Short Takes – 4-22-24 – Space Geek Edition

Dragonfly: NASA Just Confirmed The Most Exciting Space Mission Of Your Lifetime. Forbes.com article. Pull quote: “Titan is the only other world in the solar system other than Earth that has weather and liquid on its surface. It has an atmosphere, rain, lakes, oceans, shorelines, valleys, mountain ridges, mesas and dunes—and possibly the building blocks of life itself. It’s been described as both a utopia and as deranged because of its weird chemistry.”

NASA reveals 'glass-smooth lake of cooling lava' on surface of Jupiter's moon Io. LiveScience.com article. Pull quote: “The new images show Loki Patera, a 127-mile-long (200 km) lava lake on Io's surface. Scientists have been observing this lava lake for decades. It sits over the magma reservoirs under Io's surface. The cooling lava at the center of the lake is ringed by possibly molten magma around the edges, Scott Bolton, principal investigator  for the Juno mission, said during a news conference Wednesday (April 16) at the European Geophysical Union General Assembly in Vienna.”

Starship Faces Performance Shortfall for Lunar Missions. AmericaSpace.com article. Pull quote: “This is likely what happened to Starship.  To mitigate the risk that one exploding Raptor engine might cause a cascade of failures, SpaceX installed extra shielding around each of the 33 motors on the Super Heavy booster.  In addition, it installed a steel “hot staging” ring between the booster and the ship, which allows the latter to ignite its engines while the two stages are still attached.  It is worth noting that this component was supposed to increase the performance of the vehicle by 10%; SpaceX has not disclosed whether those gains were realized.  Other additions to the vehicle included components which mitigated the propellant leaks which partially contributed to the failure of the first test flight.  Each additional gram of mass ate into Starship’s payload capacity.”

America's Next Great Space Station Gets a Vote of Support from Japan. Fool.com article. Pull quote: “Of the three teams discussed, the most "international" of the teams vying to replace the International Space Station is Voyager's. In addition to American aerospace company Northrop, Voyager's team also includes the European aerospace champion Airbus. As of last week, it will also include an industrial leader from Japan: As the companies announced earlier this month, Japan's Mitsubishi Corporation (MSBHF 1.65%) is taking an equity stake in the Starlab project.”