*Europe’s EnVision spacecraft to surf Venus’s atmosphere
The European Space Agency’s EnVision mission to Venus being developed to perform high-resolution radar mapping and atmospheric studies of Earth’s so called sister planet.
*NASA fixes the glitch on the Voyager 1 spacecraft – mankind’s most distant traveller
NASA engineers have fixed a critical system aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft which was sending garbled data about its status -- however, the root cause of the problem remains a mystery.
*New record with over three thousand Starlink satellites now in orbit
SpaceX’s relentless parade of flights carrying more and more Starlink satellites into orbit is continuing without any apparent end having now passed the three thousand mark.
*Growing food on the red planet
Scientists have discovered that alfalfa plants may be the key to growing food on the red planet.
*The Science Report
Earth's concentration of greenhouse gases and sea levels hit new record highs in 2021.
Chinese government hackers attacked Australian computer systems during last Federal election.
The tsunami created by the Tonga volcanic eruption back in January reached some 90 metres high.
Alex on Tech iPhone 14 preview
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SpaceTime S25E93 AI Transcript
Stuart: This is Spacetime Series 25, Episode 93 for broadcast on 7 September 2022. Coming up on Space Time europe's Envision spacecraft designed to surf Venus's atmosphere. NASA fixes is a glitch on the Voyager One spacecraft humankind's most distant traveler. And SpaceX sets a new record with more than 30 starlink satellites now in orbit. All that and more coming up on, uh, space time.
Booth Announcer: Welcome to space time with Stewart Gary.
Stuart: The European Space Agency has released details of its upcoming and vision mission to the planet Venus, which has been to help to perform high resolution radar mapping and atmospheric studies of Earth's. Uh, Socalled sister planet, Envision, is designed to help scientists understand the relationship between Venus's geological activity and its thick atmosphere. And it will investigate why Venus and the Earth have taken such different evolutionary paths. Slated for launch in 2031 aboard an Ariane 62 rocket from the European Space Agency's Kurdish Spaceport in French Guiana, uh Envision will take three years to reach Venus. Orbital insertion will be at a very high altitude of some 250 0 vanside. Spacecraft will then take another two years of error breaking maneuvers dipping down to as low as 130 km in altitude to slow its speed and lower its average orbit through the planet's hot, thick atmosphere, eventually achieving a circular 500 km high polar orbit. With scientific operations and vision's, predecessors of spacecraft Venus Express performed experimental braking maneuvers during the final months of its mission back in 2014, in the process gathering valuable data on the technique. aerobreaking was used operationally for the first time in 2017 by ESA's ExoMars trace gas orbit emission in order to lower its orbit around the Red Planet over an eleven month period. But aerobreaking around Venus is going to be a much more challenging affair than what Tres gas orbiter experienced around the Red Planet. For a start, Venus's gravity is about ten times higher than that of Mars. This means velocity is about twice as high will be experienced by the spacecraft when passing through the atmosphere and heat is generated as a Cuba velocity. Accordingly, Envision is targeted a lower aerobreaking regime, resulting in an error breaking phase taking twice as long. And of course, Venus is also much closer to the sun, experiencing around double the solar intensity of the Earth. And the thick white clouds of Venus's atmosphere, uh are reflecting a lot of sunlight straight back out into space, which additionally needs to be taken into account. Then there's the issue of highly erosive atomic oxygen. This is a phenomenon which remained unknown during the first decade to the space age. It was only when early space shuttle flights began returning to Earth from low uh orbit in the early 1980s that engineers received a shock as the spacecraft's thermal blankets were being severely eroded. The culprit turned out to be highly reactive atomic oxygen. Oxygen normally likes to hang around in molecules, but it forms individual atoms at the fringes of the atmosphere the result of standard oxygen molecules of the kind you're breathing now being broken apart at high altitude by powerful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Today, all missions orbiting below an altitude of one 0 km need to be designed to resist atomic oxygen. These include Europe's Earth watching Copernicus Sentinel satellites and all hardware built for the International Space Station. Spectral observations by past Venus orbiters of air glow above the planet confirmed that atomic oxygen is widespread at the top of the Venutian atmosphere which is more than 90 times thicker than Earth's surrounding air. To resolve the issue, the Envision team has turned to a unique European facility specifically built by ESA to simulate atomic oxygen in orbit. The Low Earth Orbit Facility, or Leox, generates atomic oxygen and energy levels that are equivalent to orbital speeds 28,000 km/hour. Purified molecular oxygen is injected into a vacuum chamber with pulse laser beams focused on it that converts the oxygen into a hot plasma. As rapid expansion is channeled along a conical nozzle, it then disassociates, forming a highly energetic beam of atomic oxygen. Facility has also been used to test various solar array materials for Ace's deuce mission to Europa and Ganymede which will also have to deal with atomic oxygen issues. However, uh, for Envision, the heightened temperature during error braking poses an additional challenge. So the facilities being adapted to simulate this more extreme Venusian environment a range of materials and coding from different parts of the envisioned spacecraft including multilayered insulation, antenna parts and star tracker elements are all exposed to the glowing purple Leo X beam. At the same time, they're being heated to mimic the expected thermal flux of up to 350 degrees Celsius. During its aerobreaking maneuver a decade ago, Venice Express made some remarkable discoveries which will be followed up by the invasion mission. This report from Issa TV.
Commentary: As our closest planetary neighbor, Venus was formed at the same time and in the same part of the early solar system as the uh. Earth. And Venus was made with the same basic ingredients the same gases and the same rocks. However, now the two planets are completely different. On Venus, days last longer than years and the planet rotates clockwise with the sun rising in the west and setting in the east. And while here on Earth we benefit from an atmosphere permitting life venus is bone dry and cloaked in a thick, choking atmosphere of sulphuric acid and CO2 M. Since 2005, ESA's Venus Express has been in orbit around Venus, scanning its atmosphere from above. To take a better look, Es sent Venus Express skimming into the top layer of the atmosphere using a technique known as aerobreaking.
Commentary: We went into the atmosphere in this direction because this face of the spacecraft which had been attached to the rocket originally when it was launched was most able to take the forces and the temperatures. We also turned the solar panels to maximize the amount of friction and to get the most amount of breaking.
Commentary: This maneuver offered the first ever close up view of Venus's upper atmosphere. And it wasn't what was expected.
Stuart: What we saw that was a little.
Commentary: Unusual is the variability in the pressure, as if there were waves within the atmosphere. And so that possible wavelike structure was not expected. And, uh, analyzing that data will keep scientists busy for a little while yet.
Commentary: Thanks to Venus Express's data, it's thought that these wavelike fluctuations could be related to the speed of the winds that circulate around Venus. And these winds appear to be getting faster.
Speaker E: When we arrived at Venus, uh, we detected winds at, uh, 300 km h very fast. But what has happened during these years until now, they have actually increased. We now see winds of 400. We can't really explain why that has happened.
Commentary: Venus Express has spent more than eight years digging into the secrets of the Venusian atmosphere to better understand the complex dynamics between the planet's atmosphere and interplanetary solar winds and the atmosphere and the surface. While these recent findings pose many new questions, it is possible that clues to the answers lie somewhere in the vast amounts of data that have been gathered by the spacecraft over, uh, the course of its mission.
Stuart: And in that report from Issa TV, we heard from ESA Venus Express Science Ground Segment manager, Donald Merritt and Esavenis Express Project scientist, Haykens Fedheim. This is Spacetime. Still to come, NASA fixes a glitch on the Voyager One spacecraft, humankind's most distant traveler. And SpaceX sets a new record with more than 30 starlink satellites now in orbit. All that and more still to come on Space Time. OK, let's take a break from our show for a word from our sponsor, NordVPN. By now, you should know the message is really quite simple. If you're not using a reliable virtual private network that is VPN, when you're online, your private information can be easily accessed by third parties. Now, we recommend NordVPN because that's what we use, and, um, we think they're the best in the business. And remember, we were using them before they started advertising with us. But don't just take our word for it. Go to their website and check it out for yourself. You'll see a long list of glowing endorsements from some of the biggest tech names in the business. You need NordVPN to protect you and your family from prying eyes. With Nord, your data is encrypted and safe from potential cyber threats. Additionally, NordVPN offers a wide variety of features to keep you safe online, including malware protection and a kill switch. With NordVPN, you can browse the Internet with peace of mind, knowing that your privacy is protected and it's a spacetime listener. Uh, we've got a special deal for you, which includes four months of NordVPN for free. As I've mentioned before, we recommend the complete security package, which comes with a huge 69% discount. When you sign on for two years, plus access to Nord Pass, the crossplatform password manager, the malware protection we talked about earlier, a, uh, terabyte of secure cloud storage, and more. And if you don't need that much protection, well, NordVPN has other options available for you. Plus, all NordVPN's plans come with a 30 day money back guarantee. So, uh, what have you got to lose? Check it out for yourself. Now, to get your spacetime deal, go to our special URL, which is Nordvpn.com Stewartgary, and click on the Get the Deal button. That address again is NordVPN. Comstewardgarry. Or use the special code Stuartgarry at the checkout. And, of course, as always, we've included the URL details in our show notes and on our website. And now it's back to our show. You're listening to Spacetime with Stuart gary NASA engineers have successfully fixed a crucial item on the Voyager One spacecraft, which was sending back garbled data about its status. However, the root cause of the problem remains a mystery. Voyager One is the most distant spacecraft humans have ever launched. Earlier this year, the probe's attitude, articulation and control system, which keeps Voyager One's antenna pointed towards the Earth, began sending garbled information about its health, status, and activities to mission controllers. Now, it was all operating normally, and it continued to gather and transmit science data. And the rest of the spacecraft also appeared to be healthy. But still, the issue was concerning what was causing it and could it spread to other systems? Mission managers eventually determined that the attitude reticulation and control system had started sending the telemetry data through an onboard computer, uh, known to have stopped working years earlier. And this computer was corrupting the information void of One. Project manager Susan Dodd from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says that when they first traced the problem, they opted to try a low risk solution, simply commanding the system to resume sending data on the correct computer. And it worked. But engineers still don't know why it began routing telemetry under the incorrect computer in the first place. It's possible it received a faulty command generated by another onboard computer. And if that's the case, it would indicate there's an issue somewhere else on the spacecraft that needs to be looked at. So mission managers will continue searching for the underlying issue, but they don't think it's going to be a long term problem for the health of Voyager One. Launched way back in 1977 on a grand tour of the outer solar system. The two Voyager spacecraft, One and Two, are now flying in different directions through interstellar space, well beyond the Heliopause, which marks the edge of the solar system. They're the most distant manmade objects in existence. Voyager One is now over 23 and a half billion kilometers away and heading into the constellation of Eucharist on the celestial equator, while its twin Voyager Two spacecraft is now over 19 and a half billion kilometers from earth, uh, traveling south into the constellation Parvo. This is Spacetime. Still to come, SpaceX sets a new record, with over 30 starlink satellites now in orbit. And later in the science report, earth's concentration of greenhouse gasses and sea levels hit new record highs. All that and more still to come on, um, space time. SpaceX's relentless parade of flights carrying more and more starlink satellites into orbit is continuing without any apparent end. Having now passed the 3000 mark. Another 46 of the broadband internet satellites were launched aboard a Falcon Nine rocket from space Launch Complex Four e at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California last week, following main engine cutoff and stage separation, the first stage returned to Earth, landing on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, which had been prepositioned down range in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was the 57th landing of the first stage booster A. Uh, few weeks earlier, SpaceX had launched another 52 starlink satellites from space Launch complex 39 A on the other side of the country at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Again, the core stage returned safely to Earth, uh, landing on the drone ship a shortfall of gravitas. As of the middle of last month, SpaceX had placed some 3055 starling satellites into orbit. The company's planning an overall constellation of more than 300 satellites, much to the annoyance of astronomers who are seeing trains of starlink satellites destroying their vital work. And the starlinks are getting bigger. Uh, while the first starlink satellites were 227 current batch of some 260 kg in mass, and the next batch will hit the scales at 295 kg. Yet more like pollution for scientists to deal with. Scientists have discovered that alfalfa plants may be the key to growing food on the red planet, Mars. A report in the journal Plus One has found that alfalfa can grow well in volcanic soils that mimic Martian soil, and that the alfalfa could then be turned into fertilizer to help grow turnips radishes. And even letters talk about science and the alfalfa out of it. Scientists have also used marine bacteria to remove salt from briny water. And together, they say it shows that it's possible to use the resources on Mars to farm and grow plants and sustain human missions and permanent settlements. This is space time and time that is taking another brief look at some of the other stories making news in science this week with a science report. A new study has confirmed that Earth's concentration of greenhouse gasses and sea levels hit new highs during 2021, showing that climate change continues to surge. The report by Noah, the United States national oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, says the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere stood at 414.7 parts per million in 2021. That's two three parts per million higher than in 2020. The study also found that the planet's sea level rose for the 10th consecutive year, reaching a new record of 97 mm above the 1993 average when satellite measurements began. 2021 was also one of the half dozen warmest years on record as records beginning in the mid 19th century. And the last seven years have been the seven hottest years on record. What the findings show is that global warming caused by man's use of greenhouse gasses will continue to easily exceed the Paris climate target of keeping below one five degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. It's been revealed that Chinese government cyber hackers spent months attacking Australian computer systems during the last federal election seeking vital information about defense and energy industries. American cybersecurity firm Proofpoint says the Chinese Communist Party's Ta 123 Red Leyden Group set up a fake news publication, which they called Australian Morning News attempted to ponder people working in sensitive areas such as quantum navigation, robotics, computer research, energy and medical technology industries to click on their fake news emails, which were then infected computers with malware. The Phishing Scam was seeking sensitive defense, navy and energy information, especially anything relating to activities in the South China Sea. A new study has shown that the tsunami created by the tongue of volcanic eruption back in January reached some 90 meters high. That's nine times higher than the 2011 Japanese tsunami, and almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty. The findings were reported in the journal Ocean Engineering show that detection and monitoring systems for volcano based tsunamis are, uh, some 30 years behind comparable systems used to detect earthquake based tsunamis. The authors found that the tongue A tsunami was unique, as the waves were created not only by water displaced from the volcano's eruption, but also by huge atmospheric pressure waves which circled the globe multiple times. This dual mechanism created a two part tsunami, where initial ocean waves created by atmospheric pressure waves were followed more than an hour later by a second surge, this one created by the eruptions water displacement. The combination meant tsunami warning centers didn't detect the initial wave. That's because they're programmed to detect tsunamis based on water displacement rather than atmospheric pressure waves. The research team also found that the January event was among very few tsunamis powerful enough to travel around the globe. It was recorded in all the world's oceans, with large seas seen in Japan and the United States Western Seaboard, and even readings from coasts within the Mediterranean. Separate research published back in June found that the Tonga eruption triggered atmospheric gravity waves, which reached right to the edge of space. Apple's expected to unveil the next generation of iPhones at a special event being broadcast from Apple Park tomorrow. With the details, we're joined by technology editor Alexaara Royd from Ity.com.
Booth Announcer: Sure. Well, on September the 7th in the US. On the, uh, west coast of 10:00 A.m., which will be September the 8th, 03:00 A.m. For people on the east coast of Australia, apple will launch the iPhone 14, the 14 max. And I have a bigger version of the standard One, not the meaning they had with the twelve and 13. They have the iPhone 14 Pro and Promax. There should be two new Apple Watches, a Series Eight, and an extreme Apple Watch, where potentially also expected a new 10th generation based iPad and new AirPod Pro Mark Two, which may or may not come with the little stems. A lot of the competing buds don't have the center just go straight into your ear. And the theme of this year's event is far out. So you see the Apple logo outline as a bunch of stars on the star field, and there are a number of um, speculation as to what this could mean. A lot of people listening to this, it will be available tomorrow, and it will be all over the news. You'd be able to confirm or deny all this yourselves, and we'll talk about it next week as well. But uh, one potential expectation is that the satellite connectivity that was rumored for the iPhone 13, and which is rumored to still be in the iPhone, just waiting for the satellites to be activated, is this new ability for iPhones with the 5G chip, the 13 and 14, to connect to satellites, to do emergency texting, and potentially voice in the future. Now, this has relied upon a deal with Global Star, and uh, Elon Musk with the Starlink and T Mobile also came out with some sort of deal. And these phones can use part of the 5G band to talk to these satellites, but there's no firm word yet. We'll find out in the launch tomorrow as to whether this will launch immediately, launch later this year, launch maybe next year, and whether it will be global or just uh, limited to part of the US on launch. Now, firearm could also mean better night mode, it could mean newer cameras. We've seen Huawei and Samsung phones able to zoom in so much that you can take a picture of the moon, and iPhones can't do that in the same way. And so it also means far out in terms of audio. There's talk that the new AirPod Pro Two will have a new Bluetooth enhancement that will deliver even higher quality audio. We have seen, for example, with Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro too, that they've got 24 bit audio, which is 256 times more, uh, audio information than the standard 16 bit audio that is commonly found on CDs and digital music today. So look, all will be launched tomorrow. We're also expecting a bigger Apple Watch. Should look the same size, but it'll have uh, a 1.77 inch screen. It'll have a 1.9 inch screen, 1.99 inch screen, nearly two inches on the Extreme model, which will compete with the garments. And some of those more fancier, uh, Extreme Sports watches made from titanium and other things with flat sides. So all will be revealed tomorrow.
Stuart: Yeah, but no folding phone yet.
Booth Announcer: No folding phone yet. No I mean Samsung is on a fourth generation of these devices and as we discussed in the past, the crease that is on those phones in the middle of the screen where it falls has gotten shallower and shallower but it's not completely flat yet. And that's probably the reason why Apple rumors have suggested they're going to wait until 2025 at the earliest, perhaps with the 15 with next year in 2023, which would be quite a seminal milestone. But it's right, it could be the 16 because Apple would probably want to do it. So it's completely flat. There's no discernible bend or fold or crease at all. And I do have to say the Samsung phones are spectacularly impressive in their ability to do that. When I show people the flip three that I have, which is not even the current flip four, I mean they're just blown away. And some people say well when is Apple going to do that? And other people say well they're already Android users, that's going to be their next phone.
Stuart: Is new phone going to launch Millimeter Wave in Australia or not?
Booth Announcer: Well Millimeter Wave 5G was something that was launched with the iPhone twelve and personally.
Stuart: There'S no window.
Booth Announcer: Yeah well the thing is the Millimeter Wave 5G relies upon a very close tower. You have to be in line of sight to it and glass windows, doors, walls can block Millerwind away 5G signals. So you have to be standing more or less within site of the tower to get it. Now if you do stand and you're in a stadium or you're in a city street and it's got it, you can get much faster speeds than the standard 5G we're getting now talking about gigabits of speed, couple of gigabits, 2000 megabits, your 5G phone can do anywhere from 100 up to five, six 7800. I mean Ford you could do 100 as well. Now it was only launched in America first because Horizon was one of the US telecoms that was the first to really launch it and roll it out, but only in certain areas and that has continued. And already uh, we saw in the time frame of the iPhone 13 watch that there were five G-M-A-M Wave towers being put up by Telstra since an optimum Vodafone have put up five Gwave tiles. The Google six and six Pro, or at least I think the six Pro anyway, definitely came with minimum wave five G and I thought it would come with a 13 but it didn't know. It saves Apple money not putting a chip in, an extra 5G chip in or ordering the chip with that built into it if it only has to do it for the phone sold in the US. Nowhere else. So hopefully this is the year we will see that rolled out across the entire iPhone 14 range. But again it's going to be a business decision by app only certain people in certain areas that have that are able to use it still adds up to a lot.
Stuart: That's what I was going to say. How much would the chip cost? About half a dollar or something at.
Booth Announcer: The most, it's probably not much. And Apple does have, uh, billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars at disposal.
Stuart: What about charging rates on the new phones?
Booth Announcer: Sure. Well, already with the twelve, that went to 18 watts, uh, with the 13 it went to 20 watts. And they give you 50% charge in 15 minutes, which is pretty good. Quite fast. Even the new MacBook Air Two, if you have the 67 watt charger and you use in the Maxwav adapter, you can recharge your MacBook Air's battery to 50% in, uh, 30 minutes. Right. Because it's a much larger battery than your phone. So the rumor is that obviously it won't come in the box, but the iPhone 14 Pro and Promax will be able to charge at 30 watts or at least start charging it that it might slow down, but it should still be faster than the 20 watt prices. Yeah, look, there is a concern that prices will rise a lot of inflation. The MacBook Air M Two was priced at a higher rate than the MacBook Air M One in the US. $200 in Australia by $400 for the base unit. Of course, upgrading costs a lot more. The 14 Prima is also rumored to come with two terabytes because it, uh, is rumored to have a 48 megapixel camera that could do eight K recording. And if you're recording at eight King, you are chewing up serious amounts of disk space. So look, it will all be confirmed tomorrow. If people are listening to this on Wednesday, talk about it next week, and we'll have all the details and we can, uh, say how good and bad it was, but, uh, either way, it should be spectacular. It should be very far out.
Stuart: That's Alexaarovroyd from ity.com. And that's the show for now. Space time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcast, itunes, Stitcher, uh, Google Podcast, podcasts, spotify, Acast, Amazon Music Bytescom, SoundCloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider, and from Spacetime with Stuart Garycom. Spacetime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on science owned radio, and on both iHeartRadio and Tune In radio. And you can help to support our show by visiting the Spacetime Store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies. Or by becoming a Spacetime patron, which gives you access to triple episode, commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of bonus audio content which doesn't go to Air, access to our exclusive Facebook Group and other awards. Just go to spacetime with Stewart Garycom for full details. And if you want more space time, please check out our blog, where you'll find all the stuff we couldn't fit in the show, as well as heaps of images, news stories, loads of videos and things on the web I find interesting or amusing. Just go to spacetimewithstewardgarry. Tumblr.com. That's all one word and that's tumblr without the e. You can also follow us through at Stuart Gary on Twitter, uh, at Spacetime with Stewart Gary on Instagram, through our Spacetime YouTube channel and, um, on Facebook. Just go to Facebook.com spacetime with Stuart Gary and Spacetime is brought to you in collaboration with Australian Sky and Telescope magazine, your Window on the Universe verse. Uh, you've been listening to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
Booth Announcer: This has been another quality podcast production from Bitesz.com.