Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
On today's episode, we are gettinginto the latest space news, including NASA
shows off progress on their Viper LunarRover. Astrobotics Peregrine Moonlander arrives in Florida
for integration onto its Vulcan rocket androcket startup. ASTRA is looking increasingly shaky
as their funding dries up. Thisis the space race with all of the
(00:21):
activity happening on the Moon. Recentlyfrom International Space Programs, NASA has announced
that their own lunar rover Viper isready for final assembly and testing, and
they want to broadcast that process.The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration rover will be
NASA's first independently autonomous rover to everland on the Moon. Which feels weird
(00:45):
to say, but I guess whenmost of the previous NASA missions involved sending
people there, just hasn't ever beena need for them to have a rover
capable of operating on its own beforenow. Originally intended to touch down on
the lunar surface in twenty twenty two, to VIPER was one of the many
projects delayed by the pandemic and hasonly recently seen progress on its assembly,
(01:07):
just in time to keep its missionrelevant for the overall Artemis program schedule.
The main goal will be to findand analyze water ice samples, both to
more accurately survey the places where amore permanent human installation might be able to
gather the water necessary for survival onthe Moon, and also to catalog any
potential useful substances below ground, whichis where Viper gets the volatiles in its
(01:32):
name. In geology, volatiles refersto chemicals that are dissolved in the structure
of the rock or soil until exposedto the surface. Water is a common
volatile, as is carbon dioxide,but the most recent subsurface samples that NASA
has access to are the ones broughthome by the Apollo missions of the late
(01:53):
sixties and early seventies, which meansthat by now all traces of any potential
underground water sources have long since evaporated, so Viper has been designed specifically to
look for these signs. It isof course equipped with a one meter drill
to accomplish this task, but alsoa neutron spectrometer system to sniff out hydrogen
(02:15):
levels, and a near infrared volatilespectrometer system with a mass spectrometer to back
it up. This way, therover should be able to find large concentrations
of hydrogen before even drilling, andthen analyze those samples without needing to send
them back to Earth. But that'sonly the primary mission, and Viper has
another important trick up its sleeve.It's going to be able to operate during
(02:38):
lunar night. Because it lacks anyatmosphere, the Moon experiences wild temperature swings
as it rotates into and out ofthe sunlight, positive one hundred and twenty
degrees celsius in the day and thennegative one hundred and thirty degrees celsius at
night, each phase lasting roughly fourteenEarth days, which is enough to freeze
(02:59):
most election tronics and mechanical parts solid. This is why other lunar robots,
like the Chinese YouTube Rovers, havetypically opted to shut down during the night
to preserve power in the hopes ofreactivating during the next day cycle to continue
working, or just opting to workas long as possible before dying, like
India's Chandra and three lander, whichrecently completed its mission when it failed to
(03:23):
wake up after its first night onthe lunar surface back in September, keeping
a rover operating through this sort ofintense cold would be very useful, of
course, because, aside from developingtechnology that would really help the rest of
the space race, it would allowrobots like Viper to study phenomena on the
Moon and other extremely cold bodies thatwe haven't been able to yet, like
(03:45):
the electrostatic current that scientists believe formson the lunar surface at dawn and dusk,
which could cause a thin layer ofdust to levitate briefly. Luckily,
Viper's original schedule included a lot oftime for setbacks, but we're still almost
a decade out from any serious attemptat establishing a more permanent human presence on
the Moon, so there's still plentyof time left for Viper's mission to study
(04:10):
the water in the South Pole,which is now scheduled for a November twenty
twenty four launch. This also givesNASA the unique opportunity to stream the assembly
and testing of their rover, aclever bit of media work that NASA doesn't
often take the opportunity to do.The administration seems allergic to showing off their
progress and the interesting technology they workwith, even though sometime with the public
(04:32):
would be great for building some hypeand landing some of the funding they need
for their projects. So let's hopeViper's live streams are just the first of
many new similar projects. Continuing thelunar lander news, Astrobotic has announced that
their paragrin Lander has survived its tripfrom Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cape Canaveral,
(04:53):
Florida, and is being fueled andintegrated into the cent Or five upper
stage vehicle that will take it tothe Moon. The Peregrine is nearing the
end of an almost sixteen year journeyfor the Astrobotic team. It was one
of the original recipients of NASA's CommercialLunar Payload Services Contracts, a program designed
to give NASA the redundancy they needat the same time as allowing commercial companies
(05:16):
to compete for lucrative agency contracts tobring NASA experiments to the Moon for them,
a win win by all accounts.Several other recognizable names were part of
the same competition and one contracts,including Intuitive Machines, Firefly, and Draper.
All of these companies have solid lookinglanders, but Peregrine is different for
(05:38):
three reasons. The first is amore practical one its design. With several
of the more modern landers, you'llnotice that several companies have chosen a pretty
vertical design. Intuitive machines Novase ismade this way, and so is Blue
Origin's recently unveiled Blue Moon, andof course Starship's Human Landing System vehicle.
(05:58):
There's nothing really wrong with this design, it should work without much difficulty.
But Astrobotics chose a much more stable, wide based design for their Paragrine that,
while probably making it a bit ofa pain to load onto a rocket,
is definitely the most stable looking landerwe've seen lately. Its low center
of gravity and splayed legs means thatit will have a much harder time rolling
(06:19):
than the more top heavy designs fromthe other companies. The second reason is
that Peregrine's first mission will include severalpivotal NASA experiments and scientific payloads, which
mostly include the usual batch of spectrometersand even a small rover built by Carnegie
Mellon University. But the really importantequipment is the terrain Relative Navigation sensor,
(06:43):
which has been designed to provide someof the first precisely detailed terrain mapping,
explicitly for the use of later landings, Peregrine will basically land in the traditional
manner, using satellite mapping data tomake a best guess, as every lander
has done since the Apollo missions madethe trip, but after Paragrine, the
TRN data will be used to landAstrobotics next lander, the Griffin in twenty
(07:08):
twenty four, which will grab evenmore TRN data, building a larger map
for use with Blue Origins Lander soonafter that, and of course anyone else
who needs it. In this way, Peregrine is acting like a scout for
those later missions at the risk offailing the same way recent landing attempts like
the Hakudo R and Luna twenty fivedid, but if they succeed, then
(07:30):
landing will only get easier and tohelp Astrobotic reach the Moon safely, the
ULA will be landing a hand,which is the last reason the Peregrine is
so much different from every other CLPSlunar landing mission. Peregrine will be launched
aboard the very first Vulcan rocket.The ULA's highly anticipated heavy lift rocket has
(07:53):
faced several delays, but is achance for the company to keep their reputation
as a dependable launch service provider notto mention, allowing their Atlas five and
Delta four rockets to finally retire.This first launch was originally slated for twenty
nineteen, but a series of delaysand technical issues pushed it all the way
back to the current date of Decembertwenty fourth, Christmas Eve. From there,
(08:16):
the Peagrine will be ferried to theMoon by the cent Or five upper
stage, land by about late Januarytwenty twenty four, and start taking data
for eight to ten days before runningout of power during lunar night. But
while optimistic, no one is underany illusions. If the vulcan launch slips
or fails, the teams are preparedto find another launch date. If the
(08:39):
Peagrine doesn't land well, or failsto turn on, or any number of
other problems, Astrobotic will take thatdata and use it to prepare the Griffin
Lander. Suffice to say that bothAstrobotic and the ULA have a lot riding
on this mission, but they areboth experienced aerospace companies, so it's not
likely they'll need a Christmas miracle topull off. A textbook. Here,
(09:01):
steady as she goes, folks,the end is coming for Astra. Some
of You might remember Astra Space asthe company that tried and failed to launch
the NASA Tropics missions back in twentytwenty two. The spectacular losses of two
fairly important weather tracking satellites provided avery embarrassing public look at a company who
had only succeeded in two launches beforeattempting their ill fated NASA contract. And
(09:24):
it's not like they only failed twoor three launches in total either. Across
their launch vehicle prototypes named Rocket one, two, and three, Astra failed
to launch a staggering seven times,including Tropics, before slowing down to focus
on ironing out the kinks in theirvehicles and designing their Rocket four hardware.
(09:46):
Since then, and really for theentirety of twenty twenty three, Astra has
been struggling to court investors in orderto keep the doors open and allow them
to develop their next rocket, takinga couple of loans to do so.
Things are getting so dire that thetwo founding members CEO Chris Kemp and CTO
doctor Adam Lundon, have offered totake the company private by purchasing its stock
(10:09):
before their loans come due on theseventeenth of November. But could that even
save the company. There are acouple of things the two founders could still
achieve with Astra, but they definitelyhave to make some harsh cuts to the
scope of their operation, likely droppingtheir plans for designing a rocket altogether.
The real money maker for Astra seemsto be their satellite business and the engines
(10:33):
they've designed for their launch vehicles.The rockets may not fly, but by
most accounts, their kerosene powered enginesare a solid bit of tech. Honestly,
stepping back and making some hard decisionshere is likely the only way forwards
for Astra. It's not easy toshake the sort of reputation that they gained
from losing so many rockets, somaybe it's time to call it quits on
(10:54):
the launch services side of their business.
On today's episode, we are gettinginto the latest space news, including NASA
shows off progress on their Viper LunarRover. Astrobotics Peregrine Moonlander arrives in Florida
for integration onto its Vulcan rocket androcket startup. ASTRA is looking increasingly shaky
as their funding dries up. Thisis the space race with all of the
(00:21):
activity happening on the Moon. Recentlyfrom International Space Programs, NASA has announced
that their own lunar rover Viper isready for final assembly and testing, and
they want to broadcast that process.The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration rover will be
NASA's first independently autonomous rover to everland on the Moon. Which feels weird
(00:45):
to say, but I guess whenmost of the previous NASA missions involved sending
people there, just hasn't ever beena need for them to have a rover
capable of operating on its own beforenow. Originally intended to touch down on
the lunar surface in twenty twenty two, to VIPER was one of the many
projects delayed by the pandemic and hasonly recently seen progress on its assembly,
(01:07):
just in time to keep its missionrelevant for the overall Artemis program schedule.
The main goal will be to findand analyze water ice samples, both to
more accurately survey the places where amore permanent human installation might be able to
gather the water necessary for survival onthe Moon, and also to catalog any
potential useful substances below ground, whichis where Viper gets the volatiles in its
(01:32):
name. In geology, volatiles refersto chemicals that are dissolved in the structure
of the rock or soil until exposedto the surface. Water is a common
volatile, as is carbon dioxide,but the most recent subsurface samples that NASA
has access to are the ones broughthome by the Apollo missions of the late
(01:53):
sixties and early seventies, which meansthat by now all traces of any potential
underground water sources have long since evaporated, so Viper has been designed specifically to
look for these signs. It isof course equipped with a one meter drill
to accomplish this task, but alsoa neutron spectrometer system to sniff out hydrogen
(02:15):
levels, and a near infrared volatilespectrometer system with a mass spectrometer to back
it up. This way, therover should be able to find large concentrations
of hydrogen before even drilling, andthen analyze those samples without needing to send
them back to Earth. But that'sonly the primary mission, and Viper has
another important trick up its sleeve.It's going to be able to operate during
(02:38):
lunar night. Because it lacks anyatmosphere, the Moon experiences wild temperature swings
as it rotates into and out ofthe sunlight, positive one hundred and twenty
degrees celsius in the day and thennegative one hundred and thirty degrees celsius at
night, each phase lasting roughly fourteenEarth days, which is enough to freeze
(02:59):
most election tronics and mechanical parts solid. This is why other lunar robots,
like the Chinese YouTube Rovers, havetypically opted to shut down during the night
to preserve power in the hopes ofreactivating during the next day cycle to continue
working, or just opting to workas long as possible before dying, like
India's Chandra and three lander, whichrecently completed its mission when it failed to
(03:23):
wake up after its first night onthe lunar surface back in September, keeping
a rover operating through this sort ofintense cold would be very useful, of
course, because, aside from developingtechnology that would really help the rest of
the space race, it would allowrobots like Viper to study phenomena on the
Moon and other extremely cold bodies thatwe haven't been able to yet, like
(03:45):
the electrostatic current that scientists believe formson the lunar surface at dawn and dusk,
which could cause a thin layer ofdust to levitate briefly. Luckily,
Viper's original schedule included a lot oftime for setbacks, but we're still almost
a decade out from any serious attemptat establishing a more permanent human presence on
the Moon, so there's still plentyof time left for Viper's mission to study
(04:10):
the water in the South Pole,which is now scheduled for a November twenty
twenty four launch. This also givesNASA the unique opportunity to stream the assembly
and testing of their rover, aclever bit of media work that NASA doesn't
often take the opportunity to do.The administration seems allergic to showing off their
progress and the interesting technology they workwith, even though sometime with the public
(04:32):
would be great for building some hypeand landing some of the funding they need
for their projects. So let's hopeViper's live streams are just the first of
many new similar projects. Continuing thelunar lander news, Astrobotic has announced that
their paragrin Lander has survived its tripfrom Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cape Canaveral,
(04:53):
Florida, and is being fueled andintegrated into the cent Or five upper
stage vehicle that will take it tothe Moon. The Peregrine is nearing the
end of an almost sixteen year journeyfor the Astrobotic team. It was one
of the original recipients of NASA's CommercialLunar Payload Services Contracts, a program designed
to give NASA the redundancy they needat the same time as allowing commercial companies
(05:16):
to compete for lucrative agency contracts tobring NASA experiments to the Moon for them,
a win win by all accounts.Several other recognizable names were part of
the same competition and one contracts,including Intuitive Machines, Firefly, and Draper.
All of these companies have solid lookinglanders, but Peregrine is different for
(05:38):
three reasons. The first is amore practical one its design. With several
of the more modern landers, you'llnotice that several companies have chosen a pretty
vertical design. Intuitive machines Novase ismade this way, and so is Blue
Origin's recently unveiled Blue Moon, andof course Starship's Human Landing System vehicle.
(05:58):
There's nothing really wrong with this design, it should work without much difficulty.
But Astrobotics chose a much more stable, wide based design for their Paragrine that,
while probably making it a bit ofa pain to load onto a rocket,
is definitely the most stable looking landerwe've seen lately. Its low center
of gravity and splayed legs means thatit will have a much harder time rolling
(06:19):
than the more top heavy designs fromthe other companies. The second reason is
that Peregrine's first mission will include severalpivotal NASA experiments and scientific payloads, which
mostly include the usual batch of spectrometersand even a small rover built by Carnegie
Mellon University. But the really importantequipment is the terrain Relative Navigation sensor,
(06:43):
which has been designed to provide someof the first precisely detailed terrain mapping,
explicitly for the use of later landings, Peregrine will basically land in the traditional
manner, using satellite mapping data tomake a best guess, as every lander
has done since the Apollo missions madethe trip, but after Paragrine, the
TRN data will be used to landAstrobotics next lander, the Griffin in twenty
(07:08):
twenty four, which will grab evenmore TRN data, building a larger map
for use with Blue Origins Lander soonafter that, and of course anyone else
who needs it. In this way, Peregrine is acting like a scout for
those later missions at the risk offailing the same way recent landing attempts like
the Hakudo R and Luna twenty fivedid, but if they succeed, then
(07:30):
landing will only get easier and tohelp Astrobotic reach the Moon safely, the
ULA will be landing a hand,which is the last reason the Peregrine is
so much different from every other CLPSlunar landing mission. Peregrine will be launched
aboard the very first Vulcan rocket.The ULA's highly anticipated heavy lift rocket has
(07:53):
faced several delays, but is achance for the company to keep their reputation
as a dependable launch service provider notto mention, allowing their Atlas five and
Delta four rockets to finally retire.This first launch was originally slated for twenty
nineteen, but a series of delaysand technical issues pushed it all the way
back to the current date of Decembertwenty fourth, Christmas Eve. From there,
(08:16):
the Peagrine will be ferried to theMoon by the cent Or five upper
stage, land by about late Januarytwenty twenty four, and start taking data
for eight to ten days before runningout of power during lunar night. But
while optimistic, no one is underany illusions. If the vulcan launch slips
or fails, the teams are preparedto find another launch date. If the
(08:39):
Peagrine doesn't land well, or failsto turn on, or any number of
other problems, Astrobotic will take thatdata and use it to prepare the Griffin
Lander. Suffice to say that bothAstrobotic and the ULA have a lot riding
on this mission, but they areboth experienced aerospace companies, so it's not
likely they'll need a Christmas miracle topull off. A textbook. Here,
(09:01):
steady as she goes, folks,the end is coming for Astra. Some
of You might remember Astra Space asthe company that tried and failed to launch
the NASA Tropics missions back in twentytwenty two. The spectacular losses of two
fairly important weather tracking satellites provided avery embarrassing public look at a company who
had only succeeded in two launches beforeattempting their ill fated NASA contract. And
(09:24):
it's not like they only failed twoor three launches in total either. Across
their launch vehicle prototypes named Rocket one, two, and three, Astra failed
to launch a staggering seven times,including Tropics, before slowing down to focus
on ironing out the kinks in theirvehicles and designing their Rocket four hardware.
(09:46):
Since then, and really for theentirety of twenty twenty three, Astra has
been struggling to court investors in orderto keep the doors open and allow them
to develop their next rocket, takinga couple of loans to do so.
Things are getting so dire that thetwo founding members CEO Chris Kemp and CTO
doctor Adam Lundon, have offered totake the company private by purchasing its stock
(10:09):
before their loans come due on theseventeenth of November. But could that even
save the company. There are acouple of things the two founders could still
achieve with Astra, but they definitelyhave to make some harsh cuts to the
scope of their operation, likely droppingtheir plans for designing a rocket altogether.
The real money maker for Astra seemsto be their satellite business and the engines
(10:33):
they've designed for their launch vehicles.The rockets may not fly, but by
most accounts, their kerosene powered enginesare a solid bit of tech. Honestly,
stepping back and making some hard decisionshere is likely the only way forwards
for Astra. It's not easy toshake the sort of reputation that they gained
from losing so many rockets, somaybe it's time to call it quits on
(10:54):
the launch services side of their business.
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