S27E70: SpaceX's Mega Rocket Soars and China's Historic Lunar Mission

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 70 for broadcast on the 10th of June 2024. Coming up on SpaceTime… The world's largest and most powerful rocket successfully completes its fourth test flight. China's latest lunar lander successfully touches down on the far side of the Moon

[00:00:19] for what should be an historic sample return mission. And three new Australian-built satellites arrive in Japan destined for launch to the International Space Station. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime. Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary. The world's largest and most powerful rocket, SpaceX's Starship,

[00:00:56] has successfully completed its fourth test flight. The historic mission is the latest in a series of tests designed to develop a colonial transport ship capable of taking 100 people or 150 tons of supplies to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

[00:01:12] The massive 121-meter-tall mega rocket blasted off into grey hazy skies from SpaceX's starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, with 32 of the 33 Raptor engines lighting up successfully, delivering almost 16.7 million pounds of thrust for the climb into orbit. That's almost double that of the world's second most powerful rocket,

[00:01:32] NASA's SLS Space Launch System Moon rocket, which is being used to transport the Orion spacecraft on Artemis missions. The vehicle is pitching downrange. All right, 30 seconds into flight, the rumbles are still building here in the Raptor's nest.

[00:01:58] We're seeing 32 out of 33 engines lit on the Super Heavy right now. Coming up shortly is going to be max Q, that maximum aerodynamic pressure as we go uphill on the vehicle. Max Q. All right, we just passed through max Q, so we're going to continue on up.

[00:02:13] We still have about a minute and 30 seconds until we get to stage separation. Starship now flying faster than the speed of sound. The Super Heavy booster stage was jettisoned as planned, two minutes and 41 seconds after launch, using a hot staging maneuver during which

[00:02:30] the upper Starship stage began lighting its Raptor engines prior to stage separation. Once we get to hot staging, a lot of things happen all at once simultaneously. We're going to light the engines on the ship, starting with the RVAX first, and then the three center sea level engines.

[00:02:46] Before we're separated, all of that exhaust gets plumed out the side of the hot stage, and then the ship will separate itself. All but the three center engines on the booster are going to shut down,

[00:02:58] so the booster never stops its thrust while we go through this hot stage maneuver. After that, the booster is going to do its flip, start heading back, and then the ship will be on its own power on its way to space.

[00:03:08] As of right now, still looking in like 32 out of 33 Raptors lit on the booster, and we'll start to see those stagger down. They're going to turn off and banks. Booster engine cutoff, ship ignition, stage separation confirmed. Booster back on, startup. Aquacentrum is sitting. Houston.

[00:03:25] Hot stage confirmed, ship under its own power, booster boosting back. Looks like all 13 are lit. We've got a booster on the way back to the Gulf and a ship on the way to space. Aquacentrum signal, status. Ship chamber pressures are nominal. Power and telemetry nominal.

[00:03:39] All right, the first stage currently performing the boost back burn. This is expected to last a little over one minute. This propels the booster back toward the coast, taking it to a landing in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

[00:03:52] We were only using the 13 center engines from here on. Booster, shut down. 30 seconds later, the super heavy booster undertook a successful boost back burn, followed three minutes later by a landing burn. Heard confirmation there of good response. Lots of excitement. So right here, the jettisoned hot stage.

[00:04:17] This is a temporary fix to help reduce the weight of the super heavy booster. Future iterations will have a lighter weight integrated hot stage structure that won't need to be jettisoned. Now, after we jettison that hot stage,

[00:04:29] the booster will begin to attempt its water landing in the Gulf. In the meantime, the ship will attempt a controlled reentry, including a flip maneuver and a landing burn, just before splashing down in the Indian Ocean. But as a reminder, we are not attempting... Trajectory nominal.

[00:04:45] Good news there. Trajectory is looking good for the ship at this point in time. We have no engines lit on the booster. It is coasting back toward the Gulf of Mexico for a water landing and ship under power of all six Raptor engines.

[00:05:01] There's three sea level and three vacuum Raptor engines that are lit. The booster then achieved a soft vertical splash down in the Gulf of Mexico seven minutes and four seconds after its launch, just as planned. It was an almost perfect flight,

[00:05:17] with only the failure of a single Raptor engine causing some area of concern. Super heavy has been performing beautifully today. And you can hear the crowd is very excited about it. As a reminder for booster,

[00:05:30] the primary goal today is to do a landing burn and a splash down in the water. And we are just about 30 seconds away from that landing burn, expecting to begin. Right now, the booster is using the four hypersonic grid fins to guide itself through atmospheric re-entry.

[00:05:46] And we are expecting that landing burn here. We will be igniting 13 engines and those grid fins rotating and turning to guide the booster. And there's that landing burn just about to launch. And incredible situation for this very next team. Ship has entered terminal, guys.

[00:06:17] Incredible. The first successful splashdown of the super heavy booster. Love seeing it just tip over into the water before losing that footage. Meanwhile, the upper Starship stage continued climbing to its planned 160 kilometer high low Earth orbit, achieving Seeker or second engine cutoff eight minutes and 23 seconds after launch.

[00:06:38] Now the next milestone is coming up in about a minute. Ship is going to shut off its Raptor engines. As we mentioned before, today's test flight is not an orbital flight, but rather one that demonstrates the Starship's orbital capability.

[00:06:54] So right now we are under power with just the three center Raptor engines. What an incredible orbit. There's great news there. The call out we were hoping to hear. We have our second Starship in space. I'm like still jumping up and down.

[00:07:19] This whole building was going absolutely insane when we saw the booster hit the water. I mean, wow. Just to recap real quick over everything that's happened. So we lifted off at 7.50 a.m. only nine minutes ago. How has it only been nine minutes? 7.50 a.m. central at 12.50 UTC.

[00:07:36] We saw 32 of the 33 Raptor engines on super heavy make the ascent. We had successful cutoff, successful hot staging. All six engines on the ship powered it all the way into a nominal orbital trajectory. After that, the booster was able to do its boost back burn.

[00:07:53] The ship we just heard successful orbital insertion. So it's right where it needs to be and is now going to continue on its way to coast until it comes to reentry. But I mean the booster successful boost back burn, jettisoned the hot stage and then a landing burn.

[00:08:08] It looked like we saw 12 of the 13 engines light up and then that first ever soft splashdown in the water. So a whole lot still to come ship now on its way to its primary objective of entry. So a lot still to come.

[00:08:22] Starship continued to orbit for just under 40 minutes, just as planned cruising at over 26,000 kilometers per hour before undertaking a deorbit burn and commencing the violent reentry into Earth's atmosphere. Now coming up around T plus 49 minutes, the ship will reenter the Earth's atmosphere.

[00:08:39] As a reminder, the primary goal of today's flight test is for ship to make it through the extreme heat of reentry. This is typically a portion of flight where we don't have communications with the spacecraft because it's reentering at or around orbital velocity,

[00:08:53] which is about eight kilometers per second or roughly five miles per second. At those speeds, the spacecraft moving through the atmosphere results in friction and creates a plasma field around the vehicle. That blanket of plasma distorts communication frequencies. So we're left with a brief blackout in communication.

[00:09:11] And that's right, Kate. And Starlink's what's really allowing us to capture as much data as possible, especially through this reentry. Reentry, obviously a really critical phase of the flight. And it's the one that we're now most focused on cracking to get us closer to that full reusability.

[00:09:26] Starlink is going to be able to send us data back all the way through reentry. We've done some additional testing and we're expecting to be able to get data from Starlink thanks to its high frequency and the orientation and everything of Starship all the way through reentry.

[00:09:41] This provides an incredible insight into reentry, which is historically a really tough window to look through. The physics of reentry are insanely intense. One of my favorite NASA astronauts, Victor Glover, recently described it as with the forces and the flows and the temperatures,

[00:10:00] it's like pointing at a raging river in one spot and saying, tell me exactly what's happening right there. And that's what a ship is experiencing as it goes through, as it's moving through the atmosphere at more than five miles a second and heating up to thousands of degrees.

[00:10:16] Right now we're getting closer to reentry. We're going to be moving at hypersonic speeds of more than five times the speed of sound. We're going to see that plasma start to build. And then something we've never seen before. Amazingly, communications maintained during the entire descent phase.

[00:10:35] That's despite the usual blackout period caused by plasma buildup during the heat of reentry. The spectacular vision showed the spacecraft surrounded in a bright red glow with occasional flames dancing around the hull. However, as the descent became more violent and heated,

[00:10:51] some structural damage did occur to one of the fins. Nevertheless, the fins guided Starship exactly as planned. We can see the plasma beginning to build. It's getting closer to the Earth's atmosphere. Now, let's talk a little bit about how Starship will survive reentry, hopefully, and control itself.

[00:11:10] Exactly. We've been talking about this, this entire flight test. There's 18,000 hexagonal ceramic tiles surrounding the bottom portion or the Earth-facing side of the ship. 100 kilometers altitude, good altitude for entry. Great call-outs there. Now, during atmospheric reentry, the vehicle is going to see

[00:11:28] temperatures as high as 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit or over 1,400 degrees Celsius. So those tiles are there to help protect the vehicle from this extreme heat. Yeah, and the flaps will help control it. Now, one noticeable difference I see immediately,

[00:11:43] those flaps are not moving as much as they were on flight three. So that is a great sign, right? We had unplanned loss of roll control on flight three. So we added some additional thrusters, and we can see that they're working well.

[00:11:57] And we have a much more stable view. So those flaps, there's four of them, two at the top and two at the bottom. They're made out of stainless steel. And yeah, they help steer the ship, which as we can see, the plasma continuing to build.

[00:12:11] Now, if the ship survives reentry, it will have to perform a flip maneuver, as well as a landing burn. We saw this demonstrated in a couple of high altitude flight tests back in like 2020, 2021. Similarly... Temperature's increasing on the nose within expected ranges.

[00:12:29] Sounds like the temperatures that we are getting during this point, which again, we usually don't get during spaceflight because of this plasma. We're getting this live. So similarly to, for example, the Serial Number 10 test that we saw a couple years ago, we're hoping to duplicate that again today.

[00:12:45] Basically, the three center engines of the ship will reignite and gimbal or point to help flip the ship until those engines are pointing down so that it can land vertically using Raptor's thrust. And as you can see, even from the beginning of the program,

[00:12:59] we've designed Starship to land on Mars where there are no runways or other humans to help out. We also want rapid reusability. So we're doing... Vehicle is passing through 85 kilometers altitude. The flaps have control of the vehicle. Flaps have control of the vehicle.

[00:13:11] That's exactly what we want to hear for this flight test. Yeah. Again, we are going to be doing a propulsive landing instead of a more traditional means like parachutes. And we are expecting re-entry to begin here in just about a minute.

[00:13:23] We're basically looking through plasma, which is just absolutely mind-blowing. Wild. Very wild. Now we are expecting entry to begin here in about 30 seconds or so. Entry to splashdown is expected to last about six minutes long. And that flip maneuver should occur around about 10 minutes before splashdown.

[00:13:46] Views that we're getting... Approaching peak heating region. Most temperatures continue to rise within expected reach. Basically looking down into the plasma blanket that is building up around the exterior of Starship. Again, we're seeing a lot more stability, a lot more control here on this flight, which is great.

[00:14:03] It shows that the iterations... Starship is now in expected peak heating region. Telling us that this is basically the hottest point that Starship should get during its re-entry. Now the heat shield is working with the atmosphere for some free braking.

[00:14:18] The atmosphere is helping to slow the Starship down. Yeah, exactly. We're not using any engines or thrusts to slow the vehicle down. Exactly what Kate mentioned. We're just using the atmosphere and those heat shield tiles protecting the vehicle as it's coming through that high heat temperature.

[00:14:33] Now this is another one of those moments that we have been waiting for. Right now the ship is currently re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. By all looks and all call-outs that we're hearing on the net, it is doing pretty well.

[00:14:46] Now we do not plan to recover the spacecraft today. Absolutely. Starship is seeing half a G of acceleration. Remains on a good entry trajectory. So I was just going to say... Those temperatures have stopped increasing. The temperature is no longer building. We're getting this incredible data.

[00:15:00] And not only just the data from the sensors, but getting live imagery of what is actually happening, which is great, which we've never been able to do live before. So in about... T-plus about one hour and two minutes, we should hear a call-out for entry

[00:15:19] transonic. That means that the ship is going near the speed of sound. And then about a minute after that, we'll hear another call-out saying entry subsonic, meaning that the ship is going below the speed of sound.

[00:15:33] So these are all continued indications that the atmosphere, right as the ship comes back down, it is getting through the more dense part of the atmosphere. And that atmosphere is helping to push against the vehicle. And those heat shields are protecting the vehicle during this high heat period.

[00:15:49] Yeah, Kate and Jesse, we're starting to see as the atmosphere gets denser, you're starting to see a few more particles make an appearance in the plasma there. You're looking down at the aft end of the ship in the top left, and you're

[00:16:00] seeing essentially the flame buildup as we go through re-entry. You've been hearing the call-outs, they're tracking things like temperatures in the nose cone, and those were right where we modeled them to be, which is really cool to see and to see in real time.

[00:16:13] But we're coming up, we're at about 67 kilometers in altitude. Our last signal with the ship on flight three was at 65, so we should be making it past that point shortly. Obviously, as you guys pointed out, we're in much better control this time as we re-entered

[00:16:28] in the right attitude, and our flaps have been steering the way so far. Once we get through transonic, that's when you've got essentially different areas around the vehicle where the air is either moving faster or slower than the speed of sound.

[00:16:45] We'll eventually get to subsonic, which we have some experience with. We did in our suborbital campaign, and Starship will eventually get down to its terminal velocity, floating down to the water that's just about 200 miles an hour or so.

[00:17:01] We are hearing that we're starting to chill some of the engines, as we are, if we make it all the way down to the water, still going to attempt a landing burn, but still a ways to go. We're at about 64 kilometers in altitude right now.

[00:17:13] We made it through what's expected to be the peak heating, but now we're going to start encountering increased pressures as the atmosphere gets thicker and thicker. So we're at 63 kilometers, so we've already made it farther

[00:17:25] than we did on our last flight when that last signal was coming at 65 kilometers. So again, what we're really looking at here is the performance of the heat shield, of the flaps, of the seals in the flaps.

[00:17:37] There's just a whole bunch of different areas that we're keeping a really close eye on as we re-enter. Starship remains on a good entry trajectory. 58 kilometers, we're continuing to descend. Again, right now we are over the Indian Ocean.

[00:17:50] We're actually getting closer and closer to that expected splashdown point, which is just to the off the northwest corner of Australia. The speed is dropping. We're hitting the thicker part of the atmosphere now. The speed's going to start dropping precipitously.

[00:18:05] We're going to start getting to transonic pretty soon, and then after that we'll get into subsonic, where we're moving less than the speed of sound. But wow, what a light show so far. External temperatures are starting to come down.

[00:18:21] Looks like we got the flap starting to come apart a little. Yeah, it does appear that we have a little bit of burn through there. We can see pieces of the vehicle flying off. What a show it has been. It's been like watching Interstellar or something.

[00:18:34] We are getting a lot of debris covering the camera on your screen, but we can still see some of those sparks and flames from that high heat as ship is making its way back down to Earth. Ship now at 50 kilometers and closing.

[00:18:47] The good news is we still got... Oh, looks like that camera lens just cracked. It's safe to say ship's getting a little beat up, but that's to be expected on a test flight. We are still learning how to improve the ship

[00:18:59] for total survival and recovery of the high heat re-entry. I'm honestly impressed that we're still getting this despite how much debris is coming off of this flap right now. The fact that we've got it is good news. Starlink is doing an incredible job. Approaching maximum anti-dynamic pressure.

[00:19:15] External temperatures are dropping. The speed is rapidly slowing down. That's actually really great news for us. We want the vehicle to be slowing down before it splashes down into the ocean. That will help set us up for that flip maneuver, engines first down into the water.

[00:19:30] Vehicle has passed maximum dynamic pressure. Maximum dynamic pressure being the moment in which the vehicle experiences the greatest amount of aerodynamic pressure. Speed's still dropping. We're now at 37 kilometers above the ocean. Just like flight three, we are targeting a splashdown in the water in the Indian Ocean.

[00:19:48] 30 kilometers altitude mark two. Incredible, we're about to go under a thousand kilometers per hour. Starship is at 20 kilometers altitude. Now keep in mind that even though we can't see anything, the data itself is what we really are. Starship is subsonic.

[00:20:05] Subsonic, they're telling us it's traveling below the speed of sound. The flaps are actuating. It eventually performed a successful flip over maneuver. Transitioning from near horizontal to a vertical altitude for a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the northwest coast of Australia.

[00:20:25] Okay, the next milestone will be initiation of the flip maneuver and landing burn. Those three center engines to relight, they will gimbal or angle so that the ship flips itself back up vertical and hopefully lands in a vertical position. Maneuvering. Starship is passing through five kilometers altitude.

[00:20:42] Starship is at two kilometers altitude. Terminal velocity. The ship did its landing burn. It sounded like we might have got two engines. There's the final call for landing burn shutdown, but we'll go back through all the data. But we did get confirmation that a landing burn took place.

[00:21:08] Starship made it through re-entry and did its first ever landing burn. The success of this fourth test was vital for NASA's plans to return humans to the lunar surface aboard the Artemis III mission in 2026. That's because the Gateway Space Station won't be ready

[00:21:25] as a jump off point to the lunar surface. So instead, a modified version of Starship, to be called the HLS, is being developed by SpaceX. It'll rendezvous and dock with the Artemis III Orion spacecraft in cislunar orbit

[00:21:39] to transport two of the crew members down to the lunar surface for what will be a week-long stay at the lunar south pole. It'll then return them to the orbiting Orion spacecraft for the return journey to Earth.

[00:21:51] But to accomplish this, SpaceX will first need to place the Starship HLS in orbit and then refuel it using multiple Starship tankers for its journey to the moon. The reusable stainless steel Starship will eventually replace the current Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles,

[00:22:07] as well as the Dragon capsules and cargo ships carrying people and supplies into space and eventually to destinations across the solar system. This is Space Time. Still to come, China's probe lands successfully on the far side of the moon and three new Australian-built satellites arrive in Japan

[00:22:26] destined for eventual launch to the International Space Station. All that and more still to come on Space Time. China's Chang'e 6 lunar lander has successfully touched down on the far side of the moon for an historic sample return mission. The spacecraft landed in the lunar south pole's Atkan Basin,

[00:22:59] the largest known impact crater in the solar system. Its mission includes collecting the first regolith samples from this little explored region for return to Earth. The lander will use both a drill and robotic arm to collect samples both from the surface and below ground.

[00:23:15] The findings could help explain the lunar dichotomy. Why the moon's near and far sides look so different, and how the moon formed and evolved since its creation 4.5 billion years ago. Astronomers believe the moon was formed through a giant impact

[00:23:30] between a small Mars-sized planet called Theia and the early proto-Earth. That impact turned both bodies into a giant magma ocean which eventually melded together and solidified to become the Earth as we know it today. However, some of the ejected debris from that impact was thrown into space.

[00:23:48] There it gradually accreted to eventually form the moon. Beijing sees the Chang'e-6 lunar sample return mission as somewhat of a dress rehearsal for a more ambitious sample return mission to the red planet Mars. That could happen as soon as 2028,

[00:24:04] which would be sooner than a planned joint NASA-ESA mission currently on the books. China also aims to send a manned mission to the moon by 2030 and to build a joint base at the lunar south pole with the Russians.

[00:24:17] From being little more than an also-Ran a few decades ago, China is quickly becoming the dominant space power. This is Space Time. Still to come, three new Australian satellites arrive in Japan destined for launch in August to the International Space Station. And later in the Science Report,

[00:24:36] the World Meteorological Organization now says there's a 60% chance of a La Nina weather pattern developing between July and September. All that and more still to come. Space Time. Teams from Curtin University's B'nai Space program have just delivered three CubeSat spacecraft to the Japanese launch provider SpaceBD

[00:25:12] for eventual transport to the International Space Station. The satellites will be included in the payload of a JAXA, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, resupply mission to the orbiting outpost slated for launch in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.

[00:25:30] Once on station, the three probes will be launched into their own orbits. Curtin senior engineer Dr Fergus Downey says the B'nai 234 program is the next step in Western Australia's space journey after launching the state's first spacecraft, the technology demonstrator B'nai 1 three years ago.

[00:25:48] The new trio feature a newly developed communications module and antenna, together with a payload bay designed to carry a range of scientific experiments. Downey says their CubeSat design minimises space occupied by typical spacecraft subsystems, while at the same time maximising the available payload space for science.

[00:26:07] The follow up to the B'nai 1 mission, so the first mission that we flew from the B'nai space program. So B'nai 1 was mainly just a tech demonstrator, so it was the first time anything in Western Australia, from Western Australia had come to space.

[00:26:19] Developed at the university by myself and a few other PhD students at the time. So yeah, it was really just us learning how to build a satellite, the processes and procedures necessary to make that all happen, and also the technology that was required to put everything together.

[00:26:31] B'nai 234 included a bunch of upgrades to the B'nai 1 platform based on what we learnt in building the first one, and also a few science payloads. The most prominent one or the largest one on board and the key identifier between all three satellites

[00:26:44] is the radiation sensor payload that we developed with the CSIRO. So onboard B'nai 2 and B'nai 3 is two different radiation shooting materials, and then B'nai 4 was a control satellite. So it just had aluminium, regular space-grade aluminium around the radiation sensors, while 2 and 3 had two different frictions,

[00:27:00] they're additively manufactured compounds that are around the radiation shooting. Tell us about CubeSats. So CubeSats are just small 10 by 10 by 10 centimetre cubes essentially, and they're a standardised form factor that's been around since the early 2000s for reducing the cost of getting satellites into space.

[00:27:16] And they were essentially developed in the US and between the US and Japan as a way to reduce the costs for launch to get into space, essentially by piggybacking on larger satellite launches and being deployed into the atmosphere through a standardised deployer.

[00:27:28] And to make this possible, they chose the CubeSat form factor to push them all out into space. They can be built up. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So we build one new CubeSat, so that's one unit of 10 by 10 by 10, but typically they also come in three U's,

[00:27:40] so three of them all stack together, six U, which is two three U's down side by side, and then they go up into 12 U, which is the two six U's together. They also do do six U's like six units long. And typically once you go above 12 U,

[00:27:51] we start to call them small sats and not CubeSats, and they become more main mission type things. What was it like working on something like this, putting something together with your own hands and knowing it's going to be in space?

[00:28:02] It's, within R1, it didn't really hit me until it happened, I guess, just how lucky I was and how awesome it was to have the chance to work on something like that. It's very challenging as well, because there's so many different factors you have to consider

[00:28:15] when you're sending something into space. So yeah, it was challenging, difficult, and yeah, I think lots of fun at the end of the day. You have to be passionate for technology and passionate for understanding the environment that you're going into. So yeah, definitely fun is the main thing.

[00:28:27] 234 also is a technology upgrade from BIN R1. So we're hoping to learn a lot about the changes that we've made and make sure that they work a bit better than they did on BIN R1. Alongside the radiation payload that I mentioned earlier,

[00:28:39] there's a PhD student who's developed some, what we call deployable solar panels. So if you like BIN R1, it's just a one CubeSat with no deployable solar panels, so it just remains a cube. But 234 will actually deploy basically like wings on the side of the satellite.

[00:28:52] So we're hoping to learn about that deployable system and make sure that that works in space. There's also three different communication systems on BIN R2, 3, and 4. So we're hoping to learn a lot about the functionality of those three different communication systems

[00:29:03] and make sure they work as we expect them to. BIN R234, they'll be what, talking to each other or talking to the ground? So they'll just be talking to the ground. Because they're quite small, we're quite limited in power. So inter-satellite communications isn't really possible with these ones.

[00:29:16] But it is something that's similar to the laser comms, is very interesting and I'd love to be able to develop something like that one day in the future. You seem to have come a long way from FedSat all those years ago. Most certainly, yes.

[00:29:29] Especially the miniaturization and then the cost reduction as well. That's really the driving factor of what enables us to achieve what we can achieve here. We have been focusing more on CubeSats than large full-size satellites. Yeah, definitely.

[00:29:41] And you'd see that a lot in Australia, mainly because of the cost. Because we can leverage the launch service providers of other countries and go as secondary payloads on their rockets, it really enables the Australian economy to enter the space market.

[00:29:53] I can't wait for the day where Australia is flying primary missions and we're able to build bigger, more interesting, I guess, scientific missions, but also defense and communication satellites and that sort of stuff,

[00:30:02] I know will be a big thing once we get that up and running in Australia. I know Gilmore's just waiting for the final ticket from the federal government to be able to launch from Queensland. So the countdown's underway, I guess. Yeah, yeah. We've been watching it closely.

[00:30:16] We'd love to be able to fly something on an Australian rocket. So yeah, we're waiting to see how their maiden flight goes and I'm sure they'll see some success in the next few years. So that's also really exciting.

[00:30:24] I can't wait to build a satellite in Australia and launch it in Australia. It'll be an amazing achievement, that's for sure. Of course, back in the 1960s, Australia was the second busiest space center in the world. At Woomera, only Cape Canaveral was busier.

[00:30:40] We've sort of lost a lot during the late 60s, early 70s, and it all sort of disappeared for a while. It's taken us a long time to come back. Where are we at now? Just a thought for me to answer from over here in the West,

[00:30:53] but I think we're in a good place. We're definitely emerging and people are fighting and pushing for a space economy here in Australia. And I think it's on its way to showing its strength and prowess in the global economy.

[00:31:06] You know, people like SpaceX obviously is always the best example in how they've really revolutionized the space ecosystem. I think it's only a matter of time before Australia can really participate in a big way like that. We just have to keep our fingers and toes crossed

[00:31:18] and hope that we see some great successes and the money starts flowing our way to keep it going. These satellites are now in Japan. What happens to them from there? Because they'll be going to the States to be launched on the Falcon 9. Yeah, that's correct.

[00:31:31] So they were transferred to the US. So we integrated them in Japan and handed them over to JAXA, who then put them in their resupply module. This then goes to the US, to Cape Canaveral, where it's integrated into the American resupply capsule.

[00:31:45] And then that gets loaded onto the Falcon 9, which flies to the ISS. So we're hoping that that's going to be sometime in early August. The launch will happen and then we should sit on the ISS for three to five weeks, I think it is,

[00:31:56] until the astronauts have the time to load up the CubeSats into what they call the JSOD, which is the Japanese Orbital Deployer. And then they basically put it on a robotic arm and point it as far away from the ISS as they can.

[00:32:08] And they press a button and a hatch opens up on the robotic arm and the CubeSats get spring fired out of the ISS. And from there, that's when we start our operations. So that should be late August, early September when we start seeing some results on BINAR 2, 3 and 4.

[00:32:22] And how long will they remain in orbit for? So BINAR 1 was in orbit for nearly exactly 12 months. That was launched at nearly the solar minimum or at the start of the peak of the solar maximum. So it was a lot less solar active at that time.

[00:32:36] Whereas now we're right near the top of the solar maximum. So 2, 3 and 4 should be up there for six to eight months is what we're predicting, but it could be less than that depending on the sunspot activity that we've been seeing at the moment.

[00:32:46] Yeah, what happens is the Earth's atmosphere expands and contracts as it's pushed across by the solar wind, especially corona mass ejections and things like that. And that's been rather spectacular over the last few weeks. It most certainly has.

[00:32:59] I've loved seeing all the images that have been flying around social media. We definitely had a few good ones come through the office here. I guess, unfortunately, it means our mission will not be as long.

[00:33:07] But also, I don't think we need more than six months to test the payload. So it's OK. And you're already working on the next satellite? Yeah, so I've now started work on a larger platform. So we're actually looking at developing a 12U platform

[00:33:21] for exploration outside of low Earth orbit, hopefully onto the moon one day. But yeah, so we started developing a larger platform with propulsion systems with much more capabilities to work alongside our one new platform and hoping to develop, I guess, bigger, larger missions, as I mentioned earlier.

[00:33:36] What sort of science payloads would you like to see on that? I'm sure most of your listeners already know about the Artemis Accords and what America is trying to achieve with putting boots on the moon soon. So anything that complements the Artemis program

[00:33:48] and exploring the moon and discovering more about what we don't know there would definitely be something I'd love to work on. Because with Artemis, the moon is just the first step. The ultimate step is Mars and beyond.

[00:33:59] Yes, so if we could eventually leverage those launch capabilities of America or even Australia's launch capabilities and fly something to Mars as well, I know that would make a lot of people very happy. That's Curtin Senior Engineer Dr Fergus Downie from the Banar 234 mission. This is Space Time.

[00:34:19] And time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with the Science Report. The World Meteorological Organization says there's now a 60% chance of a La Nina weather

[00:34:43] pattern developing between July and September. The WMO says the 2023-24 El Nino event, which helped fuels spike in global temperatures and extreme weather around the world, is now showing signs of ending. The update predicts equal chances of either neutral conditions or a transition to La Nina

[00:35:02] during June to August this year. The chance of La Nina conditions increases to 60% during July to September, and 70% between August and November. Meanwhile, the WMO says there's now an 80% likelihood of at least one year temporarily exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels between now and 2028.

[00:35:25] The new warnings show the planet's getting ever closer to the limits suggested in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which refers to long-term temperature increases over decades, not over just one to five years. The WMO's Global Annual Decadal Update says there's now a 47% likelihood that the global

[00:35:44] temperature averaged over the entire five-year 2024-2028 period will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And that's up from a 32% likelihood in last year's report for the 2023-2027 period. Meanwhile, the ongoing climate crisis has put Australia's ski industry on notice to expect ever shorter snow seasons.

[00:36:07] The new modelling by scientists with the Australian National University has found that average ski seasons across all resorts in Australia will be 44 days shorter by 2050 under a mid-greenhouse emissions scenario and 55 days shorter under a high emissions scenario.

[00:36:23] The study also points out that the health of the Australian Alps is critical to Australia's agricultural needs and water security. According to the report, snowmelt water runoff provides an average of 9,600 gigalitres of water per year to the Murray-Darling Basin. That's some 29% of the basin's total annual flows.

[00:36:44] But at the same time, climate change will directly reduce rainfall in the Australian Alps by between 5 and 24% by 2050 and indirectly reduce catchment yield through ecological changes. The study found climate change is already having a significant impact on the native

[00:37:00] animals and plant species that call the Australian Alps home. A bit of good news now, and the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology has been taught of research into new mRNA-based melanoma vaccines which are reducing the risk

[00:37:16] of cancer recurrence or death by 49% over three years. The findings, by scientist and Australian of the Year Georgina Long, are based on preliminary trials. The vaccine, called mRNA-4157V940, was developed by Moderna and given in combination with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda.

[00:37:37] The results show that the 2.5-year recurrence-free survival rate of the vaccine in combination with Keytruda was 74.8%, compared to 55.6% for Keytruda alone. If you've ever wondered what the Catholic Church's view on the paranormal is, well, now's your chance to find out.

[00:37:57] Western cultures decided that a whole bunch of experiences aren't normal, such as visions, apparitions, ghosts, angels, demons, psychic abilities, UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and so on, and they all get lumped together under the catch-all term paranormal.

[00:38:15] But what do mainstream religions like the Catholic Church think of it all? Tim Minden from Australian Skeptic says that unlike the superstitious, the Church doesn't believe that all reported experiences are genuinely paranormal. But unlike hardcore sceptics, it doesn't simply dismiss them either. Okay, they have to.

[00:38:34] If they believe in the Holy Spirit and resurrection, etc., it's definitely a sort of a paranormal element there. But let's look at the specific paranormal stuff that a lot of other people look at, ghosts and superstitions and everything else. What is the Catholic attitude towards those?

[00:38:48] And yes, they do believe in ghosts, that most of them are souls of people in purgatory who haven't made it to the transition to heaven or hell, and they're just sort of hanging around saying, help me. So they do believe in ghosts.

[00:39:01] They didn't say that they're not necessarily demonic, that's a totally different thing, but they basically say there are three areas you can look at that we, what the Catholic Church's traditional take on these paranormalities. They say UFOs, not quite sure.

[00:39:14] Apparently Pope John Paul II said if there are any aliens, always remember they are children of God as we are. So, you know, let's leave it open, etc. Precognition is obviously a big part of actually religious beliefs and things.

[00:39:26] St. Augustine and people like him said that, yep, it's real, but you can have natural prophecy, which is by your ordinary mug punter sort of person who makes a prediction as opposed to divine prophecy, which is a very different thing.

[00:39:36] And definitely the Catholic Church believes in divine prophecy. You've got other paranormal, parapsychology things, if you like, which other priests and things have said, yes, you can do that. In paranormal investigations, the church has, of course, has done a lot of that as far as

[00:39:49] for sainthood reasons, you have to get a magical healing, miracles, etc., which be part of the paranormal to become a saint, you have to have performed at least one or two miracles, normally a health thing, health-related miracle. So that's another area that the Catholic Church, yes, believes in.

[00:40:03] The point of actually that and I'm looking at a particular article that talks about this, which is very good from a skeptical point of view when it's looking at a miracle cure and have the criteria that they use, that's judging what is actually worthwhile looking

[00:40:15] at and they say, to begin with, the disease must be a serious one, not going to be a cold. It must be considered difficult or impossible to cure. It must not be at a stage where it has run its course and spontaneous regression is possible

[00:40:27] like cancer which disappears, etc. You shouldn't have used pharmaceutical treatments that add the different element in there that might take away from a miracle thing, it might be a pharmaceutical miracle or if there has

[00:40:38] been, the medicine must be shown to have had no curative effect, which also implies a long-term effect I presume. The healing must be sudden and instantaneous. It's not going to be saying, oh you'll get cured over a few years.

[00:40:49] Yes, a lot of things get cured over a few years just normally. It has to be that and you're cured, it must be complete and not just an improvement. It must not follow a physical crisis that could have led to a cure, it might have led

[00:41:01] to the illness in the first place but you can't say a physical thing might have changed and there must be no relapse in the disease or sickness or whatever and that's pretty good rules actually that you could use those from a skeptical point of view, from a non-religious

[00:41:13] point of view to assess any sort of healing claim, especially a miraculous or psychic or whatever healing claim. I would recommend those quite seriously and you can apply them. The other thing is, the trouble is that the Catholic Church does believe in miracle cures.

[00:41:25] It's a lot of them. As I said, a saint has to have some or some such thing to become a saint and then there's also the paranormal investigations generally that they say that an interesting comment in this article again, they're looking at that just because something paranormal is

[00:41:37] happening, that doesn't mean a demon is responsible. Thank you very much. Obviously, they think in some cases the demon is responsible. That's going to put a lot of exorcists out of jobs, isn't it?

[00:41:46] Most exorcists would admit that a lot of the people they see coming to them claiming to be possessed are not, that they're suffering from a psychological issue. There's no demon involved. You look at Gabriel Amorth who was a famous Catholic, the number one exorcist in the world.

[00:42:00] He said a lot of people he sees are just sort of sad and distressed people and then there's nothing demonic there, right? They might have the same movements and their activities and then sort of that a supposedly possessed person has but they're not necessarily possessed.

[00:42:13] They do come down to the idea that yes, some people are possessed. So the Catholic Church does believe in miracle cures, does believe in demonic possession, does believe in ghosts, does believe in prophecy, does believe in a lot of things. Do other mainstream religions do that as well?

[00:42:28] I don't think they do it as much. It depends on which level of religion you're looking at. I think the Pentecostals do, obviously. They are very strongly believing in miracles and things like that. They also believe in fundamental biblical truth that I would say things like the Anglican

[00:42:41] Church and some of the other ones are a bit more pragmatic and yet to be convinced. The High Church of England does, I believe, still believe in some of these things but a lot of them would these days suggest that a lot of the non-Catholic churches would suggest

[00:42:53] that there's probably other explanations for these than the paranormal. Not always the case. It depends on who your close friend is but yes, the Pentecostal churches and the Catholic Church manifest it in different ways but they definitely believe in some of the paranormal.

[00:43:06] That's Tim Mindom from Australian Skeptics and that's the show for now. Space Time is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Bytes.com, Soundcloud, YouTube, your favorite podcast download provider and from Spacetimewithstuartgarry.com.

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[00:44:51] You've been listening to Space Time with Stuart Garry. This has been another quality podcast production from bytes.com