Space News | NASA's Lunar Gateway, Meteor Explosion and Space Herpes

It's March 20th, 2019, and this is your weekly space news from tomorrow. There's always a lot of amazing things happening out in the cosmos, so let's jump straight into it with our space traffic report. We had two launches leaving Earth this week. First up was a Soyuz rocket carrying three new crew members to the International Space Station. Lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Thursday, March 14th at 19.14 Universal Time, We had Commander Alexei Ovchivin, Engineer Tyler Nick Haig, and Astronaut Christina Koch, who all tried for a second time to get to the station after their first flight on October 11th, 2018, suffered a failure of one of the strap-on boosters, which then forced them to abort back to Earth. Second time's the charm though, and all three astronauts made it to station a few hours later after performing a fast rendezvous procedure. This brings the crew complement to Well, I guess technically seven if you count the mini-Earth stowaway. And then two days later, on March 16th at 26 minutes after midnight Universal Time, we had a Delta IV Medium Plus lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, aboard the Boeing-built WGS-10 satellite. This is a communications satellite for the U.S. military that's joining nine others already in orbit. The constellation is able to transmit classified and unclassified video, data, and other decision-making information to and from the field. This satellite mission is expected to last about 14 years. And enjoy this Delta IV flight as it was the eighth and final flight in the Medium Plus 5-4 configuration. And that basically means one center core, a five-meter fairing, and four of those strap-on solid rocket boosters. Now it's not the end of all Delta IV rockets just yet. We can look forward to a Medium Plus 4-2 flight in July of this year. But yeah, the end is in sight for Delta IV as United Launch Alliance gears up to replace it with their all-new Vulcan rocket. Soon our rockets will be adding lunar orbit to their launch manifest. And to give us an update on that project, here's Space Mike with the latest on the Lunar Gateway. There have been a few updates in the development of the Lunar Gateway, as a recent budget request has allocated more funds towards its construction, and Canada has become a full-fledged partner in the program. The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request, released on March 11th, seeks $821 million for continued work on the Lunar Gateway. Congress allocated $450 million for the program in the Fiscal Year 2019 bill that was signed into law just last month on February 15th. The requested funding is going to support continued development of the Gateway's first module, the Power and Propulsion Element, which will provide advanced electric propulsion to maneuver the Gateway in cislunar space, as well as electrical power for the other elements. NASA is currently evaluating proposals from industry to develop the Gateway and expects to make a selection by May for that first piece. The partnership between NASA and commercial companies will be responsible for not just the Power and Propulsion Element, but also a Habitation Module and a Utilization Module. Canada, meanwhile, is going to provide a robotic arm, fittingly called Canada Arm 3, as well as the systems to control it, even automation. They're going to invest several hundred million dollars over the next decade to not only build their piece of the station, but also have their astronauts utilize the Gateway, and maybe even go on lunar surface missions too. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency, ESA, is refining their proposal for a communications service module called the European System Providing Refueling Infrastructure and Telecommunications, or the eSpirit Module. Either ESA or the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, would provide another Habitation Module, while either JAXA or NASA would be responsible for logistics resupply, cargo delivery, and it really seems that JAXA's taking the lead in that regard. Though so far, neither ESA or JAXA are officially partners yet, but it seems very likely they will become official partners soon. Finally, a Russian Multipurpose Module from Roscosmos is being included in the evolving architecture, and Russia doesn't really seem too thrilled about it. They've proposed multiple modules for the Gateway, including laboratory modules, airlocks, and even taking part in cargo and crew delivery services with new vehicles that But so far, NASA only seems interested in one module, at least publicly. Roscosmos has all but demanded a bigger role in the Gateway project, and NASA seems eager to get as much help from as many partners as possible. Hints have even been dropped that other space agencies, other than the ones that are involved in the International Space Station, should participate in the Gateway too, like India or China. So it seems strange that Russia's ideas are being rejected, although there could be many factors that we aren't aware of as to why Gateway is evolving the way that it is right now. Whatever happens, my hope is that all of the interested parties will be able to contribute at whatever level they want to contribute at, and that together, humanity will continue to explore and expand out into space. A lunar outpost is a great start, but the cosmos sometimes likes to remind us just how important our human spaceflight program is. For a quick update on that, here's Jared Head. So believe it or not, and I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but one of my favorite space movies is Armageddon. And yes, it's like a bunch of bangs and booms and kablams, and there's an asteroid and all these things going around, and it really doesn't follow science all that well at all. But it never tries to pull the wool over your eyes. It's basically like, yep, this is the way this is. We're going for it. Hope you enjoy it. Come along for the ride. But there is a scene in it where the scientists are sitting around a table, and they're trying to figure out how to deflect the asteroid that's going to be hitting the Earth. One of them proposes just throwing a bunch of nukes at it, while another scientist shoots that idea down, saying that it's probably not going to work. And a study was recently done that may actually mean that that scene was accurate. Teams at Johns Hopkins University decided to go back and update a study that had been done in the early 2000s by throwing a small asteroid at a larger one at very high velocity. The models worked to figure out what were both the immediate effects of the impact and the long-term aftermath, and a surprise was found. The larger asteroid was not destroyed by the smaller asteroid. In fact, the smaller asteroid was completely destroyed, while the larger one remained intact. And in some cases, if the larger one was obliterated, those small pieces, their gravity, would actually pull each other back together and remake the larger asteroid. Deflecting a potential Earth-impacting object just got a lot harder. Now you have to make a determination. Should that object be eviscerated by whatever violent means necessary to make the cosmic equivalent of buckshot, or do we gently nudge the object onto a different trajectory so it doesn't hit the Earth? And just a reminder, our part of the solar system can still deliver impact events. Objects like asteroids and comets, they're still out there zipping around, and there's a lot of them. And found only just now after parsing through the data, it's been discovered that a meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere and exploded over the Bering Sea on December 28, 2018. Do you see it? There it is, that red blip with a shadow on the clouds underneath it. The object was likely about half the size of a city bus, and it released approximately 10 times the amount of energy the Trinity nuclear test in 1945 developed. Such events only occur a handful of times in a century, with the last big one being the more powerful Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013. It just serves to remind us that asteroids are nature's way of saying, hey humans, how's that space program coming along? And we should really be making a better effort to hunt, find, and test impact avoidance systems. Once we learn to live in space and create a backup of the species, we're going to certainly run into other issues as well. One of those issues will be viruses, and for an update on that, here's Jade Kim. Here on Tomorrow, we like to keep a running list of terrible things that can happen to you in space. Number one, muscular atrophy. Number two, bone loss. Number three, literally everything. And as if astronauts didn't have enough to worry about in space, we now have one more thing to add to that list, herpes. A recent study published in Frontiers in Microbiology from the folks over at the Johnson Space Center reports that dormant herpes viruses have been found to reactivate or wake up in over half the crew on space shuttle and ISS missions. The study examined two sets of astronauts, those aboard short-term space shuttle missions lasting 10 to 16 days, and those on longer ISS missions lasting 180 days or more. In both groups, over half were found to shed the virus in their blood, stool, and urine samples. Keep in mind that space didn't actually give the astronauts herpes, but rather reactivated dormant strains that were already pre-existent. Of the eight herpes viruses known to infect humans, four were found. HSV, which causes oral and genital herpes, VZV, responsible for chickenpox and shingles, as well as CMV and EBV, which of course cause mononucleosis, aka the kissing disease. Fortunately, only six astronauts of the ones who were studied showed any symptoms, but what has scientists mainly concerned is the continued viral shedding post-flight. VCV and CMV remained in bodily fluids up to 30 days post-return from the ISS, and this could pose as a risk to individuals here on Earth with a compromised immune system or infants whom have never been in contact with the virus at all. So what about spaceflight excites these dormant herpes viruses to arise like reanimated frankenviruses? The short answer? Space stress. Whether it's the obnoxious g-forces astronauts encounter upon takeoff and re-entry, or the prolonged exposure to microgravity and radiation, there is no shortage of things in space that can bum one's immune system out. You see, the human immune system operates a lot like a prison. You have the white blood cells, which act like the guards who keep the viruses, aka the prisoners, in check by suppressing or eliminating them altogether. However, introduce a flood of stress hormones like cortisol or adrenaline to the party, and all of a sudden, you got yourself a jailbreak. Combined with social isolation, physical confinement, and a whacked-up sleep schedule, these astronauts are constantly overwhelmed by an influx of cortisol and adrenaline, two stress hormones that are known to wreak havoc on one's immune system, which can remain suboptimal for up to two months post-reentry. What's more is, the longer the duration in space, the more severe the viral reactivation. This poses as a major risk for anyone attempting to go to Mars and beyond, where the prolonged exposure to space stressors only increases the hospitality for viruses to flourish, and that's true for any virus, not just herpes. Vaccines may offer a shot of hope, get it? But as of now, that would only be an option for the VZV strain. The team is now focused on developing targeted treatment regimens for those made victim to this cosmic viral reactivation. So what I'm saying is, if we're gonna get serious about sending people to Mars and beyond, then the least we can do is ensure that we're protecting them against as much risk as possible. Astronauts put a lot on the line to further humanity's reach in space. The least we could do is bring them back relatively healthy. In the meantime, Alexa, add cosmic herpes vaccine to the shopping cart. Now let's take a look at our local star and its impact on our communications, our satellites, and even our night sky. Dr. Tamatha Scove brings us our weekly space weather report. Space weather this week is getting very exciting. As we switch to our front side sun, you can see that dark coronal hole. That's been sending us some fast wind, and it actually bumped us up to storm levels just a couple days ago and brought us some aurora down to high latitudes. But that's not the big story. The big story are the two fast-growing sunspots in Earth view. One of them has been labeled 2735, and the other one might be labeled 2736 if it keeps growing. What's more is that that region might actually be a rogue sunspot showing influence from the new solar cycle. Now what's even more than that is they're both sandwiching this filament, and we're watching this thing because it looks like it might actually erupt due to how unstable those sunspots are making that region. As we switch to our backside sun, you can see in west limb, that far view, you can see how active those sunspots are. You can even see a shadow of that filament kind of sitting off the limb there. It shows you how close it is to erupting, and if this region does go, then it could easily launch an Earth-directed solar storm and bring us a chance for more aurora. Switching to our moon, we are now passing through the full moon phase with the full moon being on the 21st. And even by the 23rd, the moon will still be about 95% illuminated. So you night sky watchers, our bright companion is sure to get in your way, so be sure to check your local rise and set times. And now for your LEO, MEO, GEO orbit outlook. As we switch to our low energy environment, these are the particles that cause surface charging on the outside of spacecraft and cause charging around the solar arrays and can cause some electrical discharges and short circuits. You can see we actually have been pretty intense with the fluxes, all that big red ring all around the GEO orbits until about the 19th when it all got flushed out thanks to that solar storm, and it's continuing to just begin to build up now. So right now we get a reprieve for surface charging of the spacecraft except maybe around the post-midnight sector moving into dawn. For more details on this week's space weather, including aurora possibilities, amateur radio and GPS reception, and whether or not that filament is going to erupt, come check out my channel or visit me at spaceweatherwoman.com. That's our news show for this week, but we have so much more cool stuff coming out. In fact, this weekend we'll be welcoming on Dr. Joel Sercel from Momentous Space to talk about in-space propulsion using water. If you can't watch live and have questions for Joel, make sure to leave your comments below. 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