know , hey , okay ,
¶ Starlink Launches
now I'll go ahead and get our Starlink launches out of the way , because we have not one , not two , but three launches from China I'd like to talk about , before you tell us about Peregrine . First up was Starlink 7-9 that launched on the night of January 2nd out of Vandenberg in California . A Falcon 9 launched 21 V2 minis from Space Launch Complex , or SLC4E .
The mission included six direct-to-cell phone satellites . So I don't know , I think over the next several years , maybe even by the end of the decade , we're going to see a huge increase in global internet coverage and speed , as well as cell phone . I mean , what do you ?
think Honestly . It's pretty promising technology . Just think about the fact that maybe you're only communicating with a data center , like your local ISP . That's then transmitting all your data up to space , then to the server , or up to the satellite , to the next satellite , then to the server .
It'd be much quicker than sending it entirely over a cable across the land .
Yeah , yeah , I mean even fiber optic . Yeah , I think it's probably just going to end up being a more direct way and it's probably going to be the way forward for both home internet and cell phone , I think . Yeah , moving on , we had Starlink 6-35 , january 7th out of SLC40 in Cape Canaveral that launched 23 satellites .
Starlink 7-10 was in the early morning hours of January 14th at SLC4E , again at Vandenberg . This was this particular booster's 18th flight . Wow so we're up to 18 now . That's crazy . I remember I think we covered I want to say it was , was it 16 on our last kind of record booster that we covered . But yeah , now we're up to 18 .
It might have been 16 or like 15 or something like that , somewhere around there .
Yeah , 18's quite a lot for a single booster to be reused . That's awesome , that's awesome . And finally we had Starlink 6-37 out of SLC40 at the Cape also on January 14th , starlink SpaceX's 300th successful launch .
Hey , I remember watching those , like when they were first starting out and they were testing the Falcon 9 and even the Falcon Heavy back then at their testing facility up in , I think , mcallen , mcgregor , texas or something I can't remember , somewhere in Texas and they were taking it up to altitude and it was coming back down and it would crash .
Yeah .
I remember that .
Yeah Well , they released . There was that video . It was like how not to launch a rocket , or something like that .
Yeah , yeah , exactly , it was pretty comical and that was back in . Oh man , that was back in high school for you and me .
Yeah , I think it was a long time ago . I mean , they come like very , very , very long way . It's been really cool to follow SpaceX's development , for sure .
¶ Peregrine
Now I tell you what I'm going to go ahead and change things up and give you guys a break from me , as well as myself a break . Blake , why don't you go ahead and tell us about Peregrine , and then we'll dive into China ? Yeah .
So Peregrine is a lunar lander that was launched by Astrobotic . You briefly mentioned that . So Astrobotic is a Pittsburgh based space startup .
Say that 10 times fast has announced that , despite their best efforts to slow this leak that happened upon launching and calculate new mission profiles so that they could land on the moon , their lunar lander won't make it to the moon .
Yeah , I think I saw this Pretty unfortunate .
In fact it's due to crash into the earth , but more like burn up in the atmosphere . But we have to give you guys some drama so we get more clicks , right , yeah .
Hey .
So , despite the propulsion anomaly , payloads are working as planned , which is sort of good news , but it's like , well , it's not where we wanted it to be , so what's kind of the point ?
Yeah , I mean that really sucks . If you're going to try and send payloads out to the moon and now we're falling back to earth , you say right .
Yeah , exactly .
Yeah , so they're just not really going to complete their mission goals .
Yeah . So Astrobotic is kind of like you know , put a spin on it and put some positive news out there . So they did announce that they were still able to charge up the battery on the lander so that the payloads could operate . And so also to the payloads we're able to like , conduct some science experiments and such , and it's not at their intended locations .
So what value does it really provide ? I'm not 100% sure . I will talk about payloads , but not necessarily the scientific ones , just the ones that are on board that were kind of interesting or very cool . So the payloads on board the Peregrine Mission One were quite diverse , just five small robots from Mexico . I didn't look too deeply into these .
They sounded really cool , just like itty-bitty little robots that were going to roam around on Mexico .
I think , yeah , on the moon , whoops . Yeah , let's go say . Yeah , let's go say Like , go roaming in Mexico . Yeah , right Now , I think that was supposed to be like Mexico's first lunar mission .
It was . Yeah , I did see that . Then there was Iris , which is a small five kilogram shoebox size lunar rover designed by Carnegie Mellon University students . I think that's how you pronounce it .
Yeah , carnegie Mellon , mm-hmm .
Carnegie Mellon yeah , a bunch of time capsules , most notably memorial time capsules , with ashes of famous people such as Star Trek creator , gene Roddenberry , presidents George Washington , john F Kennedy , dwight D Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan .
No way , I didn't know that they had them on board .
Yeah , I was looking at the payloads on board this lunar lander and I'm like , well , they have some of these famous people ashes on here . I think there were also some other Star Trek casts , but they didn't specifically mention those , so I wasn't able to find anything and I didn't want to be like , oh yeah , this guy was on board too .
Right , yeah , throw the information . It is important to note that it wasn't like 100% of their ashes , it was just like a small amount such as , like I believe the number was like anywhere from five to 10 grams worth of these person's ashes . So that's interesting . Yeah , not much .
Now , something that was also really cool is Gene Roddenberry actually had it in his will to have some ashes sent to the moon , Scattered to the moon , that's neat yeah . And the presidents . Well , these presidents are presidents George Washington . Awesome , that's actually kind of cool .
Yeah , I imagine some of these guys are in their will like Washington . I didn't know that we had Washington's ashes Same . I read that and I was like what the heck yeah .
Hey , what do you know ? So a little bit less about the failure and more about what the Peregrine lander actually is .
It's a small class , a small class lunar lander , and includes many payload options , both strong thrust capabilities , such as being able to insert itself into lunar orbit on its own and perform a soft landing , and it also has onboarded high power communications . Now , high power communications . I don't know specifically what that means .
It's just like oh hey , we're able to get radio to the moon anyway . So what exactly ?
Well , it might be boasting that considering our recent you could say failures as well . But even the successful landings , I think , have had some communications issues . So maybe they're saying , hey , if we did land , we wouldn't have those same problems . Yeah , maybe that's my guess , I don't know .
Astrobotic also has another lunar lander called the Griffin lander , their medium class lander , boasting even more capabilities . So stronger payload , probably stronger thrust as well , because it has to account for more weight , and then , hey , maybe more high power communications .
Hey , I did read this and this isn't in my notes , but I did read something about the Griffin lander being the original plan for them to send up to the moon . It was supposed to be what they were sending , but then they kind of scrapped that idea and they're like , well , maybe it might be better to start small , start a little bit smaller .
Exactly .
So , all in all , it's a very promising little lunar lander , despite its first mishap . I believe Astrobotic will fix the issue and make the necessary improvements to ensure it doesn't happen again . Astrobotic was attempting to make history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the moon .
It was slated to be successful until the fuel leak , which actually happened , they said , upon launch .
Yeah , I mean that's not surprising . I haven't really looked into it , but yeah .
Yeah , they said it happened upon launch , as they started detecting the catastrophic fuel leak , if you would , and then they eventually were able to get it to slow down , but not enough to where they had enough fuel remaining after the fact to perform the landing .
Gotcha . Yeah , I imagine they were able to maybe remotely close some valves , but not enough so to completely stop a leak , exactly .
So , despite Astrobotic's failure , nasa still intends to continue its ambitious commercial lunar program called the CLPS Initiative or , and this is very fitting Commercial Lunar Payload Services Initiative . So , just to put it very briefly , its commercial company has been on delivering lunar payloads for NASA and Astrobotic Astrobotic . Astrobotic was one such company .
Can't wait to see the first Astrobat .
But yeah , you know , space is hard dude . So much can go wrong because there are so many like itty bitty little pieces that are engineered to like such small tolerances . It's like crazy
¶ China's 2024 Endeavors
.
Exactly , and we have so many new companies and whatnot that are just getting into space for the first time and you know , kind of speaking of which , not a company , but entire country that's kind of new to the scene is China .
Now , of course , they've been doing this for , on the grand scheme of things , a while now , but not nearly as long as countries like the US and Russia . Not to the successful degree that we've been at , so yeah , yeah , I mean they're kind of playing catch up , but they're doing it really really quick . I mean we have some really really cool stories ahead .
So before we get into China , I just want to say I'm going to try my best to pronounce these , but as always with anything Chinese , russian , middle Eastern or Japanese , it's likely I'll be a bit off .
So yeah , we're Americans . We only learn one language .
Yeah , bear with me , as is in America . So getting on with it . China's first launch of the year came on January 5th Now , by the way , thank you , spacecom , for covering these Honestly , I would have missed them otherwise . So , hey , shout out to them , here we go , hey look my guy , quite Zhao , won a solid rocket , meaning it's a booster .
Once it's lit it ain't shutting off . Lifted off from the Zhukuan satellite launch center carrying four Taimu One weather satellites , joining two other sets of four launched in December of last year . See , I had three right there , guys off the bat . I have no idea , but hey , we're going to keep going with it . You tried ?
The Zhukuan Mu satellites detected changes in signal from navigation satellites as they pass through the atmosphere in a process known as GNSS radio occultation or GNSS RO . So I'm going to kind of back up here and explain things because we're moving quick . Put simply , as GPS signals beam across the atmosphere , in ionosphere they bend and react .
These satellites intercept these signals and measure that to help with weather forecasting , climate monitoring and ionospheric research . Ok , kind of following now .
More or less ?
Now here's a fact that we missed in the recap episode China conducted a national record of 67 launches in 2023 . That's quite a lot , considering SpaceX reached 96 . Soon enough , they will eclipse SpaceX . I could see it as an entire nation . I could definitely see that . I know they have really big outlooks for 2024 .
Here we have no idea how many , but yeah , I could definitely see China being a huge player in space this year . Next up , india isn't the only country seeking out black holes in X-ray emissions this month . China launched their Einstein probe on January 9 .
The Chinese Academy of Sciences , together with ESA and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany , will study new X-ray sources in the cosmos , for example , black holes , neutron stars and supernovae , just like India .
Instead of using fancy polarized sunglasses , though , the Einstein probe uses a wide-field X-ray telescope to look at the sky in a wide field of view , in a follow-up X-ray telescope that will , as the name implies , follow-up on prime targets with a zoomed-in view .
The mission has a planned duration of three years , but could be extended should astronomers feel the need . And last but certainly not least , was Orion Space's Gravity One , which lifted off for its debut aboard a ship on January 11 . Yeah , they launched this thing off a ship in the water , okay .
So like a SpaceX ship platform thing or what .
Yeah , except they're not landing on the ship , they're taking off from it .
Wow interesting .
Yeah , I think it was in the Is it the yellow sea or something ? Gravity ? One successfully carried three Dunyao One weather satellites to orbit . It's a four-stage vehicle with five solid rocket motors strapped together , with the center motor igniting just before booster separation and two upper stages that also use solid fuel .
It's become China's most powerful commercial rocket and the world's most powerful solid-fueled rocket to achieve an orbital mission . So pretty big in the fact that they launched this thing off a boat . Hey , props to them .
Yeah , that's crazy Wow .
It can carry 14 and a half tons to low Earth orbit . Orion Space is Orion Space is Orion . Space is developing Gravity Two , which will have a liquid-fueled core and solid rocket boosters capable of lifting 25.6 tons to LEO , as well as Gravity Three , which combines three Gravity Two core stages , similar to Falcon Heavy , and will lift 30.6 tons to LEO .
So I don't know . In my eyes , gravity Three isn't really that efficient . I mean , falcon Nine lifts 25 tons , but a Falcon Heavy can do 70 , versus Gravity Two that does 25.6 tons . Hey , that's good , but then you got Gravity Three that only does 30.6 . So you strap two extra rockets together and you only get five more tons of payload .
Yeah , wow .
But hey , I guess there's a need , right .
There must be . I mean , maybe it was a proof of concept kind of thing , especially because of the oh hey , this is a massive rocket off of a boat right . So maybe that's what they're going for . Let's go get the boat out into the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean or wherever , and then , hey , we can launch it .
Yeah , you could be right . Yeah , proof of concept is not a bad idea .
But yeah , all of these things that are kind of starting to look more and more like SpaceX , and SpaceX just seems to be the way to go . Let's talk about SpaceX , right ? All right , we mentioned briefly in our year and review episode that there
¶ Starship Failure Cause?
was a failure of Starship's second launch last year , I believe in November . Spacex has announced that they now know the cause of the failure , which was propellant venting caused the loss of the second stage , the Starship itself .
Huh , okay .
So their explanation kind of still doesn't exactly demystify it completely . It kind of sort of explains it , but also it's like well , what caused the fire anyway ?
Yeah , what caused the venting ? Where'd it come from ? Yeah , I got you .
Yeah , so Elon Musk announced that the Starship was to vent propellant because it didn't have a payload , because so it would be too heavy , right ?
Yeah , well , yeah , you've got more propellant than you need .
Yeah , so he also claimed that the Starship would have made it to orbit if there was a payload on board . So them having to vent the payload caused a fire , which then led to the explosion .
Interesting See . Now , in that case , why wouldn't you just load less propellant unless that's just something by design , I mean maybe your center of gravity and whatnot's off , I guess .
Must be something like that , but even still it's sinking like but if there's a payload on it , I don't know , maybe they could have just strapped a huge ballast on it .
Yeah , strap some ballast to it , right . Yeah , I mean , that's an interesting cause of failure , but it makes sense .
Well , yeah , but it makes sense . But what caused the fire ? Right so venting the propellant itself .
Yeah , yeah , venting shouldn't cause a fire in the first place . Exactly , yeah , that's kind of what I'm getting at , exactly .
And an interesting note is that also caused the stage one explosion . So they only announced a cause of failure on the Starship . So the stage two and not the super heavy which is what lifts it that also exploded .
Did they ? I can't remember , maybe you don't remember either . Did they separate before the explosion , or were they ?
still they did . So pretty sure they did .
Hmm , man , that's a good question . I wonder , because that explains why Starship would explode . Okay , if you're venting on the second stage that is now separated and it starts a fire , that one's going to explode , okay . Now , the first stage is now independent and under its own power , yet it exploded .
Well , it turns around right , it turns around and it's supposed to land , right .
Like , yeah , it's supposed to start a burn , so maybe it's possible that , like the venting fuel , it wasn't far enough away . It was hot enough for that burn to then explode .
Catch catch that one . That's , that could be it . Yeah , that's interesting . Wow , we'll have to go back .
I'm going to go back and look at the video and see how far apart they were , because it may have been a commanded abort kind of explosion , it's possible when they just said you know , hey , starship's done , we're just going to blow up the booster , we don't need to worry about it today .
Well , remember we talked about it briefly in the recap episode , but it did have like severe engine failures , like a bunch of them .
Yes .
So I wonder if they meant to like abort that one . I don't know , man , like the whole article that I read on this was just a like a little vague . It was vague , but also it seemed like SpaceX themselves was was a bit vague about it .
They could be protecting themselves from investors or something you know , not trying to scare anybody off .
Yeah , something like that . I don't know , it's interesting to think about . I do think that because it turned around and burned . Maybe they weren't far enough , but they vented fuel and then that , that caught , and then yeah , basically , kind of chain into it . Yeah .
That's interesting . We'll have to kind of look into that .
So , despite all this failure well , I say all this failure- second one must believe there is a very solid chance that they make it to orbit on flight three , which has been slated for February . So look out for our coverage on that .
Yeah , it's going to be very , very
¶ Artemis Update & AX-3
soon . All right , we've already teased this one in our recap episode as well , but we got news regarding Artemis . Unfortunately , NASA has announced that Artemis 2 and 3 are both delayed again . Artemis 2 will no longer launch in November of this year and is now slated for September of next year . Wow , that's actually a huge delay .
It's a one-year delay , yeah , and Artemis 3 suffers the same fate . They now have a scheduled launch of September of 2026 , so one year after Artemis 2 . So , yeah , both flights have been delayed a year now . The reasons behind the delays are mostly because of safety concerns . They want more time to ensure that the new heat shields are up to the task .
Remember , in Artemis 1 , they had some issues with the heat shield . It suffered some sharring , which it's supposed to do , but it was more so than they expected . They want to test a new abort system , so the system that would detach the capsule from the rocket in case of an emergency . New life support systems .
And they want more time to finish developing new crew training facilities at KSC . In my understanding , these facilities will be the same ones that they're going to use to practice new ingress and egress procedures of the capsule , so could be important as an on-pad emergency may come up .
Yeah , exactly Kind of like what happened with the tragedy of Apollo 1 .
They learned a lot with Apollo 1 . They decided , okay , we need to redesign the emergency egress mechanics of the door . We can't do a bolted door like this . There was a lot that they learned on that , so yeah . So again , it's delayed another year , but it's for good reason . So it is what it is Some good news . However , ax3 is targeted for January 18th .
It's Axiom's third private astronaut mission to the ISS and is expected to last about 14 days . The crew is comprised of four members , all from different countries . Mission commander Michael Lopez is of dual nationality American and Spanish . He was born in Madrid and raised in California .
He's a you could say , retired NASA astronaut , I guess , because now he's with Axiom Mission pilot Walter Filode is from Italy , mission specialist I'm sorry , alper , alper Gezerovsky , from Turkey . In fact , he's the first Turkish astronaut , so this is a very big deal for him and his country . I watched a video over him briefly .
So this is really exciting for Turkey , really happy for them as a nation for this yeah , that's cool . And mission specialist Marcus Wundt from Sweden . So , yeah , really looking forward to this launch and I'm really excited for this crew . That's AX3 , and you'll hear about that next episode .
Yeah , that's super exciting . One thing that I love seeing is new players in the space game . It fills me with happiness that more and more people are taking an interest in exploring the final frontier . Our
¶ UAE's Gateway Contribution
friends over in the Middle East , the United Arab Emirates , have joined the fray in that they will develop and build an airlock for NASA's lunar Gateway Space Station .
I'm really excited for Gateway . I can't wait to see .
Gateway is super , super cool . So , for those of you that don't know about Gateway , this is a space station that will orbit the moon , just like the International Space Station orbits Earth . It's called Gateway , which I think is a fitting name , as it's our Gateway quote unquote to establishing a long term presence on the moon .
The first elements of Gateway are slated to be launched no earlier than 2025 . So Gateway is also a big part of the Artemis missions . So as we get more and more updates on the Artemis missions , we'll also probably get more updates about Gateway , which is super cool ?
Yeah , because all we've heard so far is up to Artemis 3 , which is just our first landing , and we haven't really heard anything as far as building Gateway goes , which could be into at least Artemis 4 later .
Yeah , exactly . Well , we're starting to hear about it now , which is great . So I'll tell you the truth , I wasn't really aware that the UAE had much interest in space at all , but I'm glad they do . I know I mentioned them briefly one time when we talked about China establishing partnerships for a joint moon base .
The UAE basically signed an agreement with China that they were going to help them establish moon base on the moon , of course . So the UAE established the UESA back in 2014 , which had its goal to establish a pan-Arab space agency , just the same as ESA , which is the European Space Agency Okay , gotcha .
So the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center will build the crew and science airlock module for NASA , who will use it on Gateway to further enhance our capabilities of exploring the moon . But I genuinely cannot wait to see this mission in action , as I firmly believe that this is one of our first steps into becoming an interplanetary species .
Yeah for sure , which would be really cool , because I want to go to Mars one day yeah , probably not in my lifetime , but it Well , I mean tickets to Mars one way have kind of been sold .
if you want to say it's been sold , they have , I know they have , I'm trying to come back .
Yeah , I know , I know , yeah .
So I'm on a round trip .
That's probably not going to happen Maybe , but yeah . Well , you know what they could do , like a fly by kind of thing , right ? Oh hey , you fly like 100 .
It's like Artemis too , but to Mars .
Yeah , fly by , just send me up , I'll go .
I think the problem with that that we have , though , is that Because I've thought about that is we have a window to reach Mars , and then we have to wait , like several months until you could send another mission again .
So I think , I don't know , maybe it wouldn't work out , but if they were able to figure out like some kind of way to give us like a gravity Capture orbit or something or Give us like a gravity assist and then get us back to Earth . To get us back even faster . I don't know man , It'd be cool , but when I start , when I start Orbital Mechanics ?
we'll look into that .
You will be the scientist that figures it out .
I'll be sitting here on Space Week figuring out the calculus for all this .
Back to reality . Yeah , it's great to see UAESA has come this far , in that they're helping NASA achieve its lunar goals , and the airlock module is , of course , a vital operation of the Gateway Station , in that , of course , the astronauts living on board can't get into the station without the airlock module . Yeah , so the UAESA .
They signed onto a document called the Artemis Accords back in December of 2023 , which the Artemis Accords are a document signed by 33 countries that set out the principles and collaboration practices for NASA's Artemis program .
This sounds like we're talking about like the Constitution and history class all over again .
All right , we've signed the Artemis Accords .
Where were the Artemis Accords signed ?
and then what you hear ? Yeah , no , we're just like spitting out little factoids like , sorry guys , pop quiz tomorrow , yeah . So all in all , I'm really happy we're going back to the moon .
The Artemis mission has been seriously on my radar for a really long time , ever since they announced them , and I've just been kind of loosely keeping up with it because , unfortunately , progress seems to be a little slow , especially with NASA . They just want to make sure everything's right . It's got to go through rigorous safety training .
The astronauts have to go through rigorous training as well . I mean , all in all , space is slow .
Yes .
Unfortunate , but it has to be . It definitely has to be , because otherwise we have accidents and you can't disaster . This is something that we can't really have that many mishaps on , yeah , but yeah , I kind of like Harkin Artemis back to , let's say , the space program effort , because I was even really A thought .
Well , I can't really remember the peak of the space shuttle program Me either .
Yeah .
Which is unfortunate , because that would have been really cool . I of course wasn't alive in the 60s and the 70s to really see the space program efforts back then , when they first landed on the moon and there was Gemini and then Apollo and all that other stuff . So I'm kind of thinking Artemis is my generation's Apollo if you would Exactly .
I feel the same exact way . I mean , I remember first learning about Orion , like early , early , early on . You know , we were told about Orion and it was before Artemis . I feel like they announced Orion before Artemis , which seems kind of backwards .
But , yeah , I remember in school going to KSC or not KSC , jsc , and seeing kind of like the first little like poster billboard that they set up for Orion , I was like this is so awesome , man , we're going back to the moon , this is going to be so cool . And then they were just kind of , you know , hinting at the idea of Mars .
So , yeah , it's just been really really neat .
But yeah , I mean , we've learned so much from the Apollo program and we have so much better technology nowadays . It's just overall , I think everything's going to go a lot better .
Yeah , I agree , I agree .
¶ Space Shuttle Endeavour Exhibit Update
Now some of you may remember from an episode long ago . I talked about the Space Shuttle Endeavour exhibit in LA . For those of you who don't remember or weren't here , they are taking Endeavour from Horizontal and putting her on vertical display for the first fully authentic shuttle exhibit as it would have been seen on the launch pad .
So today I'm going to give you guys a brief update on the progress . In December they finished lifting and installing the solid rocket boosters into place , so that's what I was talking about before . Their placement was key because the alignment of everything depends on them .
If they're off just by you know literally millimeters , it could mess up the alignment of the external fuel tank , which was next . The external fuel tank , however , was successfully moved on January 10th and hoisted into place on January 12th , right on schedule . The tank known as ET-94 , external tank 94 , is NASA's last remaining tank built for flight .
It's 154 feet long , or 47 meters , and weighs 65,000 pounds . So I know it's at 154 feet long . Now that's vertical , that's 154 feet tall . I think the final display is going to be something like over 20 stories tall .
Oh , wow .
Yeah .
I knew they were tall , but dang .
Yeah , it's crazy . Endeavour herself is now being shrink , wrapped to protect her from dust and dirt , very similar to what NASA did with Atlantis when they moved it into position at Kennedy .
So , yeah , we were talking about how kind of tall this is , you can see , but it's a mock up at Kennedy of the external tank and the solid rocket boosters , so you can get an idea of how tall it is . Now Atlantis is the real deal at Kennedy , but the SRBs in the tank , I believe , are both mock ups when you go to Kennedy .
So , you'll have to go to LA for the real deal . In total , project completion is said to be done by the end of the year , but it will be longer than that before you can see her again , since we have to wait until the new science center is ready to open .
Who says we can't go outside the fence and get some binoculars ? Yeah , hey , I mean you could try .
Yeah , get on us and get on a high building and with a scope , and check it out by all means . But no , if you haven't seen Atlantis at Kennedy , oh my God , you got to go see it . It's really really cool . The whole experience is neat .
We've talked about it before and we'll probably cover that again on one of those early launch Patreon episodes we were talking about doing . I finally had the chance to go to Kennedy the other day and it was
¶ X-59 Rollout
really neat , so we'll talk about that there . Anyways , NASA has officially rolled out their new X-59 supersonic research jet .
This one I'm super excited for .
Yeah , we've been talking about this for a while now . We've been getting hints over it and ideas of what it's going to do , but it was developed in partnership with Lockheed Martin . As we already know , x-59 is at the forefront of NASA's Quest program , aiming to drastically reduce the sound of a sonic boom and paving the way forward for supersonic overland travel .
So up to this point , as we've mentioned , if you've been here we've been limited . When we did supersonic travel with things like Concorde , we were limited to overseas travel because the sonic boom is just so darn loud it disturbs people , it can break windows , all kinds of things . So basically the government's put a stop to it .
They said , hey , you can only do this overseas . And now NASA is trying to figure out research to make it quite enough that we can get supersonic travel over land again .
Yeah , that'd be great , like New York to California and what Western in hour , I don't know if it'd be that quick .
I mean I wish , but yeah , I mean much like greatly reduced travel times , right , yeah , x-59 is just under 100 feet long , by 29 and a half feet wide , with a long tapered nose that accounts for almost a third of its overall length . The nose is crucial , though , and is designed to break up the shock waves , to quiet down that sonic boom .
Due to the bizarre configuration , the cockpit sits almost halfway down the plane and lacks any forward facing windows . This reminds me , like Spear , to St Louis , and like Charles Lindberg , and all that , yeah , yeah , or maybe like Maverick in Top Gun 2 .
There you go , when he's got those side windows with nothing in the front .
That's it . So you know , I wonder if they like kind of took inspiration there .
In the movie ? Yeah , probably . But if they took inspiration from the movie the other way around , I'd be surprised .
But instead the Quest team at Skunkworks developed the external vision system , a series of high resolution cameras feeding a 4K monitor in the cockpit , so you kind of get a synthetic display inside .
Yeah .
Yeah , I'm curious what it'd be like to land that . I guess it'd be a lot like landing like a UAV , you know . Yeah , like the Predator or something like that , like the big UAV .
well , you know little quadcopters or stupo easy to land . You just throttle them down until they're on the ground .
Yeah , yeah , it just comes straight down . But yeah , I imagine it'd be similar to something like an unmanned airplane of some sort . First flight is coming soon , according to NASA's reveal trailer , so no idea , but sometime this year , I'm guessing . Fingers crossed , fingers crossed . Moving on into some astronomy topics now ,
¶ Neptune's True Colors
neptune is not what we thought it was . I'm talking about its color , by the way . We've been lied to , deceived , ignorant of the realities in our own solar system . How dare they , how dare they man this whole time ? But really , when we picture Neptune , it's a deep ocean , blue , in contrast to Uranus , which is a pale blue-green . Well , here's the sad truth .
Neptune actually looks a lot like Uranus or Uranus , but we're too childish to use that .
Yeah , yeah , definitely .
The correct shades of the planets have been confirmed with research led by Professor Patrick Irwin from the University of Oxford , published January 4th , officially being released from Mambario on the 5th . By the way , this misconception started when images of both planets captured early on including the images from Voyager 2 , were recorded in separate colors .
So I'm guessing they took monochrome images with color filters . Yeah , maybe Something of that , like when the colors were combined , neptune was purposely oversaturated to bring out its bands and storms . So you remember kind of like the great blue spot on Neptune . The original images were actually captioned explaining this , but the distinction was lost with time .
So of course we come to believe that Neptune is some blue marble .
Also , it's Neptune , that's the Roman god of the ocean .
Yeah , so well , it's not so Ocean-y after all , nasa , how dare you Right ? Yeah , just way to ruin it for us . So the new study takes data from Hubble and the European Southern Observatory's very large telescope to rebalance the color to its true form .
The results are less spectacular than the images we're used to , with both planets being a similar shade of the greenish blue . Neptune , however , still has a little more blue because of less haze in its atmosphere . But yeah , so all these years you've been looking at your textbooks , learning about the solar system First . You know , come on .
First we learned that Pluto is no longer a planet .
And now we learn . I was so mad about that . I know .
And then , now .
Why are you going to bring out this trauma ?
man . Now , neptune's not blue . What else is a lie ?
My whole life Come on .
NASA the moon has made a cheese .
It's the Swiss's fault .
Swiss cheese , I get it .
Yeah , you better .
¶ Dark Galaxies
Moving on from the lies and deceit from NASA , we'll go ahead and talk about this unusual discovery on the astronomers list of ever-expanding unusual discoveries . So this is something they're calling a dark primordial galaxy , and my understanding is essentially is a galaxy made up of nothing but primordial gas .
I've heard of these , yeah .
Really old gas , just put it that way . So , while surveying hydrogen gas in low-surface brightness galaxies , the astronomers have made this discovery of this primordial galaxy . So essentially , they're using radio waves and surveying light in such a way that they're picking up on the hydrogen gases in space . Just super simple . That's kind of just what's going on .
The ultimate goal of these surveys , of course , is understanding the scientific way that the universe has been formed . So the goal of this survey , specifically of 350 unique galaxies , using several major radio telescopes around the globe , was to determine the gas and dynamic masses of these ultra-diffused galaxies .
Sorry , are you saying they got like 350 of these things now already ?
Yeah , 350 unique galaxies . I believe that they've already had cataloged . I didn't see that specifically in the article , but that's just the way that I interpreted it .
Okay .
Things that they already knew about , that they're just going over . They're going over them now Making a pass with the new instruments or the different instruments . Now , that's kind of the way that I kind of interpreted it .
Okay .
So a mistake was made on one of these telescopes , namely the Green Bank telescope . Shame on you , Green .
Bank .
That's not nice , no mistakes .
Neptune's no longer blue . I'm salty now .
You're mad about Pluto , now you're mad about Neptune .
Oh man , it's the end of the world .
So the Green Bank Observatory actually pointed the Green Bank telescope at the wrong coordinates . Thus they made this very unusual discovery .
Man , I can't imagine how they could have possibly pointed their telescope at the wrong coordinates . I don't know anybody that's done that before .
Well , yeah , us being amateur astronomers , we've done that quite a bit . Anyway , they made this unusual discovery of a galaxy made up of only gas . There's no stars whatsoever . All right , if there is , we can't see them . The astronomers do think that they could be there , but we can't see them , so I'm not sure exactly how they're , I don't know .
Now I have a question what's that ?
I'm kind of rhetorical because I'm sure we both don't really know the answer . How do you defer between a really large nebula and a primordial galaxy ?
Specifically a gas galaxy . So that was something that's interesting about it . And I kind of had that question too , because you and I have taken pictures from nebulas and stuff like that . I wasn't sure , but in my mind it's kind of how the Milky Way and Andromeda are very far apart .
I'm kind of wondering if this gas galaxy is just very far apart from somewhere else and is on its own . Whereas the nebulas and stuff .
Lie within the galaxies .
Yeah , they lie within the galaxy and then they're exploded Stars or whatever .
Something's fed them , correct .
Yeah .
I gotcha .
That's kind of what I pictured in my mind .
I'm not sure if that's actually the answer . No , I think that's a good way to go about it .
Yeah , so this primordial gas galaxy is known to us as J0613 plus 52 .
Surprise , surprise . We always got to do math on these names .
Yeah , so that's J0665 . Solve for J , the most surface brightness object , is unlike any that we've ever seen , doesn't show star formation like we're used to , so we're not sure what's going on in it . It's likely star formation hasn't started because the gas within the galaxy is too diffuse , in that it's too spread out .
It's also possible that star formation hasn't begun because there's not a nearby galaxy to get it started , so there's no spark . Yeah right , so imagine like maybe like a puddle of gasoline or something like that , and as soon as you put like a flame on it , it boom . You know that's a way to put it .
Karen O'Neill , a senior scientist of the Green Bank Observatory , shares all of this information with us , also points out that an object like this is extremely difficult to observe , just because of how low density the object itself is .
The instruments of the Green Bank Telescope are sensitive enough to pick it up , but those instruments are extremely sensitive to do so , and I mean extremely , and also I looked up pictures of this thing .
It's huge Really .
Yeah , so picture like radio telescope , right , uh-huh Big .
Oh , is it ? Radio telescope is in like disk radio telescope , or radio telescope is in rays , it's a dish , like just a massive radio dish telescope . Exactly , yeah , okay .
So imagine like big old dish radio telescope yeah gotcha . So Karen O'Neill is also telling us that the Green Bank Telescope could be used to find more and more of these objects . There's probably plenty of them out there , but we've just not observed them because they're so diffuse .
Right , you're going to have to be like really looking for them Exactly . Yeah , that's pretty interesting Okay .
Yeah , and I'm kind of like just a random thought just popped up into my head . It's like you know we've talked about like dark matter and all this other stuff . I wonder if that's just like a place where not necessarily like dark matter , but the structure of the universe is kind of convalescing .
Pushing on it , yeah , yeah , I mean , yeah , that's kind of a way to go about it . I mean just real quick , felt getting on too big with tangent . You know we were talking about the stuff I was talking about during the recap and everything , and how we can look at dark matter between voids with oh my goodness , web's new sidekick that looks like Hubble .
Oh , I forgot the name of that one already Dang . Look at how bad I am Euclid , euclid . Yeah , that's right . Yes .
Yeah , that's what I'm thinking of . Yeah , going back to kind of what I was saying , if you're looking at the dark matter and the way things are expanding , if the dark matter is pushing on an empty space , the gases could be , could coagulate there , kind of yeah .
Yeah .
That's an interesting thought . But , moving forward , jaxa
¶ XRISM
and NASA have revealed the first images from the Chrism X-ray telescope . It's XRISM but it's pronounced Chrism man . A lot of X-ray stuff going on today , yeah , yeah , no kidding . The X-ray imaging and spectroscopy mission , or Chrism , has taken images of supernova remnant Revenant .
Yeah , the revenant , oh God Get out of Pleasedale , the X-ray imaging and spectroscopy mission , or Chrism , has taken images of supernova remnant N123D and galactic cluster ABEL2319 . 2319 . That was my first thought too . It came right to mind man . Oh man , that's a Monsters Inc reference for you guys . By the way .
Starting with N123D , astronomers revealed silicon , sulfur , calcium , argon and iron using Chrism spectrometer . The supernova is believed to have occurred just 3,000 years ago , so very recent in kind of galactic terms , right .
Yeah , that's like the youngest supernova we've seen . Yeah .
Just about . Unless Beetlejuice explodes , hey , who knows In which case we're not going to see Night Sky for a very long time . So this is going to be lit up by Beetlejuice , but that's a totally different topic . Yeah , so if Beetlejuice ever explodes .
by the way , guys , it's going to be a very different topic . It's going to be as bright as the full moon , which is absolutely crazy because , wow , if you ever go to a dark sky site at night with a full moon , you see your shadow .
You see your own shadow and on top of that , you just wasted a lot of time because there's nothing to do out there , because you can't see anything because of the full moon . Been there , done that . Yeah , we make mistakes as amateur astronomers a lot .
It's what we do . You're living to learn .
Yeah .
But the new detail in the spectrum of this supernova allows scientists to determine the abundance of the various elements , as well as their temperatures , densities and directions . From that they can figure information on the star itself and the explosion as it happened . So pretty cool stuff .
You can kind of almost look back in time and figure out how they occurred .
So now we're time traveling , exactly , yeah .
ABEL 2319 , on the other hand , is an extremely bright galactic cluster , some 770 million light years away and about 3 million light years across . The yeah , yeah , root , Root , root .
Root Root Root Root , root , root , root Root .
Root Root , root Root . So they extended the field . They extended the field . Yeah , it's X T E N D Extend . Under normal light , 2319 is shrouded by a bright golden blur , but under the new X-ray image you can actually piece together detailed direction and structure . So pretty neat . I'm kind of excited for all these little X-ray telescopes coming out .
I think we're going to see a lot of the unseen , if that makes any sense .
Well , I hope it does . You know , x-ray being x-ray , it's like Just outside of visual , visible light .
Yes .
It'd be great and honestly , we've seen like ultraviolet telescopes and now we're seeing x-ray telescopes . If you've seen , doesn't James Webb have some X-ray imaging on it ? I can never remember .
Uh , it's either X-ray or UV , UVIR or something like that Could be both .
But even still , I swear I've seen some X-ray images from other telescopes anyway and I'm just like , wow , that's a lot .
It's really really cool because it can really cut through the glare that we see otherwise in visible light and you can bring out a lot of detail , what they did , if you guys remember that first black hole image that we got .
That was X-ray .
Looks like a blurry orange ring . They took that and then they went back with like a another kind of X-ray image like instrument . No , it was with polarized . It was kind of like the thing that India's doing .
Oh , really , they took it in X-ray . I thought it was X-ray .
Well , they did . And then they took another like polarized X-ray instrument and they were able to get kind of like swirling lines from its magnetic field .
Oh yeah , yeah , that's right , and it looks really neat .
It kind of brings out new detail to it that you wouldn't have seen otherwise . Now , kind of spoiler alert , we got another image of that same black hole , but that's going to be . I want to say next episode as well . It didn't most likely didn't fit into the time frame on this one .
¶ Potaroo
All right , we don't have much in the way of nightmare fuel this time around , but I did find a story that'll do . I think it's Potoroo , and unless you're Australian or a zoologist , you have no idea what I just said . But that's okay . I'm going to clear things up .
Astronomers have discovered a new pulsar that's racing through the cosmos at 2.2 million miles per hour and rotates 14 times per second . Now to keep from any confusion , because I've talked about pulsars , quasars and blazars before on the show , pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit a beam of radiation along the rotational axis .
Quasars are black holes that emit jets of energy as they consume things , and blazars are the same as quasars , except that they're aimed at our faces , so they're coming right at us , coming right at us , but luckily we're outside of their scope . They just look much brighter if we were to observe them Right .
And because this rapidly moving pulsar happens to be blowing out a powerful wind , creating a pulsar wind nebula . The discovery was made using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder , or ASCAP , the Parkes Radio Telescope and South African Mircat Telescope M-E-E-R , capital K-A-T . So I'm sure that stands for something .
The team has decided to name the nebula Potoroo after the or Potoroo , whatever your inflection is after the tiny marsupial native to Australia . We don't have those here in America . I'm sorry , I've never seen them before .
You haven't seen one in a zoo . Come on , man .
I don't think I have .
I actually don't think I have either . Normally it's kangaroos or wallabies , yeah .
To understand the formation of the nebula , we have to understand the formation of the star . So let's take a look at it real quick . Psr-j1638-4713 , more calculus names like any pulsar started as a massive star that ran out of fuel and collapsed to a tiny point in comparison , in this case about 12 miles wide .
What's left is this extremely dense and heavy neutron star that spins rapidly , surrounded by its ejected supernova material . So yeah , so just imagine that real quick . You know a star several times more massive than the sun collapsing to something only 12 miles wide . It's extremely dense , Just like you , Seriously .
I had to . It was right there . You don't have to put that in the episode .
But really I think they say like a tablespoon of a neutron star would weigh something like several , several tons here on Earth . They're crazy .
Yeah , I know , and thinking about how dense that stuff is , it's just absolutely bonkers .
Yes .
It's crazy . It's like they say if the entire Earth were to collapse into a black hole , it would be like how big .
Oh , it'd be tiny .
You wouldn't be able to pick . Well , you'd be able to pick it up in your hand , but you'd be like what is this ?
A pair of tweezers , yeah , and the heaviest little thing speck of dust you ever pick up in your life . But yeah , so , going back , we now have a brand new born neutron star surrounded by its ejected material from its explosion .
So now what's happening is this core star of potoroo is blowing particles into the cooled matter it ejected during its collapse , forming the nebula cloud now 46 times as wide as our solar system . Research suggests that the star is leading away from its wind , leaving the nebula behind it , forming a shape similar to that of a comet .
That's very interesting . I wonder if we'd be able to maybe image this ourselves . Probably not .
There is one . I don't know if we'd be able to image it ourselves , but there's one in the crab nebula that you can take a look at here . In fact , we'll just kind of pause real quick .
Let's look it up .
Yeah , okay . So if you look up the M1 crab nebula pulsar or crab pulsar wind , you'll see what I mean . I think some of these are artist renderings . Well , I say that this one is by the Chandra X-ray Observatory .
Oh , wow .
Wow , that's insane . Okay , I take it back . It's not an artist rendering . So if you look at the Chandra website , chandraharvardedu , you can actually find a picture of this in both X-ray , optical infrared and composite .
It looks really incredible , but it's a picture of what one of these essentially would look like , not what this particular one looks like , but it's really cool . Yeah , look that up , it's the crab pulsar wind . You find it .
Nope , where is it from ?
Crab , pulsar , wind , nebula .
Oh , wow , that's it .
Yeah , that's it right there . I thought that was like an artist rendering , but no , that was taken with the Chandra X-ray Observatory .
Oh , wow , wow , Okay . So we'd have to have X-ray imaging to be able to do something like that .
I think . So I think you can see a little bit . If you click on that link . You can see the various wavelengths , composite X-ray , optical and infrared .
So if you click optical , you'll see what we would see in kind of like a visible light or I say visible light , but who knows what wavelength they took this in and then if you go to X-ray , you'll see that we get a lot more of the faint and detailed stuff .
Infrared , you'll see just a bunch of like cloudiness around it , and then they did a composite with all of it and it really pulls together that like purple and blue image . Yeah , very , very neat stuff .
Yeah , wow , that's amazing . Well , that wraps it up for us this week . Thanks for tuning in and listening to us tell you all about the exciting things that happen in the aerospace industry and in space . If you like what you're hearing , leave us a comment , a review and a rating . It helps us spread the word and reach more people .
We'd really appreciate all of your kind words . Be sure to check out our website , spaceweekco , where you can find out more about Space Week and keep up to date with our latest episodes . If you'd like to contribute to this show , you can contact us at contact at spaceweekco .
We need to listen to your questions all the time , so feel free to give us an email with your questions . We'll try to do our best to answer them on the show .
All right , well , that just about wraps things up . Keep your eyes on the skies . This is Paul .
And Blake signing off myths .