 Hello citizens of Earth, it's me Jared. Come on in to station 204 as we talk about what's happened in space over the past week. And we're going to kick this off because oh my gosh we have a lot of launches, a lot of arrivals, and a few departures. We begin out at the moon with an arrival. The India Space Research Organization's Chandrion 2 successfully entered into lunar orbit at 03.32 universal time on August 20th. The orbiter is attached to a lander with a rover which will attempt landing near the moon's south pole sometime in September, hopefully without litho breaking. Roscosmos has an old spaceship on a new booster, and in order to test this out, they flew an uncued Soyuz for the first time in 33 years. We have engine ignition, turbo pumps up to flight speed, and liftoff. A Soyuz 21A rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on August 22nd at 03.38 universal time. This is the first time a Soyuz has flown on this type of booster with digital avionics, because the last time this rocket launched with a similar spacecraft, it was a Progress cargo vehicle and it spun out of control. So they wanted to do a little test, because you know, they were a little concerned. Carrying Soyuz MS-14, it was successfully placed into an orbit to catch up with the International Space Station. On board was space station supplies, and a special Russian humanoid robot, Skybot F850, which I think looks like Ridley Scott came in and said, we had a few ideas for some more robots and alien, but we never went further with them, so have these. And what do we all want to see on a robot, especially one headed for a space station? Automatic weapons. Yes, this is a real image. No, it isn't Photoshop. Soyuz MS-14 will also test new systems for reentry and landing, which could allow Russia to develop payload return craft based on the Soyuz. Sadly, the space robot won't be staying on station and will be returning with the Soyuz in about a week. Soyuz MS-14 originally attempted to dock on August 25th, but due to an issue with a faulty amplifier in the Poist module's passive curse system, an abort of that docking attempt was called by the Russian Flight Director and commanded by astronauts on station. However, on August 27th at 0308 Universal Time, the second time was the charm and it successfully docked. Two, we have ignition and liftoff of the United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket carrying the GPS-3 Magellan mission for the United States Air Force Space and Missile System Center. Leaving the pad at Cape Canaveral on August 22nd, 1306 Universal Time, a Delta IV medium and the 4-2 configuration did farewell by first lighting itself on fire and then leaving the launch pad. This was the last launch of a single-stick Delta IV. It was carrying the GPS-3 SVO-2 satellite nicknamed Magellan. With a successful delivery to a medium Earth transfer orbit, this marks the 29th and final successful flight by a Delta IV medium with a 100% success rate. While this is the last single-stick Delta IV to fly, there are still some Delta IV heavies set to fly and of course they still have their Atlas V rocket. Now, both of those will eventually be retired by their upcoming Vulcan Centaur after it starts flying in 2021. Looking at an ISS departure in Earth arrival, after a release from the Canada Arm 2 at 1459 Universal Time on August 27th, SpaceX's CRS-18's Dragon successfully returned to Earth after its third flight, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean with 1200 kilograms of equipment at 2021 Universal Time. This marks the first time a SpaceX spaceship was successfully reused in orbital flight three separate times. And let's wrap up our traffic report with a test flight from SpaceX. Down in Boca Chica Beach, Texas, the Star Hopper prototype took its second and final flight. The nine-meter wide vehicle with its single raptor engine fired for just around a minute, pushing the vehicle to a 150-meter altitude while also translating over for a pinpoint landing on another pad. Next up, we can look forward to Starship Mark I orbital flights with more engines and even more excitement. Hi, Jared. Would you say that altitude was again? Oh, 150 meters. That's interesting because I believe you said this. It looks like you have indeed lost your bet. I did. Yum-yum space shuttle main engine. Yes. I'll go ahead and hand this to you. Thank you. And I'll hand you off to the upcoming Earth, Moon and Mars departures for next week. I haven't been this hype about an announcement from a NASA mission for a very long time. And I didn't think this was also going to be happening as well. But now we can finally talk about it. Europa Clipper. First, a history lesson. In the 1990s, NASA's Galileo spacecraft found some unexpected things at Europa. In wanting to follow up, scientists began to propose missions left and right, and it was nearly two decades of nothing but false starts. You had Jupiter-Europa orbiter, Jupiter-IC moons orbiter, Europa orbiter, a lander with a drill to deploy a submarine, a whole bunch of ideas, but nothing more than that. Then in 2013, money in NASA's budget was allocated to begin a study on a mission called Europa Clipper, and its budget was continued in 2014. Then in 2015, it was officially official. Europa Clipper was a real mission. Now let me tell you a little bit about why I love this mission so much. Europa has water, lots of it, practically a water planet, but it's too far from the sun to melt all that ice. So there has to be a source of energy keeping the water liquid. And we know by studying life on Earth where you have liquid water and a source of energy, you get life. And if we find life on Europa, life within our own solar system, that means that the universe likely has life all the heck over the place, which leads me to the NASA announcement that has me so giddy. Europa Clipper is in Phase C, and you're probably wondering what the heck is Phase C? So let me explain. Phases are major milestones for a mission. Phase A, you've got to go ahead to start scheming. Phase B, start to get that design going. Phase C, however, is finalizing the design and starting to build the parts. When you reach Phase C, it's very difficult to stop the momentum of the mission. Not impossible, but quite unlikely to occur unless you have some kind of major budget overrun. And that's the key takeaway here. Europa Clipper is actually happening. And if you would like more information on Europa Clipper, we had the Fit Rocket Scientist on orbit 10.18 to talk about his role in the program. And to talk about something else that's also finally happening, let's flip ourselves upside down and go to the southern hemisphere with Lisa. When I first heard Australia was getting a space agency, I was literally crying with happiness. But now they may be taking it one step further. Australia might be joining the European Space Agency ESA. Now, if you're like me and a little bit confused on how a non-European country can join the European Space Agency, don't worry. Here's a little bit of context. Australia was originally the only non-European member of ELDO, the European Launch Development Organization, which was the predecessor to ESA. Australia was used as a launch site for early European rockets called Europa. See what I did there? We've come full circle in news today. Eventually the program moved to ESA's current launch site in French Guiana and Australia withdrew from ELDO. Fast forward a few decades and Canada comes knocking on ESA's door, joining as a collaborative state. If you'd like to learn more about how space agencies collaborate, be sure you check out our latest interview show, Orbit 12.26 with Cathy Larini. She used to run the closest thing we have to a global space agency. I think this collaboration is beneficial to ESA. They get more funding because they're letting more countries join and then those countries in exchange get contracts to work on ESA missions. That improves their local industry and gives people like me more chances to work in space. Australia and ESA already work together on the new North Sea Tracking Station in Western Australia. The station is crucial as it's in the perfect place to monitor spacecraft separation from the rocket if the rocket launched from French Guiana. ESA will now begin building a third antenna on that site. But I think there's another unique reason for ESA and Australia to collaborate. Landing sites. ESA is currently responsible for the return of Martian rock samples that will be collected by NASA's Mars 2020 rover. So for a landing site, ideally you want somewhere with a nice wide open area, not too many people. I can think of a place. The Australian Outback was used for the Japanese Hayabusa-1 sample return mission from an asteroid and the Outback will probably be used again for the return of asteroid samples from Hayabusa-2. We'll get more details on the specifics of the Australia-ESA partnership in December when a more formal framework agreement is meant to be put in place. Let me know what you think, but if Australia can participate in Eurovision then surely we can also participate in ESA. Sticking with government spaceflight, in 2017 the National Space Council was revived and I didn't really think it was going to be doing much of anything and I also really didn't like Jim Bridenstine as the pick for NASA's new administrator, but nowadays I could say, boy, I was wrong on all fronts about that. And at the latest meeting they dropped a ton of things for NASA to do. They want a plan from Bridenstine within 60 days as to how sustainable lunar exploration can occur. They also want NASA and the U.S. State Department to find international partners to potentially participate in the 2024 Artemis moonshot and the most potent of recommendations from the council though was Bridenstine having to present a plan to stabilize the cost and schedule of both the space launch system and Orion. Now this is quite a tall order and we'll see if NASA can step up to the challenge that's being thrown down to them and also very importantly if the budget will actually be there so that way it doesn't end up being a case of biting off more than you can chew. Now to go out to our solar system to talk about this week's space weather, here's Dr. Tamatha Scove. Space weather this week definitely picks up a bit as we switch to our front side sun. You can see there are two coronal holes in Earthview. The first of them is going to be rotating in through the Earth strike zone here over the next day or so and it should bring Aurora to high latitudes and it only lasts about a day and that's about it but then we have this second coronal hole and that's going to be rotating into the Earth strike zone starting around the beginning of September. This coronal hole the last time we saw it one rotation ago gave us solar storm conditions and brought Aurora deep down into mid-latitudes and it could do the same thing again. As we switch to our backside sun you can see that coronal hole as it's rotating into Earthview off of Stereo's West Limb but if you look behind that there really isn't all that much going on so once again the sun is continuing to be a spotless sun so amateur radio operators and emergency responders you're not loving life very much but you GPS users your reception is absolutely spectacular. Test As You Fly is a well-worn phrase in the aerospace industry when designing and testing hardware that can stand the rigors of hostile space weather and now this approach is being used in medicine too. A new study from the department of radiation oncology and Stanford University's department of neurosurgery has used a test as you fly mentality when determining how astronauts will fare during the long trip to Mars. This is the first study that's looked at the low dose rates we find in space and it's the first to look at the consequences of these dose rates over time on how astronauts brains will function and survive. Using a neutron irradiation facility they exposed 40 mice to the same amount of radiation one would get during the shortest one-way trip to Mars. The rate of this dose which is one milligram per day is about the same as getting a whole body CT scan every five or six days for the entire six-month trip. According to the study mice exposed to the radiation levels during a one-way trip to Mars showed serious memory and learning impairments and they became more anxious and fearful as well. Study team members concluded these results should ring a cautionary bell for NASA and other agencies that plan to colonize the red planet but radiation at Mars doesn't stop when we land on the surface. Once on the ground astronauts will have to contend with a thin Martian atmosphere. The pressure is similar to that at an altitude of 35 kilometers above the Earth's surface. That's essentially the same altitude that Felix Baumgartner made his famous red bull jump which means astronauts will have very little if any radiation protection. The one positive thing is that multiple agencies all around the globe are working to find solutions to the space radiation problem. Still expect the ride to Mars to be a bumpy one. As a space radiation expert and good colleague of mine has always said if space were easy anybody do it. For more details on this week's space weather including when and where to see Aurora, how your GPS reception and emergency radio should fair come check out my channel or see me at spaceweatherwoman.com. Now we will not be having a live show this weekend and we'll also won't be having news next week as well. It's a holiday for us here in the U.S. But for our next show you are going to want to tune in for it because we've got a sweet doubleheader for you. On tomorrow's space we're going to have Will Pomerance from Virgin Orbit. Oh my gosh he is such a fun guy to talk to. You'll learn a lot and you'll also hear about some cool things that Virgin Orbit is getting up to. And our tomorrow science guest is Julie Angus from Open Ocean Robotics. They're developing autonomous ocean drones that use the internet of things. And of course we want to give a huge thank you to all of you who help make the shows of tomorrow possible. We wouldn't be able to do space news. We wouldn't be able to do our live shows on the weekend without your help. And if you'd like to help us out you can head on over to patreon.com slash tmro or youtube.com slash tmro slash join and you can give as little as one dollar a month. So if you're getting something out of this feel free to give something back and if you don't want to do so financially you can head over to community.tmro.tv and find a multitude of ways to help us out there as well. That's it for this week's space news. We'll see you in two and remember keep exploring. Now before we go today I did want to take just a quick moment and explain why I'm wearing this specific shirt. The story actually starts back in 2001 when I was married to my beautiful lovely wonderful and talented wife Kary Ann. We were actually married at Walt Disney World because as you know we are Disney parks fanatics and we stayed at the wilderness lodge and this is a wilderness lodge shirt and so we picked up two of these shirts. Then a little bit later in 2008 we started a little show called Space Vidcast and that show did live launch coverage of things like shuttle launches and one of the fun things we did that I don't think I've actually mentioned on camera before is a bit of an Easter egg I guess until now is we would change the color of our shirts based on the status of the launch itself. So if the launch was no go we would wear a red shirt and then if all of a sudden became go again we would really quickly change into green shirts and then if it was no go we'd change back into red shirts and so forth and so on. It was a fun little thing that we just did without ever talking about it on camera and we enjoyed it quite a bit and then a few years later I got hired at Company X and for the very first flight of what I'll call I guess Rocket 9 that I was there for so to be Rocket 9 Flight 2 I happened to be wearing my version of this shirt and so I was like oh wow I'm actually wearing a green shirt it's kind of fun to pull that Space Vidcast tradition forward over to Company X and so from then on I continued to wear for every launch this green shirt as my lucky launch shirt and I banned the color red from my control room so if you were wearing red I would literally kick you out of my control room and yes I have kicked Daddy Insbrucker out of the control room for wearing red. Moving forward to today understand that I've been at Company X for over eight years now and that shirt was worn for like every launch attempt and it started to get pretty bad I had holes in it now the collar was ripped it was not pretty and we went back to Walt Disney World I went to Wilderness Lodge I tried to find a replacement shirt but alas it was not to be they do not make the shirt anymore to minimum they don't sell it anymore had a hard time finding it on shop Disney I just could not find this shirt but then I lost a whole lot of weight and so did Carrie Ann which meant that she no longer fit into her shirts and I inherited a good chunk of her men's medium shirts including the original one from 2001 from Wilderness Lodge which meant that earlier today when we were doing our little hop over at Company X and I was looking at my wardrobe in the morning I was like you know what I'm going to grab my lucky launch shirt and then looking at the shirt that Jared chose to wear to the studio today well I realized I wouldn't have let him in my control room