The post Rogue Planets Outnumber Stars in the Milky Way Galaxy Says NASA appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Ancient Greek observations of wandering pinpoints of light observed in the night sky named them πλανήτης (planḗtēs). The name means wanderers. Except for the Moon, Sun, comets and shooting stars, everything the ancient Greeks observed in the night sky didn’t move. The fixed points of light were called ἀστήρ (astḗr), meaning star. Astḗr gave us the words astronomy, asterisk (star-shaped) and astronaut.
To the Greeks, other than the Moon, planḗtēs were the most obvious visible objects in the night sky. They cyclically changed position throughout the year. From planḗtēs we got the word planet.
Nothing the Greeks described, however, was a wanderer like the rogue planets of Wylie and Balmer’s novel. In fact, planets beyond the Solar System remained unknown until 1992. The first two were observed orbiting a distant star. In 2011, the first untethered rogue planet was found wandering through the Galaxy. A year later, a rogue super-Jupiter was imaged. By 2020, an Earth-sized rogue planet was discovered. Then in 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope discovered the first pair of companion rogues, à la Wylie and Balmer.
A paper appearing in the American Astronomical Society journal in 2023 described a nine-year sky survey that concluded rogue planets were far more abundant than previously thought. The study was conducted at the Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand. There, scientists used gravitational microlensing to discover 3,500 events over a short period. The paper they wrote stated that the number of unbound rogue planets was likely far greater than the number of stars populating the Milky Way.
How much greater? The calculated ratio indicated 21 rogue planets to every one orbiting a star. The results showed a range of planetary masses from one-third the size of Earth to more than 6,660 times bigger than our planet.
How does gravitational microlensing work? It is used to indirectly observe celestial objects invisible to the eye by looking at distant stars and noting when an object passes between the observer and the light. When an object crosses between the light source and the observer, it bends space and time. These bends are key to uncloaking formerly invisible objects.
Microlensing is a bit more complicated than just observing light coming from another star. To be effective, it involves viewing a part of the night sky at just the right time, and doing it in fast sequence to catch subtle space-time bends. When the light bends, and no star or other object is observed nearby, the bending of the light is deemed to be caused by a rogue planet.
Not everything microlensing observations yield are rogue planets. A planet orbiting at a far distance from its parent star could be mistaken as a rogue because it passes in front of a distant light source. For example, a remote observer looking at us might mistake the yet-unfound Planet X for a rogue if using microlensing, because, being so far beyond our local Oort Cloud, it might pass in front of a remote star and bend its light without being recognized as a companion to our Sun.
So, how did so many rogue planets come to exist? The paper describes that during the formation of the Solar System and other star systems, planet scattering was very common. Planets regularly were booted from their parent star, explaining the existence of so many rogues today.
At the end of this month, if all goes well, NASA plans to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Among its many objectives is the study of exoplanets using gravitational microlensing. NASA expects to discover thousands of these rogues as well as orbiting planets. The hope is to image some of these planḗtēs directly.
The post Rogue Planets Outnumber Stars in the Milky Way Galaxy Says NASA appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post NASA Sends Out a Request for Proposals to Replace the ISS appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The presence of a permanent Low-Earth Orbiting (LEO) successor to the ISS cannot be underestimated. The ISS has been both a valued environment where humans have tested our ability to adapt to an off-world existence. It has served as a micro-gravity environment of inestimable value. In addition, it has been a global project involving many partnering countries. Where else can Russian cosmonauts and American and other nations’ astronauts break bread together?
Lately, the ISS is showing its age. One of the Russian modules has experienced leaks, with astronauts and cosmonauts seeking shelter in their attached spacecraft until the problem was resolved. The ISS cannot go on indefinitely even though some at NASA and in the U.S. government keep talking about extensions. The planned end date of 2030 or 2031, however, should be adhered to, considering it is a decade longer than the original ISS best-before date.
An industry briefing today will provide background and answer questions about the new request to industry partners for an ISS replacement. NASA has set July 27, 2026 as a deadline date for industry feedback, with the final RFP to appear near the end of August. The response window is tight: 60 days. NASA expects to award the contract next spring.
NASA cannot help itself when it comes to creating acronyms. The new station is referred to in the RFP as the CLD (Commercial LEO Destination). The RFP draft is looking to have a contractor or contractors cover design, build, operations, crew and cargo parameters and transportation to and from the CLD.
China’s Tiangong, operational since 2022, will still be in orbit when ISS comes to an end in 2030 or 2031. China’s exclusion from the ISS remains a sore point. That doesn’t preclude future collaborations with Russia’s Roscosmos and other national space programs that are not NASA.
Meanwhile, Russian rumblings have suggested separating its modules from the ISS before the end date and refurbishing and adding new capacity to continue a LEO presence.
American and European commercial partners of NASA are also contemplating replacing the ISS. Several projects are already on the go. These include:
The Agency is encouraging vendors to engage NASA personnel and expertise as they write their responses.
Three questions:
The post NASA Sends Out a Request for Proposals to Replace the ISS appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post NASA’s New Direction – Missions for Glory or Science or Both appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>In the 1960s, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that the Soviet Union was spending as much as US$ 10 billion to beat NASA to the Moon. It is estimated that the Soviet program expenditures peaked at approximately $7 billion in 1969, the year Armstrong took that first step on the lunar surface. NASA’s overall spending was much greater than the Soviets’ in the effort to win the race. Peak NASA expenditures occurred in 1966, with the agency spending between $5.2 and $5.9 billion, $3.2 billion in the 1969 landing year, and overall $25.8 billion.
If you think the Apollo numbers are high, adjusted for inflation, in current dollars, they would be between $220 and $280 billion. For Artemis, to date, NASA will have spent over $100 billion by the end of this year.
What are the Chinese spending? The CNSA website and China’s Xinhua news agency are equally circumspect. Industry watchers, however, put China’s annual space budget at approximately $5 billion, and $37 billion in total is the estimate for its human Moon landings program by 2031.
Artemis IV and V, the first two NASA lunar landings, are currently scheduled for 2028. The budget for these two in total is currently $9.9 billion.
Spending this kind of money, whether you are China or the U.S. and its affiliate members in the Artemis Program or the affiliated Artemis Accords, is hardly trivial when you consider how it could be used here on Earth. NASA has 20 countries partnering with it, along with the European Space Agency, Japan’s JAXA and Canada’s CSA. Dozens of companies are developing the technology that Artemis will use.
The CNSA has formed an Artemis Accord equivalent entitled the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), involving domestic state-owned partners such as China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the China Manned Space Agency, and the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology. More than a dozen countries have signed ILRS agreements, including Russia’s Roscosmos, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Ethiopia, South Africa, and several others.
The Artemis Program and Accords, and China’s ILRS plan for a permanent presence on the lunar surface. Both are looking at the lunar south pole. Why there? Because the south pole has craters where water ice is present, a vital resource for habitation and fuel. Being at the South Pole means sunlight can be captured and harvested from crater rims continuously, avoiding the 14-day, 14-night lunar cycle if landings were elsewhere.
Ice in the South Pole craters measures between 100 million and 1 billion tons. The lunar regolith also contains buried ice lying less than a metre below the surface. This volume of ice will easily support bases established by NASA or the CNSA. It means enough water for drinking, agriculture, hygiene, and other operations. It means oxygen for air and fuel. It means hydrogen for rockets, power, and resource processing and manufacturing.
China wants to beat NASA to the South Pole for bragging rights. NASA wants to get there before China to establish America’s continuing lunar and space power dominance.
NASA has the throw weight to make it back to the lunar surface before China.
NASA can choose from several options, including the Space Launch System, SpaceX’s Starship megarocket or Blue Origin’s Glenn rocket.
China is still developing its heavy lift rocket, the Long March 10. The first flight test will likely be in 2027 or 2028.
NASA has a tested deep space capsule, Orion, to get human crews to lunar orbit.
China has yet to test a deep space successor to its Shenzhou, used today to ferry taikonauts to China’s space station. Called Mengzhou, it may undergo its first flight test in 2027 or 2028.
NASA is counting on two contractors to deliver lunar landers. SpaceX is modifying its Starship to create the Human Landing System (HLS). Blue Origin is building the Blue Moon Mark 2. Both may be ready in time for the Artemis III mission planned for 2026, where they will undergo testing in Earth orbit.
China’s lunar lander, Lanyue, is expected to be ready for its first flight test in 2027 or 2028.
A lot of things can go wrong with all these different moving parts. Timelines may slip. Accidents could cause prolonged delays. Costs could spiral upward. Testing in low-Earth orbit won’t be the same as the real mission in orbit around and landing on the Moon.
NASA has done it before, and other than the agency’s complacency until the arrival of its new Director, Jared Isaacman, seemed to lack the energy, direction and sense of urgency that a race entails.
China has all the motivation in the world to beat NASA back to the Moon.
Let’s hope our return to the lunar surface is not for glory but to learn more about our place in the Universe and what our species can accomplish without war.
So when said and done, other than bragging rights, what will we have gained? If humanity can establish a permanent presence on the Moon, will it be a stepping stone to becoming an interplanetary species?
Whatever the result, we won’t be the only life going along for the ride. Humanity will bring a great deal of life from Earth along with us.
Where to next? NASA and the CNSA both see Mars as their next stop. Wouldn’t it be advantageous if the two, along with their many partners, were to combine forces for such an adventurous endeavour?
The post NASA’s New Direction – Missions for Glory or Science or Both appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post NASA’s SR-1 Freedom is a Nuclear Mission Bound for Mars in 2028 appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>What’s driving NASA to revisit the nuclear option? Likely, it is the renewed space race with Russia recently announcing plans to deploy a nuclear rocket option and China continuing to make progress with its space program. With either of these two space rivals, NASA does not want to be playing from behind. It already did that in the 1960s before the Apollo Program vaulted past the Soviet Union to achieve the Moon landing in 1969.
NASA’s history with nuclear power for spacecraft has involved using RTGs and other thermoelectric nuclear power sources. RTGs use radioactive plutonium-238’s natural decay to generate thermoelectric power. The technology has been perfected over time, and it has proven to be very reliable.
Today, RTGs continue to power the two Voyager spacecraft that have long left the Solar System after touring the Ice Giants of the Outer Solar System. RTGs powered the two Viking spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1976. These systems provided power for Galileo as it circled Jupiter, and Cassini during its multi-year mission to the Saturnian system. New Horizons, the spacecraft that visited Pluto and continues to explore the Kuiper belt, is powered by an RTG. Today, two RTG power plants keep Curiosity and Perseverance going on the Martian surface.
RTG technology, however, is not suitable to power a rocket. For that, NASA has looked to alternative technologies starting in the 1960s, up until now.
The 1960s saw NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission launch a project they called NERVA, a nuclear-thermal-propulsion (NTP) rocket using a solid-core fission reactor to heat hydrogen gas and expel at high speed through a nozzle. The project was cancelled not because it wouldn’t work, but rather because of budgetary concerns.
Its replacement, more recently, has been called DRACO, a demonstration nuclear rocket technology. DRACO also uses a fission reactor and hydrogen fuel. Until recently, it was the technology NASA intended for its first nuclear rocket. Now the project has been mothballed.
The new nuclear-powered rocket is called the SR-1 Freedom, with a mission plan to go to Mars. The SR-1 mission will carry the Skyfall payload to Mars. The Skyfall capsule will descend to the Martian surface by parachute and deploy three helicopters, built as successors to Ingenuity, the helicopter that accompanied the Perseverance rover and flew 72 missions for almost three years before rotor damage grounded it.
NASA describes the SR-1 as a nuclear-powered interplanetary tugboat. To meet a 2028 launch date, NASA intends to use the already-built Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) that was to be used by the now-defunct Lunar Gateway and modify it to integrate a 20+ KiloWatt nuclear fission reactor. Lunar Gateway was to be powered by solar panels. Repurposed for the SR-1, the reactor will generate electricity to power xenon plasma ion thrusters to provide thrust.
Where NERVA and DRACO converted power from their fission reactors to directly superheat hydrogen gas and expel it to achieve thrust, SR-1 will use a more indirect approach with the reactor generating electricity to feed ion thrusters, in other words, a NEP, a nuclear-electric propulsion system.
The timelines are tight. The Mars launch window is to have SR-1 ready for December 2028. Besides assembling the SR-1, which will involve the nuclear reactor, a power conversion system and the ion thrusters, the U.S. Department of Energy will have to provide nuclear certification.
SR-1 will take a year to get to Mars. So, this is not a high-speed option to be used by crewed missions to Mars in the future. Besides the increased mass and the need for shielding to protect the crew from cosmic rays, a variant of the SR-1 could be used. For example, a 100 to 500 KiloWatt fission reactor paired with a larger power conversion system and more ion thrusters could shorten transit times to 3 to 4 months. A successor to the SR-1 could include return propulsion systems to ensure a margin of safety for its crew.
What the SR-1 Freedom mission will do is be a proof of concept that should quickly render chemical rockets for long-duration missions beyond the Moon obsolete.
Is it possible to see fusion-powered rockets in the next 30 years? Controlled fusion here on Earth is still going through birth pains. A commercial fusion reactor will likely be a reality within the next ten years. A direct fusion drive to power a rocket is another matter.
Why go there? Because nuclear fusion in space is far easier than doing it here on Earth, and because nuclear fusion engines would need only tiny amounts of fuel to generate the thrust needed to shorten a mission to Mars to 1 or 2 months, and to Pluto in less than 4 years. Fusion would be the king of propulsion technologies.
The post NASA’s SR-1 Freedom is a Nuclear Mission Bound for Mars in 2028 appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post NASA’s Artemis Reality Check Arrives appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>SpaceX has learned from NASA’s early days of testing reusability and engineered it into its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Reusability today is limited to launch stages. The SpaceX Starship plans to be totally reusable with a heavy launch first stage, and the Starship sitting atop. Problems remain as SpaceX overcomes design challenges. A version of it was to be used as the Human Landing System (HLS) in Artemis III. HLS development has largely been confined to drafting boards, making a 2027 or 2028 date for completion questionable.
It took two tries for Jared Isaacman to be named NASA administrator. Since getting Senate approval, he has been visiting NASA facilities and reviewing Artemis and its timelines. Isaacman has expressed concerns about the program’s viability. On February 27, 2026, he told reporters,
“Launching a rocket as important and as complex as SLS every three years is not a path to success…It should be incredibly obvious you don’t go from one uncrewed launch of Orion and SLS, wait three years, go around the Moon, wait three years and land on it.”
Isaacman continued, “There has to be a better way, in line with our history. We did not just jump right to Apollo 11. We did it through Mercury, Gemini, and lots of Apollo missions with a launch cadence of every three months…We should be getting back to basics and doing what we know works.”
The delayed Artemis II mission was to loop around the Moon to test the Orion capsule’s life support systems and the changes being made to SLS as the rocket received the latest upgrades. I say was because of repeated delays for this mission and the entire program.
Re-entry for Artemis II after ten days was to provide proof that the technology was reliable and that a modified trajectory and heat shield remedy would not produce a repeat of the near-catastrophic erosion observed in Orion’s Artemis I return.
Now the rocket, scheduled to fly the first week of February 2026, is back in its assembly building while NASA resolves several ongoing problems. If it flies, it will likely be in late March or April.
Isaacman has had only a few months to get NASA back to basics. Where Artemis III was scheduled to return humans to the lunar surface in 2028, it will no longer. Now it will launch in 2027, never flying beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO) while it does rendezvous and docking tests, shades of Apollo 9. A second 2027 LEO test is also being considered.
Part of the Artemis Program includes a Moon-orbiting space station, the Lunar Gateway. It is to be assembled in stages, beginning with an initial module launch by a Falcon Heavy sometime in 2027. Subsequent SLS launches, including the Artemis IV mission, will deliver finishing modules if the Gateway remains part of the plan.
When envisioned, Lunar Gateway was to include a habitat with radiation shielding, a command control hub, multiple docking ports and a refuelling station in the event of a future mission to Mars.
Gateway is to feature Hall-Effect thrusters to keep in orbit around the Moon. With the revised timelines for Artemis missions, it is difficult to determine if or when Gateway will deploy. If the mission gets further redesigns, Gateway may be eliminated.
Artemis IV in early 2028 looks like the mission that will return NASA astronauts to the Moon. It may also deliver modules to add to the Lunar Gateway. On the other hand, Artemis IV may be Gateway-free, docking with an HLS in lunar orbit. The astronauts would then transfer and descend to the lunar surface, the first to walk on the Moon since 1972.
Should we put the date in our calendars? Considering the changes Isaacman is already instituting, I suspect further tinkering with Artemis to streamline the mission while ensuring the technology will work and keep the astronauts safe. Beyond this, the one driving issue pushing the Artemis timetable is a space race with China. China has announced plans to put taikonauts on the Moon by 2030. If 2028 or 2029 are missed by NASA, it may be a Chinese crew taking “One small step for man.”
The post NASA’s Artemis Reality Check Arrives appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post Artemis Program Imperilled By Its Dependence On An Obsolete Launch System appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>NASA developed SLS and the Orion space capsule to succeed the Saturn V and Apollo Command Module. The resemblance between the two systems aimed at the Moon is uncanny. SLS is a one-way launcher that resembles the Saturn V rocket. The rocket and spaceship structure almost looks like a retread of the 1960s Apollo. The biggest difference lies in the solid rocket boosters, resurrected from the Space Shuttle era, that are strapped to the SLS first stage to increase thrust.
The Orion space capsule lies atop, eerily similar to the Apollo Command Module but bigger to handle a larger crew. Orion’s service module comes from the European Space Agency. This heat shield is supposed to be better than the one used for Apollo, with improvements designed to handle accelerated re-entry speeds. Tested for the first time during the uncrewed Artemis I mission, it proved wanting, prompting NASA to do a rethink and redesign.
To me, these elements in the Artemis Program represent a series of compounding mistakes. This week was the latest example of how American pork-barrel politics have compromised NASA’s ability to innovate, leaving it with an Apollo retread. The launch of Artemis II, the mission to send a crew of four beyond the Moon and back, had to be postponed until March. The reason given, the SLS sprang a hydrogen leak during fueling.
Artemis I was originally scheduled to launch in 2017. SLS development delays and technology glitches pushed that timeline back five years. NASA blamed funding cuts and COVID-19 for the delay. The truth, however, is that the SLS had numerous rocket engine, battery, and, guess what, hydrogen leak problems. Artemis I finally launched on November 16, 2022.
After Apollo, NASA needed a renewed purpose for human spaceflight. Getting to the Moon was done. What next? Apollo-Soyuz and Skylab were fillers while the Shuttle Program was under construction. The Shuttle was going to make low-Earth orbit (LEO) human spaceflight affordable. The Shuttle would deliver payloads to LEO at a fraction of the cost of the previous generations of launch vehicles. The Shuttle was to be reusable.
The first Shuttle, Columbia, suffered numerous technical glitches, sensor failures, heat shield issues and fuel leaks. Columbia took five years to get to the launchpad and then rolled back to the assembly building, where it was delayed for another two years. The first flight was in April 1981.
The Shuttle program flew 135 missions. Shuttles delivered the modules and infrastructure for assembling the International Space Station (ISS). Missions repaired and maintained the Hubble Space Telescope. Two missions failed with loss of crew. The program came to an end in July 2011, with the remaining ships mothballed and turned into exhibits.
The Shuttle Program never made human spaceflight cheaper or safer. Each mission was supposed to cost US$9.3 million but ended up averaging $1.5 billion.
The Artemis Program resembles NASA’s experience with the Space Shuttle. Both have gone way over budget. Both have experienced multi-year delays. The Shuttles flew more than once and could be refurbished. Currently, SLS with Orion has flown once. Only the capsule and the two solid-rocket boosters, mated to the SLS, are reusable.
NASA funding with the Apollo Program reached approximatley 4% of the US federal budget. Today, NASA’s share is 0.5%. Congressional requests amounting to pork-barrel projects have contributed to money misspent, and a mission design that incorporates obsolescence. The mission has been subjected to political interference from four different administrations.
The two Shuttle accidents have created a more safety-conscious NASA. Meanwhile, technological advances in materials, computing, and design have led NASA engineers to go through multiple redesigns. These redesigns have impacted both the SLS and Orion.
Then there are the private contractors who have promised deliverables by certain dates and missed these milestones. The SpaceX Human Landing System (HLS) needed to ferry crews from Orion to the Moon and back remains missing in action. Based on a yet-to-be-proven design from SpaceX, it is years behind schedule.
Artemis III, the return of humans to the lunar surface, was to happen in 2024, but is now likely to launch no earlier than 2028.
There are alternatives for NASA that do not require either the SLS or Orion. NASA budgets commit $93 billion from Artemis II through IV. As designed, current missions lock NASA into pork-barrel contracts and jobs programs spread over 30 states. Politicians in Washington have the final say on NASA funding. Cutting some of the $93 billion would lead to job losses in congressional home districts, which wouldn’t go over well in election years.
A cutting-our-losses strategy, however, could reduce the cost of future Artemis missions. Three alternative mission scenarios could eliminate the need for the SLS. Two of these scenarios would eliminate Orion. The elimination of both would save billions.
Consider these Artemis mission alternatives:
The post Artemis Program Imperilled By Its Dependence On An Obsolete Launch System appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post Ask Jeff Bezos Why We Should Move More Infrastructure To Space. appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Based on comments from Dave Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, this week, he predicted that data centres will be moving off-world as well. Limp predicts this will happen within the next decade, with limitless solar energy being the big draw. High-speed communications to and from data centres will use lasers to retrieve and send information to satellites as well as the ground.
One of the companies attempting to turn this vision into a reality is Starcloud, a recent startup that is building and testing prototypes for future space-based data centres. Its first satellite, Starcloud-1, was launched into orbit on November 2, 2025. It is refrigerator-sized and contains an Nvidia H100 GPU, a data-centre-grade piece of hardware designed, as well as a closed-loop cooling system designed to absorb and radiate the heat generated by the processor into space. Starcloud-1 will stay in orbit for 11 months. It will be followed by Starcloud-2 late in 2026, which will feature a more powerful Nvidia GPU, called Blackwell. Starcloud-2 will include optical communication terminals to test the laser communications capability of the technology. The result, if all goes well, will be the first of its type secure data storage and cloud computing centre that will be out of this world.
Starcloud and Blue Origin share a common vision. They see future space-based data centres resembling constellations of individual data storage satellites, not too dissimilar from space-based telecommunication networks like Starlink. There would no longer be the need to build hectare-sized ground-based data centres requiring energy from restored nuclear power plants for operations. Limp sees in Starcloud-1 and 2 the proof of concept that space-based data centres can replace current ground-based operations and eventually eliminate the need to build more like them in the coming decades.
Of course, the only way this vision becomes a reality depends on lowering the cost and increasing the frequency of getting from Earth to orbit. The trend for both of these data points is in the right direction. In 2023, 223 rockets were launched successfully. In 2024, the number reached was 259. This year, we will see 300 or more.
Meanwhile, the feasibility of large payload deliveries to Earth orbit using partially reusable launchers has been adequately demonstrated by SpaceX with its Falcon 9, Rocket Lab’s Electron, and most recently, Blue Origin’s New Glenn. The SpaceX Starship may soon join this trio to continue lowering the launch costs.
Data centres in space may happen before manufacturing industries make the same move, despite outer space’s unique advantages, which include microgravity and unlimited solar energy. Large-scale resource extraction with the deployment of commercial, sustainable space mining and creating a space labour force remain the missing pieces to finish this puzzle.
How close are we to realizing this Bezos vision of the future? The tools to make the Great Inversion a reality are already in the process of being developed by NASA and its partners, with much of the prototyping happening on the International Space Station (ISS). These include:
As an effective way to preserve Earth’s environment and address climate change, the move to off-world primary manufacturing would cause conditions on the planet to revert to pre-Industrial Revolution times, states Bezos. Bezos believes this will be a multi-generational project and will create a new Eden on our planet, giving a whole new meaning to the era of humans, known as the Anthropocene.
Bezos’ vision dramatically differs from that of his commercial space billionaire rival, Elon Musk. Musk’s purpose for launching SpaceX has been to ensure that humans become a multi-planetary species to avoid an extinction-level event like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That’s why he is focused on colonizing Mars. Bezos’ answer to this is to build cities in space that become self-sufficient manufacturing centres that serve Earth populations’ needs as well as provide a foundation for a space-based human civilization.
The post Ask Jeff Bezos Why We Should Move More Infrastructure To Space. appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post Artemis Timetable Involving SpaceX Hardware Continues To Slip appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The problem that has emerged in this partnership is this: the HLS doesn’t even fully exist on paper, and the target date of mid-2027 set for the Artemis III mission seems to be rapidly slipping away.
Starship has had teething problems from the beginning. SpaceX has made a name for itself with the partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket that has become a workhorse in the space launch business. The reusable Dragon spaceship has proven to be a reliable taxi in getting crews and servicing the International Space Station (ISS). The company has created the Starlink space-based terrestrial telecommunications network.
Its most ambitious project to date has been Starship and its companion heavy booster. In the last week, SpaceX launched its eleventh Starship test, which was described as the final flight of the Version 2 model. After numerous failures and partial successes, this flight marked Starship’s first completely normal or nominal flight. The test demonstrated that SpaceX had demonstrated payload deployment, controlled ascents and descents, and possibly reliability, with all of these successes to be incorporated into Version 3.
The next Starship, Version 3, will incorporate new and better features and should be launched in 2026. Designated Ship 39, it is already being constructed. It will be 1.5 metres (5 feet) longer, have greater propellant capacity, third-generation Raptor 3 engines, avionics changes and docking adapters for ship-to-ship fuel transfers. With all these changes, and considering the number of flights it took to get Version 2 to achieve a nominal flight, achieving normality and consistency with Version 3 in 2026 seems unlikely.
Normality and consistency in performance, however, are what NASA seeks before proceeding with the Artemis III mission, which requires the HLS, based on Version 3 but with living and life support features for crews, navigation and landing systems, fins and landing legs. So far, all that exists is an HLS prototype that began construction in 2024 and likely has been deconstructed and rethought several times to date.
Artemis III is a complex mission aimed at returning human crews to the lunar surface. It has many components:
Version 3 of Starship is not the HLS. The final design for the latter, with a review of all the necessary build requirements, is expected early in 2026. This will be followed by full system development, assembly, integration and testing. Originally, the plan was to do an uncrewed mission to the Moon with a landing in 2026. The likelihood of meeting these milestones seems to be slipping away.
Starship Version 3 will test in-space refuelling. First demonstrated during the Space Shuttle era in 1984, but on a small scale, large cryogenic orbital fuel transfers have never been done, but are necessary for the HLS, which, while flying from Earth, will expend much of its fuel to get to lunar orbit. Without refuelling, the HLS will not be able to land or ascend from the Moon.
A tanker Version 3 Starship is envisioned for use by the Artemis Program. The carrying capacity of each tanker is expected to equal 100 tons of propellant. The estimated requirements for each Artemis lunar landing mission are 15 fuel payloads if boiloff can be minimized. The cryogenic fuels include liquid oxygen and methane, which can be quite volatile in the vacuum of space. As much as 50% of fuel at launch could be lost to space, meaning that instead of 15 payloads, Artemis missions may need as many as 30 Starship tankers servicing each landing.
When the Artemis III mission costs are mentioned, the price tag focuses on the SLS and Orion components. That price is approximately US$4.1 billion. Add in the HLS cost, a fixed-price deliverable from SpaceX, and the number climbs to $7.6 billion. Then there are the tanker flights, at least 15 at between $50 and $80 million per launch, $750 million to $1.2 billion, bringing the total to as much as $8.8 billion. This number doesn’t include the deployment of HLS support infrastructure on the lunar surface, estimated to be $600 million, or operational overheads, including training and logistics support, as much as $2 billion. That brings the Artemis III mission cost to $11.4 billion.
With so many moving parts and unfulfilled deliverables, the 2027 timeline for Artemis III seems to be a pipedream. Even if Version 3’s first flight produces a nominal outcome, it will still require repeatability to meet NASA standards. A best guess for the Artemis III mission is that it won’t fly to the Moon sooner than late in 2028 and possibly 2029 or 2030. NASA has red flagged as high risk several elements, including refuelling, HLS supporting lunar infrastructure and the latest NASA operational budget cuts by the Trump administration.
The post Artemis Timetable Involving SpaceX Hardware Continues To Slip appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post Saturn’s Moon Titan May Host The Building Blocks Of Life appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>After a NASA shuttle crashes on landing, the government slashes funding to the agency. NASA scientists and engineers decide to launch one more mission, a Hail Mary to Titan, based on findings from the Cassini probe circling Saturn, that the moon harbours life. The crew struggle over a six-year mission that makes it to Titan, where indeed, there is life, but unlike anything found on Earth.
Titan is the only moon in the Solar System that shares characteristics with Earth. It has a thick atmosphere, lakes, rivers and seas. These liquid bodies aren’t like those found on Earth because, instead of water, what flows on Titan is liquid methane. Methane falls as rain, snow and hail. Titan is rich in organic chemistry with continents made of ice. Beneath the surface lies a liquid ocean.
Its atmosphere is largely nitrogen-based, like Earth’s. It contains a chemical, acrylonitrile, that rains out and forms spherical structures called azotosomes. Acrylonitrile was recently discovered by the ALMA telescope in Chile’s high northern desert.
Recently, a study of Titan appeared in the International Journal of Astrobiology. It described the mechanism for the natural formation of membrane-enclosed vesicles that could contain the building blocks for life. These vesicles it called amphiphiles. They sound like the azotostomes ALMA. Each consists of two molecules, one hydrophobic (rejects water) and the other hydrophilic (attracts water). These vesicles resemble soap bubbles. The study notes that as they rain out of the atmosphere and coat the surfaces of Titan’s lakes and oceans. Amphiphiles can trap liquid water within their bubble membranes. Water, when interacting with organic compounds, can create the conditions to form the necessities for the emergence of early life.
These findings make NASA’s future Dragonfly mission to Titan all the more compelling. Dragonfly will parachute into Titan’s atmosphere and then fly like a helicopter to a landing site that its onboard instrumentation and software chooses. Dragonfly is equipped with cameras, lidar, and an array of navigational and landing-assist sensors. It plans to make numerous flights and multiple landings over a planned three-year mission. It will gather data and samples from the atmosphere and each landing site.
Dragonfly is a different type of rotorcraft than Ingenuity, the duocopter that accompanied Perseverance to Mars. It has eight rotors (called an octocopter) and is 3.85 metres square (12.5 x 12.5 feet), weighing 875 kilograms (1,900 pounds). That sounds heavy and bulky, but Titan’s weak gravity, 1/7th of Earth’s, and an atmosphere four times denser, should make flying easier on Titan than the thin atmosphere conditions that Ingenuity faced on Mars.
Dragonfly is nuclear-powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). It has a lithium-ion battery pack. Each Titan day lasts about eight Earth days. The plan is to fly during the day and land, recharge and stay warm through each Titan night. With average surface temperatures at -180°C (-292°F), NASA has been using a Titan Chamber on Earth to simulate conditions Dragonfly will face, not just the cold but also the thicker atmosphere dynamics that will make the flying experience very different from here on Earth, or on Mars.
Dragonfly’s mission costs an estimated US$3.35 billion. It is scheduled for launch using a SpaceX rocket in 2028.
What do we hope to find? If not life, what scientists hope for is the identification of preconditions for abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is the scientific theory behind the origin of life here on Earth. It is a natural process that turns natural chemical processes and non-living organic compounds into self-organizing and self-replicating living things. The exact mechanisms of life’s origins are hard to identify on Earth, 4.5 billion years after our planet formed.
On Titan, however, evidence of abiogenesis may be far easier to find. That’s because the Moon is chemically active with complex organic molecules, hydrogen cyanide, acetylene and many other hydrocarbons, all seen as key chemical building blocks for life.
The uniform cold temperatures and conditions on Titan’s lakes and ocean surfaces provide a degree of stability for life’s chemistry to organize into protected bubble membranes, which, in the absence of free oxygen in the atmosphere, are not subject to chemical degradation from the gas.
The post Saturn’s Moon Titan May Host The Building Blocks Of Life appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The post Is Trump’s NASA To Design Sanctuaries To Colonize Mars That May Never Get Used? appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Wordsworth has modelled early Mars as well as studied the current state of the planet, noting that increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and other greenhouse gases, a greenhouse effect could be renewed.
Such a project would require considerable geoengineering sleight of hand. One way this could be accomplished would involve placing highly reflective satellites in orbit to target sunlight on Mars’ polar ice caps. The Martian ice caps contain frozen CO2 and water. Gasification of the CO2 would increase atmospheric density and air pressure and create the beginnings of a greenhouse effect. The initial warming would help to melt water elsewhere on Mars, just beneath the surface. This would add water vapour, a potent greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere and stimulate a Martian water cycle.
Wordsworth describes the habitability project as possible first in the equatorial regions of the planet. He notes that Martian soil could be remediated by removing perchlorate using bioengineered bacteria, which would thrive in the CO2 atmosphere. Perchlorate has been detected in Martian soils since the first Viking landers in 1976. Get the perchlorate out, and plants can begin to grow in Martian soils. We are already demonstrating that feasibility here on Earth in experiments that simulate Martian conditions. As plants do their thing in the soil of the Red Planet, they will expel oxygen and further alter the Martian atmosphere. These first plants would grow in sealed domes, greenhouse oases, that might eventually be future homes for humans and other Earth life colonists. How long would this Martian makeover take? Wordsworth estimates no more than two Earth centuries.
It sounds like science fiction. Could it become a reality? Wordsworth has his backers in people like SpaceX’s Elon Musk, President Donald Trump, and the soon-to-be confirmed new head of NASA, Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut who has funded and flown two missions into near-Earth orbit. If it were to happen, however, reliably getting to and from Mars, delivering sufficient payloads of materials and robots would be essential.
In the heady days after Trump was elected to his second term, SpaceX and some at NASA started talking about optimal launch to Mars in 2026 and 2028. SpaceX announced ambitions to send several Starships to the Red Planet and begin using Martian local resources (in-situ resource utilization or ISRU) to prepare the planet for its first human colonists by 2030.
Based on the latest Starship launch failure this week, it is increasingly difficult to believe that these plans are no more than a pipe dream. SpaceX has yet to prove the Starship technology can fly to orbit and do it repeatedly. The first booster reuse failed, and the Starship that would be the vehicle to go to and from Mars also blew up shortly after reaching low-Earth orbit. Nobody is going to Mars, let alone the Moon, on SpaceX technology based on the company’s present performance.
Trump has talked about American astronauts on Mars by the early 2030s. He has waxed about the 2030s as being the pivotal decade for space ambitions rivalling those in the 1960s, with the race to the Moon. The current trajectory of American technology for humans going to Mars, however, is far from perfected. The Starship failure has put even the lesser ambition of the Artemis Program to land humans on the Moon in 2027 in jeopardy, because the first Human Landing System (HLS) to take crews to the surface is based on Starship, so far, an unreliable choice.
Meanwhile, NASA continues to work on assembling the Space Launch System (SLS), the successor rocket to the Saturn V, and the Orion capsule, the successor to Apollo, with the Artemis II circumlunar mission scheduled for sometime in 2026. That mission doesn’t land on the Moon, so the lack of the HLS is not an issue. The HLS, however, will need to be a proven landing platform before the 2027 planned Artemis III landing on the Moon. If not, NASA will have to consider contingency plans, possibly using Blue Origin’s lander under development, or move the mission date to later in the decade.
In any case, NASA hanging its hat on SpaceX technology is making flying to Mars a pipe dream for now. The Wordsworth terraforming cannot begin without a proper means of reliable transit between the two planets. Getting to Mars with SpaceX won’t happen without dramatic improvements to the latter’s technology, and we are halfway through this decade, which means the timelines are starting to look very iffy.
I don’t know why NASA isn’t fast-tracking nuclear rocket propulsion instead. To me, the chemical rocket route has too many challenges when talking about missions to and from Mars. Several nuclear options can be developed that would be better than relying on the chemical rockets that began the Space Age. Nuclear rockets would also make it to Mars much faster, cutting down transit time between the two worlds by more than half.
That’s why people on Mars by 2030 and an established American presence on the Red Planet sometime in the 2030s based on SpaceX technology and NASA systems like the SLS and Orion are no more than a Trump-Musk fantasy.
The post Is Trump’s NASA To Design Sanctuaries To Colonize Mars That May Never Get Used? appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>