The Orbital Index
The Orbital Index
China’s long-term space science roadmap includes some surprises. A roadmap for Chinese space science missions up through 2050 was released on the 15th. It includes missions focusing on the extreme universe, the nature of matter, searching for habitable exoplanets, heliophysics, and human space exploration. These include programs we’ve talked about targeting this decade, like a crewed lunar landing by 2030 (c.f. Issue № 288); the Xuntian space telescope (cf. Issue № 236), which will co-orbit with the CSS; a space-based gravitational wave detection pathfinder; solar and cosmology research missions; the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission; and, an exoplanet telescope (c.f. Issue № 283). Further out (2028–2035) are the Tianwen-4 Jupiter and Uranus mission, a solar system boundary mission, the development of the International Lunar Research Station (c.f. Issue № 275), and a newly announced Venus atmospheric sample return mission. That last one is a particularly exciting surprise, but few details have been released at this point. Finally, the 2036–2050 part of the roadmap lists “global leadership in space science with 5-6 large-scale missions and diverse smaller projects,” which, given China’s recent track record, we’re inclined to believe.   A depiction of the Xuntian space telescope, a Hubble-class telescope with a 2-meter primary mirror, 2.5 gigapixel camera, and a field of view 300-350x that of Hubble with a primary goal of sky mapping. It is intended to orbit near the Chinese space station for periodic docking, maintenance, and upgrades.The Orbital Index is made possible through generous sponsorship by:  Support Us› Orbital Index is made possible by readers like you. If you appreciate our writing, please support us with a monthly membership! Papers Yet another paper about how slime molds form filaments that look like the cosmic web, the largest scale structure in the Universe. Science does tend to rhyme.Using ‘Oumuamua as a base, a mathematical model of panspermia suggests a 0.001% chance that life on Earth evolved outside our solar system and was delivered by an interstellar object (paper). Relatedly, here’s an animation of a (very ambitious) gravity assist sequence for a proposed spacecraft to catch up with ‘Oumuamua. It feels like maaaybe we should wait to see some more samples of the population of interstellar objects before estimating probabilities. 🤷‍♂️Another take on panspermia, this time modeling the spread of dust from life-bearing worlds throughout the galaxy (paper). They find that over the approximately 5B years of Earth’s existence, Earth dust freed by a meteor impact or through atmospheric dust interactions with hypervelocity space particles could be pushed into interstellar space by radiation pressure and may have reached on the order of 100,000 other stellar systems. So we could be someone else’s progenitors.Observations of Mercury’s surface suggest that carbon may exist in its interior, where pressures and temperatures in the mantle could result in a stable diamond layer (paper). 💎In a previous Weird Paper section, we mentioned Project Hephaistos, an effort to use data-driven optical and infrared astronomy to look for signatures from partial Dyson Spheres. At the time, they found seven “apparent M dwarfs exhibiting an infrared excess of unclear nature” that were compatible with their Dyson sphere model. We said it was probably just dust. This paper agrees, suggesting they’re probably hot Dust-Obscured Galaxies (hotDOGs… really?), which are quasars obscured by large amounts of dust, so only IR light gets through. Really, folks, it’s always dust.   A pizza slice depiction of the hypothesized diamond layer between the outer core and silicate mantle of Mercury.   News in brief. After delays due to weather and extended handover tasks from Starliner, Crew-8 returned to Earth after 235 days, a new record for longest time in orbit for an American crewed spacecraft and 25 days past the NASA-certified lifetime (which will now likely be extended) ● One Crew-8 member was hospitalized directly after splashdown, for undisclosed reasons, and was later released ● Blue Origin conducted the first (uncrewed) flight of their upgraded second generation human-rated New Shepard vehicle—NS-27 included new payload capacity on the booster itself and a new GNC system, which will also be used on New Glenn ● Relatedly, Chinese startup Deep Blue Aerospace hopes to start providing suborbital tourism flights in 2027 with a similar-looking vehicle ● The struggling, now private Astra received a DOD contract with a maximum value of $44M for continued development of their Launch System 2 ● Astroforge received a deep space communications license from the FCC (the first ever granted to a commercial company) for their Odin asteroid imaging mission ● AST SpaceMobile deployed its expansive 64-square-meter communications arrays on their first five direct-to-smartphone BlueBird satellites ● The U.S. Space Force awarded SpaceX all nine of its Phase 1 launch contracts, outcompeting ULA ● Boeing might sell their space business, likely just the part that includes the ISS-related programs and Starliner (but who will want it?) ● SpaceX static fired Super Heavy Booster 13, just 11 days after catching Booster 12 ● The Republic of Cyprus and Chile signed on to the Artemis Accords, bringing the accords to 47 signatories ● All seven first stage BE-4 engines have been installed on the first New Glenn rocket—maybe still launching by the end of 2024?     Blue Origin’s first New Glenn flight article, featuring seven freshly installed BE-4 engines Etc. NASA, NOAA, and the International Solar Cycle Prediction Panel announced that the Sun has reached its 11-year solar maximum. The maximum of Solar Cycle 25 may last for about a year. This page has lots of cool videos of a spinning Sun and magnetic field lines.The Shenzhou-18 Crew shared a video showcasing life and work on the CSS. Zoom into the first page of ESA Euclid’s cosmic atlas. This first data represents 260 observations taken between March 25th and April 8th, covering 132 square degrees of the Southern Sky. Can SpaceX land a rocket with ½ cm accuracy? No. But they don’t need to. (Also, there’s been some speculation that they may have meant ½ meter accuracy, which is perhaps more easily believable.)Doritos sent along some "Zero Gravity Cool Ranch’ chips aboard Polaris Dawn, which had flavoring applied via an oil rather than the usual powder to prevent dust from floating around the cabin. A walking table! Check out the delightful video at the end.