NASAs

If the question is what the European Orion module is doing among giant speakers, the answer is NASA’s extreme tests

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When we talk about Artemis We almost always look in the same place: NASA, the SLS rocketthe Orion capsule and that plan to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon. It makes sense, because the United States leads the program and a good part of the space imagination continues to revolve around its missions. But that reading falls short. Artemis is not just an American story.It is also an international architectureand in that architecture Europe has a much more important piece than it usually seems at first glance. That role has just been realized in a very visible milestone. Airbus Space recently announced that ESM-3, Orion’s third European Service Module and the unit destined for Artemis III, had its four solar wings installed. It is a powerful image because it summarizes well the nature of the project: an American ship with an essential part developed on the other side of the Atlantic. The module, built by the aerospace giant for the European Space Agency, will use those wings to provide electrical power to Orion during its mission, although there is still work to be done before the assembly can be considered ready to fly. The ESM has a much deeper function than a picture of newly installed solar panels may suggest. In the Orion architecture, this module is placed under the capsule where the astronauts travel and concentrates systems that are essential for the mission. NASA explains that provides electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air and waterin addition to serving as support to the ship during flight. That is why its role is not understood as a symbolic contribution, but as an operational part of the vehicle. A test on the ground, between speakers and noise The following, however, was not one of those scenes that we immediately associate with space. Airbus Space noted on May 6 that the next step was an acoustic test, a ground test designed to see how the spacecraft responds to the extreme launch environment. Simply put: before thinking about docking, orbits or manned missions, the module had to deal with the noise and vibrations that occur when the rocket takes off. That trial has already begun to materialize. NASA has shown the Orion service module for Artemis III during its acoustic tests at the Kennedy Space Center, surrounded by a wall of high-powered speakers to simulate the sound and vibrations of launch. According to the center, these tests help measure how the structure responds, verify the physical integrity of the spacecraft, protect sensitive avionics and propulsion interfaces, and detect potential problems on the ground well before launch day. This type of test is known as direct field acoustic testor D-FAT, and involves surrounding space hardware with an array of high-power speakers to reproduce the acoustic environment of launch. In equivalent testing of the Orion European Service Module, ESA has spoken of more than 200 speakers and more than 140 decibels. It’s not a new rarity: NASA already submitted Apollo vehicles underwent vibroacoustic testing in the 1960s to see how their structures and systems responded to the noise and vibrations expected during flight. That this test has arrived now does not make the module a ready-to-fly piece, but it does mark another advance in Orion’s preparation for Artemis III. And there the context matters, because the mission in which this module must participate is no longer counted exactly the same as it was a few months ago. Artemis III was for a long time the mission associated with the return of astronauts to the lunar surface, but NASA has rearranged the calendar and now places it as a demonstration mission in low Earth orbit. The plan involves launching four astronauts in Orion, on the SLS, to rehearse rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one or two commercial lunar landing vehicles from SpaceX and Blue Origin. It is not the end of the lunar goal, but an intermediate step to test an architecture that still needs to fit many pieces. The interest of this module is best understood precisely because of this new role of Artemis III. If the mission will be used to verify docking and operations with commercial vehicles, Orion will have to act as a manned platform within a much broader test than a simple test flight. In this scenario, the ESM-3 is not a peripheral contribution, but rather an integrated part of the ship in which the astronauts will travel. Europe, therefore, does not appear only in the cooperation communications: it appears in the machinery that has to make the mission work. The paradox sums up the moment quite well. Europa has just completed a visible part of the preparation of the module that will travel with Orion, and its next test has not been on the Moon, not even in orbit, but among noise, vibrations and speakers within a test on the ground. That is also the reality of Artemis: large lunar objectives supported by a long succession of technical, industrial and often inconspicuous steps. In that chain, ESM-3 makes it clear that the return to the lunar surface is not being prepared only from the United States. Images | Airbus Space | POT In Xataka | The Earth has had a traveling companion for millions of years and we don’t know where it came from, but there is a ship ready to give us answers

NASA’s new ion engine, a fundamental piece to reach Mars

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Ion engines are not new. There are many satellites that have used them to stabilize themselves in their orbit. It has also been used in small ships like that of the Psyche missionwhose objective was to explore the asteroid with the same name. However, NASA wants to go further and create an ion engine so powerful that in the future it can be used to take humans to Mars. There is still a long way to go; But, according to their latest evidence, they could be on the right track. The most powerful ion engine. Until now, the most powerful ion engine that has been used to go to space has been that of the Psyche mission. With it, a speed of 200,000 kilometers per hour has been reached. Instead, NASA scientists have recently tested a much more powerful engine on Earth. It is a lithium-powered magnetoplasmadynamic thruster, which uses an electric current, which interacts with a magnetic field to accelerate a lithium-ion-based propellant. All this is done in a vacuum chamber 8 meters long. After the tests, 120 kilowatts of power have been reached: 25 times more than with Psyche. It is still not enough to travel to Mars, but, after the success of the tests, these researchers hope to be able to scale the process until they achieve 4 megawatt engines. Several of those could be used to conquer the red planet. Different ions. Broadly speaking, an ion engine consists of a vacuum chamber in which an electromagnetic field accelerates electrically charged atoms through a nozzle, generating thrust. Those charged atoms are the ionic propellant. Traditionally, xenon is used, although metallic plasmas have also begun to be explored. That’s where lithium comes into play. Advantages. Ion-powered engines use 90% less propellant than chemical ones. That, in itself, is already a great advantage. On the other hand, although they start with a very low speed, they have the advantage that, in the absence of friction, as occurs in the vacuum of space, they keep accelerating for a long timeso they can reach very high speeds. This is how has been achieved that many satellites can adjust their orbit. A key piece is missing. In order to start this electromagnetic field, an energy source is needed, which is normally obtained through solar panels. However, to go to very distant places where the Sun does not reach so easily, it would be necessary to look for alternatives. For this reason, NASA scientists consider that this ion engine should be complemented with the nuclear thrusters that Both this agency and others have been studying for some time. In the case of NASA, They have made a lot of progress with Space Reactor-1 Freedoma nuclear-powered spacecraft, whose first launch is scheduled for 2028. Investment is needed. In order to scale what has been achieved so far, strategic investments will have to be made, as NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has already pointed out. in statements collected by Space. The scale they want to make is not small, so they are still waiting to receive adequate financing. In the meantime, you can at least be proud that the first 5 firings of this initial prototype went perfectly. Image | POT In Xataka | The West stopped building nuclear power plants because they were too expensive: China is teaching it a lesson

NASA’s plan to capture a falling telescope before it burns up in the atmosphere

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After more than 20 years carrying out their work to perfectiona NASA space telescope is about to fall to Earth and burn up in its atmosphere. This would be very serious, both because of the possibility of uncontrolled debris being generated and because of the loss of the valuable work that this instrument is carrying out. For this reason, the US space agency has already teamed up with a private company to launch a ship into space capable of hunting the telescope and sending it to a safer orbit. Key dates. The protagonist of this story is the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. According to the latest measurementscarried out in November 2025, there is a 50% risk that this telescope will leave its orbit and fall to Earth in June 2026. In addition, the risk rises to 90% before 2027. For this reason, NASA has granted $30 million to the company Katalyst to develop a robotic spacecraft capable of capturing the telescope and raising it to a safer orbit. The ship is called LINK and its development is going from strength to strength, although there is still no launch date. The biter bit. Neil Gehrels Swift was sent to space in 2024 to capture and study the explosions of gamma rays. Since then it has provided very useful information; But unfortunately, this could change soon. A subdued atmosphere. The problem lies in the attenuation of the Earth’s atmosphere. When we travel to space, this does not disappear suddenly, but rather fades little by little. Such a weak atmosphere has the ability to slow down spacecraft and send them into a lower orbit. If solar storms are added to this, capable of swelling the atmosphere, great aerodynamic resistance is produced. We are currently in a cycle of high solar activity, which reached its peak in October 2024. This possibly pushed the telescope to its limits, placing it in an unstable orbit, from which it could leave at any time. Work against the clock. NASA and Katalyst are working around the clock to launch the LINK spacecraft on time. But in the meantime, the telescope must hold on. For this reason, some of its instruments have been turned off and their operations modified, in order to minimize their energy consumption. This has made it possible to reposition its solar panels and, thereby, reduce their resistance. Sooner or later this will not be enough, but at least it can buy some time until the LINK launch can take place. In the absence of ground platforms, it is a good plane. In order to hunt this telescope in the orbit in which it is located, a launch configuration is necessary that is not available on any of the platforms available to NASA. Therefore, it is planned to launch the ship directly from an airplane. Thus, the trajectory can be adjusted much better. In short, this will be a unique event in history. A telescope has never been caught on the fly. For now we will have to wait, but we will be very attentive to the release dates. Image | POT In Xataka | Exactly 100 years ago we began to understand how the world works. Quantum physics has radically changed our lives

NASA’s alliance to finally understand dark matter

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This week, NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, better known as the Roman Space Telescope. With its launch scheduled for September of this year at the earliest, it will become the space agency’s newest space telescope. It will coexist with others like Hubble or James Webbbut it has something that these don’t have. The ability to track vast expanses of the Universe at once. That’s what makes it special. Much more space. The Roman Space Telescope has 18 detectors that give it a panoramic view of space. It has been baptized with this name in honor of what is known as the mother of Hubble, for her important role in the development of this other space telescope. However, both have major differences. It is capable of looking at a field 100 times larger than that of Hubble. As a result, is expected that discovers tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies and stars and thousands of supernovae. An ideal companion for James Webb. The Roman Space Telescope also has advantages over the James Webb. If it is capable of analyzing a field 100 times larger than that of Hubble, in the case of James Webb exceeds it by 50 times. This allows you to observe without a clear objective on the part of the researchers. When exploring such large expanses, you may find something unexpected at any time. That’s where James Webb comes into play. And, although it can analyze less space at once, it is much more precise. Its mirrors are larger, so it captures more light and can discern more details. If the Roman detects something interesting, the James Webb analyzes it with a magnifying glass. Context matters. We have already seen that the James Webb can study the Roman detections with more precision. However, they can also help each other in the opposite direction, since the Roman is capable of providing context around James Webb’s objectives. Together to unravel dark matter. The biggest difference between the Roman Space Telescope and the James Webb compared to Hubble is that they can analyze space by focusing on emissions in the infrared spectrum, rather than visible light. As a result, it can see through cosmic dust, detect cold objects, and look further back in time. The latter is extremely useful for understanding the expansion process of the universe and, incidentally, unravel some mysteries about dark matter. The Universe expands. We have known for a long time that the universe is expanding. That is, the galaxies are moving away from each other, but not because they are moving, but because the space between them is stretched, like a balloon that is inflating. It is also known that this is happening more and more quickly. But why does it happen? It is not clear, but it is suspected that it may be due to dark matter. Supernovas that act as lighthouses. To better understand what is happening, it is important to measure very well how galaxies are separating. One of the ideal ways to do this is by using Ia supernova explosions as beacons. They are phenomena with a known maximum brightness, so they are used to measure distances, taking into account the analysis of their relative brightness from Earth or the place where a space telescope is located. The problem is that they only occur once every 500 years in the Milky Way. A telescope that measures in the infrared can travel very far back in time, but the James Webb only does so in small pieces. The Roman, on the other hand, can analyze such large areas that several of these explosions could be detected at the same time. That would allow several beacons to operate simultaneously to better map the Universe and understand why it is expanding as it does. Once the beacons were located, the James Webb would enter the game to do its detailed analysis. Together they can unravel very ancient mysteries of astrophysics. There is no one better than the other. Image | POT In Xataka | We have been studying the planets of TRAPPIST-1 for years with great hope. James Webb just knocked it down

Europe has grown tired of being NASA’s “supporting actor.” And that is why it is starting to work with China

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The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have teamed up to launch an ambitious mission, aimed at studying the mechanisms used by the Earth to protect itself from solar inclement weather. The SMILE mission was scheduled to launch this April 9, but a small technical problem has forced it to be postponed until a date that is still unclear. In any case, it is just a small stone on the road for a mission that reinforces Europe’s intention to join forces with the Today it is considered the direct competition of NASA on many space issues. Given the ups and downs that the United States faces in scientific matters, it could be an interesting idea. The terrestrial sunscreen under a magnifying glass. The SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) mission has four instruments aimed at analyzing the interaction of solar winds with the magnetosphere that acts as the Earth’s shield. It is a necessary mission for many reasons. On the one hand, because many of the mechanisms used by the Earth to protect itself from solar radiation remain partly a mystery. And, on the other hand, because data analysis could help predict solar storms more accurately. Currently it is possible to know with high probability whether they will occur, but the situation is far from being exact. Since these types of events affect terrestrial communications systems, forecasting would be a key point. Four instruments. The instruments that SMILE has They are the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI), the Light Ion Analyzer (LIA), the Detector Plane Assembly (DPA) and the Ultraviolet Imager (UVI). The SXI is responsible for taking X-ray images to study the boundaries of the magnetosphere, while the DPA provides mechanical and thermal support. That is, it helps keep the imaging systems at a stable temperature, something essential given the proximity to the Sun. As for LIA, its function is to analyze ionized particles. Solar winds consist of a flow of ionized particles that form in the Sun’s corona and are released into space. They are directly related to the harmful effects of solar storms, so it is important to analyze them. For its part, UVI is responsible for taking images in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum. Above all, they will take images of auroras, closely linked to peaks in solar activity. European and Chinese contribution. The European Union has provided the SXI and DPA instruments, in addition to the Vega rocket that will propel the satellite and all its instruments into space. For its part, China has developed the UVI and LIA instruments, as well as the SMILE suite satellite platform. Spain is not missing either. One of SMILE’s instruments, the DPA, It has been developed at the Spanish National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA). Little recognition. NASA has given Canada a seat on the Orion capsule to travel to the Moon. Canadian Jeremy Hansen is one of the crew members of Artemis II, despite having never traveled to space. Canada has not participated in the technological development of the mission. Europe, on the other hand, has provided the engine system that has propelled the four astronauts towards our satellite. Even so, little mention has been made of ESA’s important contribution during the development of Artemis II. Why China. A long time ago, China stopped being an emerging space power and became one of the most consolidated on the current scene. With its Tiangong Space Station Located in low orbit, it is the only facility of its kind besides the International Space Station. Its lunar mission has great relevance thanks to the exploration of the Chang’e unmanned missions. Besides, hopes to take its own taikonauts (as Chinese astronauts are known) to the satellite in 2030. Its exploration on Mars is also important thanks to rovers like Zhurong. Tiangong Low hours for NASA? Donald Trump’s government wants to make drastic cuts to science with public investment in the United States and possibly NASA will not escape. Therefore, it may be a good time to seek other support in the space race, as ESA is already doing with SMILE. That does not mean that it will stop collaborating with NASA, but it is true that it is open to exploring new partners. If there is one thing that history has taught us, it is that the best way to advance in the space race is to put egos aside and move forward as a team. Closing yourself off only to a traveling companion can end up being counterproductive. Images | ESA | Shujianyang In Xataka | Astronauts’ food is not appetizing at first, especially in China

A planet has just disappeared. NASA’s Hubble telescope has captured a violent cosmic event that changes everything

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Investigating the universe beyond the Solar System we know sometimes brings up more questions than answers. The search for exoplanets has left findings so different from what we know as fascinating. Thus, more than a decade ago the Kepler space telescope identified the Kepler-16ba planet with “two suns” along Star Wars Tatooine and the James Webb telescope stumbled upon a world of boiling lava that paradoxically it’s colder what the theory says. In the process of investigating the universe you can witness the disappearance of a planet, as NASA’s Hubble has monitored, to discover that there was nothing like a planet: they were in front of a violent cosmic phenomenon. First they detected a bright point of light and assumed that it was a planet covered in dust where the brightness of its star was reflected. Then the object disappeared and a different bright source appeared nearby. Finally, this international research team realized that they were not seeing planets at all: the light came from incandescent debris generated by violent collisions, as they later published in Science. A planetesimal collision that changes everything In their observations in time, they captured two different and very powerful impacts that generated large amounts of dust in the same planetary system, which constitutes a magnificent opportunity to understand how planets are formed and what type of materials they are made of. Their main hypothesis: they have glimpsed not one, but two extremely rare events: one (two) planetesimal collisionthat is, a collision between small rocky objects similar to asteroids. Northwestern University astrophysicist Jason Wang explains that it is the first time they have seen a planetesimal collision outside the solar system and that its study is “key to understanding how planets form and can also provide information about the structure of asteroids, something important for planetary defense programs such as the DART test.” Paul Kalas, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author, insists on the exceptionality of the event: “It is not present in any of our previous Hubble images, which means that we have just witnessed a violent collision between two massive objects and a huge cloud of debris, something that has no parallel in our current solar system.” By NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) These collisions occurred in the planetary system surrounding the star Fomalhautwhich is larger than the Sun, is surrounded by an extensive and dense set of dusty debris belts and located about 25 light years from Earth, in the constellation Pisces Austrinus. That dust belt is so large that it is a real candy for research. Planet it seems, cloud of dust it is In 2008 they detected Fomalhaut b, a bright object of unknown nature that some researchers thought was a planet and others believed it was an expanding cloud of dust from a collision. Back in 2023, a new Hubble observation gave an unexpected twist to everything: the original light source was no longer there and another bright object had appeared in a slightly different area. As explains Wang, first They assumed it was Fomalhaut b, but they got a surprise: “We assumed the bright light was Fomalhaut b because it was the known source of the system. But by carefully comparing the new images with the old ones, we realized that it couldn’t be the same source. It was exciting, but also perplexing” So they had to change perspective and nomenclature: the original object was renamed Fomalhaut cs1 and its disappearance supports the idea that it was a cloud of dust that was slowly dispersing after a collision. They called the second bright source Fomalhaut cs2 and its behavior reinforces the conclusion that neither of the two objects was a planet: everything indicates that they are clouds of debris created when large planetesimals collide with each other. Investigating Fomalhaut cs2 they concluded that it looked very similar to the beginnings of cs1 from two decades ago, both in brightness and location. So the team already estimates the frequency of collisions in this guy in the system: every 100,000 years or even less. After all, in 20 years they have already seen two. Kalas explains that “if you took a movie of the last 3,000 years and sped it up so that each year lasted a fraction of a second, imagine how many flashes you would see. The Fomalhaut planetary system would be full of these crashes.” Fomalhaut cs1 no longer exists, but the research team wants to continue monitoring the system and has its eyes on cs2, which could hide more valuable information about how collisions develop in young planetary systems. Of course, in addition to the old Hubble, they will use the near-infrared camera of the James Webb Space Telescope since the NIRCam can capture detailed information about color, so they can determine the size and composition of dust grainsfor example if they contain water or ice. The confirmation of these collisions put a warning on the table for hunters of planets outside the Solar System: the gLarge clouds of dust can very well imitate the appearance of an exoplanetto by reflecting light from its star, which can lead to error using the reflected light detection system. Kalas sums it up: “What we learned from studying cs1 is that a large dust cloud can masquerade as a planet for many years.” As new observatories point to the sky to obtain direct images of Earth-like planets, differentiating between real planets and temporary dust clouds seems providential. In Xataka | Poland and Spain are the European countries that have increased their contribution to space the most. For very different reasons In Xataka | China reveals its cards for 2030: it will go in search of an “Earth 2.0” on its own Cover | Javier Miranda By ESA, NASA, and L. … Read more

Perseverance has found what, according to NASA’s director, is “the clearest indication of life we ​​have seen on Mars”

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That NASA conveque without warning a press conference related to Rover Perseverance can only mean that it has found something interesting. And indeed, that is what the acting administrator of the NASA, Sean Duffy, has announced today. What, I quote textually, “could be one of the clearest signs of life we ​​have seen on Mars.” Short. The scientific community has finished analyzing A rock with a leopard spots pattern that NASA’s Perseverance Rover found on Mars in July last year. A complete study Posted in Nature magazine It confirms that the surface of the rock has a combination of chemical, mineral and textural characteristics that are difficult to explain without, at least consider the intervention of biology. Although scientists cannot confirm it without physical access to the rock, It could be the first biofirma found on Mars. That is, a geochemical characteristic that is associated with microbial life on earth and that, casually, has been found in a place where water ran. Cheyava Falls. The epicenter of this finding is an area of ​​the edges of the Marciano Jezero crater baptized as Bright Angel, an old river bed about 400 meters wide. It was here that, in July 2024, the Rover Perseverance ran into a rock -shaped rock of approximately one meter long that was baptized by NASA scientists as “Cheyava Falls”. The analysis of this rock has revealed some tiny structures to which researchers refer, colloquially, as “poppy seeds” and “leopard spots.” They are not simple rocks with curious shapes, they are the product of chemical reactions. Poppy seeds are nodules between 100 and 200 microns, probably a mineral called Vivianita, and leopard spots are the reaction fronts: more complex structures of up to 1 mm with a dark edge of Vivianita and a clearer core rich in iron sulfide, probably of Greigita. What is special. The truly interesting thing about these mineral structures is that they are next to organic carbon, detected by the Perseverance Sherloc instrument through its spectral Band G. To understand the striking of this finding, you just have to see what causes these structures on Earth. And yes, microbial life is an option. “On Earth, sometimes things are formed in sediments where microbes eat organic matter and ‘breathe’ oxide and sulfate”, explains the geobiologist Michael TiceProfessor of the University of Texas A&M and co -author of the study. They were the microbes. Oxide-reduction reactions (better known as redox) start from electron transfer, which is a fundamental process for living beings to obtain energy. Therefore, an option is the biological scenario: microorganisms that lived in the mud of an old Marciano Lake more than 3,000 million years ago caused these structures. As? They used organic matter as food. When “breathing”, they used oxidized iron and sediment sulfate as electrons acceptors, producing the reduced iron minerals that we see today: the vivianita and the greek. This process occurs at low temperatures and perfectly explains the combination and disposition of minerals and organic matter. Not so fast. Purely geochemical processes, without biological intervention, could also have created these structures. Organic matter (which can have a non -biological origin, such as a meteorite) was also able to react with rock minerals. But in this abiotic scenario there is a problem. The reactions that the Vivianita form can occur at low temperatures, and the geochemical processes known to form the Greigite from sulfate require very high temperatures (greater than 150-200 ° C) or very acidic. Bright Angel’s rocks show no evidence of having experienced either. The definitive test? Not far, but a promising first step. Perseverance instruments are powerful, but it has its limits. The rover drilled the rock “Cheyava Falls and stored a nucleus, nicknamed” Sapphire Canyon “, in a sealed sampling tube. It is one of the 27 tubes that the rover has filled to date and one of the highest candidates to be brought to the earth, where a much more exhaustive analysis could be done. This is where emotion collides with reality. The Mars Sample Return mission, designed to collect these samples and bring them home, is de facto canceled after the original mission budget was shot up to 11,000 million dollars with delays until 2040. The situation has forced NASA to look for faster and cheaper alternatives. That is, to ask for alternative proposals to the private industry and the JPL. But there is still no defined path. The cake widge. There is another surprising factor that raises the importance of this discovery. Until now, the dominant hypothesis suggested that possible signs of life should be sought in the oldest rocks of Mars. However, Bright Angel’s lodolites are among the younger sedimentary rocks that the mission has investigated. This opens a new and fascinating possibility: that Mars could have been habitable for a longer period of time or at a later stage in its history of what was thought. Image | NASA, JPL That NASA conveque without warning a press conference related to Rover Perseverance can only mean that it has found something interesting. And indeed, that is what the acting administrator of the NASA, Sean Duffy, has announced today. What, I quote textually, “could be one of the clearest signs of life we ​​have seen on Mars.” Short. The scientific community has finished analyzing A rock with a leopard spots pattern that NASA’s Perseverance Rover found on Mars in July last year. A complete study Posted in Nature magazine It confirms that the surface of the rock has a combination of chemical, mineral and textural characteristics that are difficult to explain without, at least consider the intervention of biology. Although scientists cannot confirm it without physical access to the rock, it could be the first biofirm found on Mars. That is, a geochemical characteristic that is associated with microbial life on earth and that, casually, has been found in a place where water ran. Cheyava Falls. The epicenter of this finding is an area of ​​the edges of the Marciano Jezero crater … Read more

He was deported to China after co -founding NASA’s JPL. Now China has made one of his ideas come true: flying wind turbines

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In the mid -twentieth century, the United States made a decision that later A high position of the Navy described as “the most stupid thing that this country has ever done.” Qian Xesenan indisputable genius of aeronautical engineering, co -founder of the prestigious JPL laboratory of NASA, and a key figure in the development of American coheteria, was deported to China in 1955 accused of communist sympathies in full witch hunt. Qian, welcomed as a hero in his homeland, became the father of the space program and the development of Balistic missiles in China. Decades later, a new generation of Chinese engineers, heirs of the scientific ecosystem that helped build, has broken a world record with a technology that pursues an old ambition of Qian Xesen: wind turbines that fly like zepelins to harvest the energy of great altitude winds. A Zepelin anchored to ground to generate electricity On October 10, in the heavens of Jingmen, province of Hubei, a 23 -meter long aerostate with a leadable appearance rose to 500 meters high. It was not a transport or surveillance vehicle, but The S500, a floating wind energy system That, at that altitude, began to generate more than 50 kilowatts of power. With this flight, China not only launched an innovative project, but sprayed two world records that until now He held an American MIT research team: The one with the highest flight altitude for such a turbine (the previous one was 297 meters) and the one with the highest power generated (compared to the previous 30). The concept, developed by the Sawes company In collaboration with the University of Tsinghua and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it is as elegant as complex. The system uses A member of helium filling to raise a wind turbine to altitudes where the wind is much stronger and more constant than on the surface. The electricity that generates is transmitted to a station on land through the same high strength cable that anchors the structure. The advantage of this design is clear: the energy that can be extracted from the wind is proportional to the cube of its speed; already hundreds of meters high, Winds are not only faster, but also more stablesignificantly reducing the intermittency that it lills to the terrestrial wind farms. According to developer calculations, wind resources in the stratosphere on a region like Hami, in Xinjiang, are 40 times higher than those of the surface. Of emergency situations to the generation at network scale The S500 and its successor, the S1000 of 100 kW Proven for the first time in Januarywere developed for emergency rescues, urban security and places of difficult topography. In case of earthquake or flood, the system can be deployed rapidly to provide energy and communications in the disaster area. But Sawes’s ambitions go much further. The company He just finished assembly The following model on its road map: the S1500, designed to operate 1,500 meters of altituderepresents a jumping of the capacity in capacity, with a power of generation of 1 megavatio. It is proof that technology not only looks for niches such as emergency response, but aspires to become a renewable energy source at an electricity scale. To achieve this power, the S1500 integrates a complex system of 12 generators that operate simultaneously inside its central duct. The key for such a powerful system to fly is material engineering: generators are manufactured in carbon fiber To minimize the weight, maintaining the complete structure below a ton. Like his little brother, energy becomes electricity in the airship itself and low to land through an anchor -integrated cable. With this design, Sawes has attracted the support of important investment funds and contracts that already exceed 500 million yuan (about 64 million euros). The company has opened an assembly plant In Yueyang. The story of Qian Xesen is one of the greatest anecdotes about the unforeseen consequences of fear policy. As you tell Los Angeles Timesthe man who interrogated Wernher Von Braun and laid the basis of the JPL was separated and returned to a country that, at that time, had a much lower scientific development. He took care of changing that, and now his heirs are materializing some of his ideas in his native country. Images | Sawes In Xataka | How China became a nuclear and spatial power in the most unexpected way: with a student of the mit expelled by the US

Starlink’s growth is so brutal that Spacex is one year after overcoming NASA’s annual budget

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Elon Musk became the richest man in the world thanks to Tesla, but his new golden egg chicken It’s called Starlink. The tycoon has given credibility to something that It had been commenting Since the White House announced NASA’s historic cuts: Spacex’s income is one year after overcoming the annual budget of the planet’s largest space agency. More money than NASA. Elon Musk He just put the data On the table: “Spacex’s income for its commercial activities in space will exceed NASA’s total budget next year.” Spacex is a private company controlled by Musk itself, so it is not obliged to publicly present its results. However, we now know that it plans to enter 15.5 billion dollars in 2025. If approved in Congress, NASA’s annual budget for 2026 will be 18.8 billion dollars, 24% less than the previous year. The whole mountain is Starlink. Spacex receives NASA money to transport astronauts to the International Space Station or develop space programs such as the lunar Starship, but in 2025, that transaction has been “only” 1.1 billion dollars. Most of what Spacex earns comes from Starlink, although the amount of NASA contracts will rise to 1,747 million dollars in 2026, adding the Moon To Mars program. Starlink has more than 5 million customers, a figure that has been duplicating from year to year. The bulk of the business are residential customers, but satellite Internet service has been diversifying with agreements in the maritime sector (mercantile vessels and cruises), the aviation sector (Chárter operators and commercial airlines), the operators (Direct-to-Cell) and the government sector (especially The Starshield constellation of the number). The perpetual movement machine. Starlink’s success would not be possible without Spacex’s launching capacitywhich continues to be beating reuse records with its Falcon 9. The company celebrated its 500 mission last night. The propeller that has taken and landed the most times has done it 28 times, 17 of them to put Starlink satellites in orbit. The integration of the company is totally vertical. Spacex manufactures rockets, satellites and terminals. And innovation is constant. At the end of May, a Falcon 9 deployed 29 Starlink v2 mini optimized satellites225 kg lighter than previous versions and with a bandwidth of 96 Gbps. How much Spacex is worth. With more than 7,000 active satellites in orbit, an incomparable number of any other constellation, Starlink has triggered the assessment of Spacex at stratospheric levels. The most recent valuation is 350,000 million dollars, which makes it the company not quoted in the largest stock market in the United States. Taking into account that Spacex Starlink’s benefits reinvested on the Starship programIt is worth asking who will lead the space exploration of the United States in the coming years, if NASA or Elon Musk’s company. Image | Spacex In Xataka | Spacex has launched 8,000 Starlink satellites in five years, but they are not enough. And we are beginning to understand why

NASA’s longest -lived astronaut has returned to the land in his 70th birthday. We are left without the best space photographer

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There are ways and ways to celebrate a birthday, but few like Don Petit’s. He NASA’s longest active astronaut He returned to Earth after seven months at the International Space Station just the day he turned 70. A bittersweet milestone because, although it is healthy and safe, we lose the unique perspective of one of the best photographers of space. Delicated landing in the kazaja steppe. 220 days after its launch aboard the Soyuz MS-26 Russian capsule landed on the plains of Kazakhstan Together with his crew companions, the Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin (53 years old) and Ivan Vagner (39 years old). The landing occurred without technical setbacks, although with a small scare: Pettit needed immediate medical attention when extracted from the capsule. The cameras captured him practically motionless after landingwhich revived the debate on the Russian practice to expose the crew instead of prioritizing its intimacy, as is done in the United States and China. 70th birthday, and farewell? “When our capsule lands on those desert plains, I will be literally on the other side of the earth, almost 19,000 kilometers from home. However, I will be at home,” Don Pettit wrote from the orbit shortly before returning. A reflection that puts in perspective what ‘home’ means after seven months seeing the earth 400 km high, from the International Space Station. This has been the fourth space mission for Petit, which accumulates a total of 590 days in space. Despite being NASA’s longest astronaut, it is only the tenth human being that accumulates more time outside the earth. With 48 active astronauts in the space agencythe last incorporated in 2022, it should be thought that this could be its last mission to space. Goodbye to the ISS photographer. If we will miss this astronaut is his extraordinary ability for photography. Pettit is one of the best photographers who have gone through the ISS and during this last mission, he has given us spectacular images again: The dairy and Starlinks: one of its last captures shows the core of our galaxy and zodiac light, with Starlink satellitous steles crossing in the frame Reimaginated terrestrial landscapes: using infrared filters or playing with the reflection of the sun, Petit reveals hidden details of oceanic currents or terrestrial geology with an almost pictorial quality Atmospheric phenomena: captured impressive northern lights during the intense new year solar activity and contributed to the study of elusive “transient light events” (Tles), electric discharges on storms Long exhibition: Master of this technique, has created iconic images of stars steles or the night lights of cities turned into rivers of light by the Iss orbital movement More than photos. Chemical Training and Scientific Engineer rather than Astronaut, Pettit’s creativity is not limited to photography .. invented A cup of coffee to drink without straw taking advantage of the surface tension of the microgravity fluid. And a device that compensates for the movement of the International Space Station to obtain more clear nightcare photos on Earth. It is also Famous for his “Opportunity Science”small experiments carried out in their free time to demonstrate physical principles in microgravity. To play with drops of water charged electrostátically to freeze ice sheets To study their crystals with polarized filters in the freezers of the station. With the return of Soyuz MS-26, expedition 73 is under the command of Japanese Takuya Onishi. He is accompanied by NASA Astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers and Jonny Kim, and Russian cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. In Xataka | The best photos from the International Space Station are made by the same astronaut: Don Pettit

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