Exciting Space Launch System Updates | Space News

Hello and welcome to Station 204 for your space news for December 5th, 2019. We're gonna be talking about the space launch system actually making progress a little bit into how space may save you from cancer one day and your weekly space weather report. But starting on Earth, unfathomable cost overruns, ridiculous schedule slips, and just outright amateurish mistakes, those are three valid traits that you can throw at NASA's much bemoaned space launch system program. Progress, that is not something that we associate with SLS very often, but we actually can because recently, they did take steps that have moved forward one of the most important parts of a rocket that nobody, nobody ever wants to talk about. But you can't fly a rocket without it, and it's the ground support equipment, or what we call GSE. No GSE, no flight, and Pad 39B is no stranger to flight, and with Artemis 1 set to go from it, upgrades to systems were recently tested with cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fully flowing. Some of the equipment is new for the space launch system, some of it is old from Shuttle, some of it is really old from Apollo, and the test showed that this new, old, and really old systems, well, they all work together extremely well. In case you're wondering, cryogenic liquid oxygen, much more difficult to move than cryogenic liquid hydrogen. You see, liquid hydrogen weighs about 0.2 kilograms per gallon, but liquid oxygen weighs just a little over 4.3 kilograms per gallon. Now, both of those systems were thoroughly tested, both of them worked, and there were no leaks, so excellent. While all of this was going down at Pad 39B, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, stacking of mock-ups of the massive solid rocket boosters happened around the clock across three shifts, replicating the all-day, all-night timeline for doing so. Training folks on the ground, that's just as important as making sure the equipment on the launch pad works. And progress continues towards Artemis 1, the first deep space test flight of an Orion capsule, which arrived at NASA's Plum Brook test facility, where it now has a rigorous 16-week testing regimen of high and low temperatures, hard vacuum, radiation, and every awful thing that space can throw at it in an attempt to destroy it, as space does. Once testing wraps at Plum Brook, Artemis 1's Orion will move to the Cape, where it will begin to stack on the actual Space Launch System vehicle, and then the launch campaign will begin in earnest, so look for that to be happening sometime in early 2020. And now to talk a little bit about how space can help us here on the ground, here's Jade Kim. One thing we love to cover on this show is just how unfriendly space can be to our fleshy little human bodies. Whether it's tissue degradation or making us more susceptible to that old herpes virus, there are no shortage of cosmic messages yelling, hey, you don't belong here! But it just so happens that space may actually be the answer to eradicating one of the most profound of human ailments, cancer. Scientists led by Dr. Joshua Chow at the University of Technology Sydney will be sending cancer cells to the International Space Station to see how they react to microgravity. Microgravity seems to work by shutting off cancer cells by disrupting the way they sense each other. See, cancer cells divide uncontrollably, eventually coming together to form a tumor, which can then grow large enough to signal the cells to invade other healthy tissues in the body. The tricky part is we don't know exactly when this happens. Scientists speculate that there must be a way in which cancer cells communicate and sense each other using mechanical forces, which only exists when gravity is present. So take away the gravity and disorient the cancer? Kind of. When exposed to a microgravity environment here on Earth, up to 90% of the cancer cells tested were disabled, meaning they either died or floated off. Amongst those tested were ovarian, breast, nose, and lung cancers, some of the most aggressive types. The next step is to test out this experiment in actual space, which will happen early next year. If successful, the teams hope to develop a drug that can simulate microgravity's effects in cancer cells and ultimately be used in conjunction with chemotherapy as a double whammy approach to fighting cancer. And this isn't the first time research done on the ISS has been used to aid in treatments. Dr. Chow's previous research into how microgravity affects disease progression led to the development of Avenity, a drug used to treat osteoporosis. Making the case for space can oftentimes be anything but easy. People often wonder if the billions of dollars we invest globally in space programs is actually worth it when we have so many issues here on Earth that require our immediate attention. Dr. Chow's research illustrates that well-funded space programs can lead to vital research that can literally save millions of lives. Absolutely fascinating work that they're doing up there. Now, cancer can be caused by radiation, and radiation, you can find plenty of that in space, and that's why space weather comes in pretty handy. And to talk about this week's upcoming space weather, here is Dr. Tametha Scove. Space weather this week continues to be a bit on the quiet side. As we flip to our front side, Sun, you can see a couple bright regions that have been rotating through the Earth view, but they've been fizzling as they've been rotating. We also have one that is a high-latitude region that was beginning to rotate into Earth view. It fired off a few mini flares, and then a solar storm, and then it fizzled. This was most likely a solar cycle 25 sunspot, what we'll never be able to know because it died before it came into view. Oh, well, what can you do? You just wait for the next one. Meanwhile, on top of that, we do have a coronal hole that's gonna be rotating into the Earth strike zone here in the next maybe five days or so, which could bring some aurora to high latitudes from the fast solar wind that's gonna hit, but it's not gonna last for all that long because these coronal holes are getting pretty small as we get close to really transitioning into solar cycle 25. As we switch to our far side Sun, you can see that bright region in STEREO's view. This is STEREO looking at the Sun pretty much from the side. That bright region in the middle of the disk there, that thing fired off a couple of flares, and then it kind of fizzled into nothing. Now, the rest of the far side Sun is not looking all that good. There's a couple bright regions, and there's one in the northern hemisphere that looks like it might actually give us something, so we're gonna have to pay attention and see if these regions grow or fizzle and whether or not they're gonna help boost the solar flux for amateur radio operators and emergency responders. For more details on this week's space weather, including when and where to see aurora, how amateur radio and GPS reception will fare, come check out my channel or see me at spaceweatherwoman.com. And now let's hop around the Earth just a little bit in order to cover this week's space traffic. Five, four, three, two, one, zero. Starting in India at the Satish Dhawan Space Center, an India Space Research Organization polar satellite launch vehicle lifted off the pad on November 27th at 0358 Universal Time. Its primary payload was India's own CardoSat-3, the highest-resolution Earth observation satellite India has developed. Also included were 13 secondary payloads, 12 of which were new SuperDove Earth observation satellites from imagery provider Planet. Back to China as they continue to absolutely bury everyone in the dust with their end-of-year launch cadence with a Long March 4C setting off from the Taiyuan Space Center on November 27th at 2352 Universal Time. It successfully deployed Galfen-12, a radar observation satellite that provides a resolution of one meter or better in all conditions. And here are your upcoming departures. 61 years ago on December 3rd, 1958, a place we absolutely adore here at Tomorrow, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California was handed over from the US Army to the newly formed NASA. Originally started in 1936 as an aerospace research group, not many folks know that JPL was acquired by the US Army and then used as a weapons development facility producing some of the earliest rockets and guided missile systems. After changing the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics into the modern National Aeronautics and Space Administration, so did operational ownership of JPL change from the US Army to NASA. JPL, born of weapons, but now shooting for the stars. And just a reminder to set your alarms now, our final live show of 2019 will be next Saturday, December 14th at 1800 Universal Time. We'll be having one of our famous round tables about everything that happened in spaceflight in 2019 and a look over the horizon at what's happening in 2020. Make sure to tune in live so you can get your own questions answered and let us know what you're looking forward to the most in 2020. And of course, we wanna give a huge thank you to all of the citizens of tomorrow. Without your help, we wouldn't be able to make any of this possible. No news, no live shows and no letting off steam. So if you got something from us and would like to give something back, you can head on over to youtube.com slash TMRO slash join. And as always, hitting that subscribe and notification button, liking, sharing and getting us in front of as many of your friends as possible helps us pursue that core of our mission to get everyone, everybody excited about space. And that wraps up your space news for December 5th, 2019. Until the next one, remember, keep exploring.