The Space Roundup - Jan 9th, 2022

Hello, hello, my dear space lovers!

Get ready for another week of space awesomeness!

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3, 2, 1, zero! Lift-off!

Webb Updates

The space telescope’s sunshield and mirrors are now fully deployed!

This sunshield, which by the way is as big as a tennis court - no kidding - is now fully deployed and ready to help control temperature and light reaching the telescope. It is super important, as temperature ranges at the Lagrange point 2 are so extreme that can literally destroy the super-sensitive sensors that Webb carries.

What’s next? The alignment of each one of the telescope mirrors. You can see the full deployment sequence simulation in the video below:

Commercial updates

SpaceX started the year with a successful launch of another set of Starlink satellites on January 6th. 

They have also been testing the rocket-catching arms for the first time at Starbase (although in super slow motion!)

Lockheed Martin shared this week it will be testing Amazon’s Alexa and Cisco’s Webex during the upcoming Artemis 1 mission.

Voice recognition would be of great help for astronauts onboard a rocket flying to deep space, and using commercial products to do so seems smart: this test is extremely interesting! 

China updates

China has been testing its new robotic arm this week. They undocked, repositioned, and re-docked a cargo spaceship at the Tiangong Space Station during a 45 minutes test that went just fine. Important achievement!

They are planning more than 40 launches this year, and six of those will be bringing two labs, two crews, and two cargo spaceships to this station that is scheduled to operate for 15 years. Amazing.  

Yutu-2 lunar rover reached a key milestone: its first kilometer on the far side of the moon. By the way: do you remember the weird cubic object it spotted a couple of weeks ago? Disappointing: it was just a rock, although an adorable rabbit-shaped rock XD 

Martian updates

Some challenges this week on Mars! 

The Perseverance rover is experiencing some trouble with debris that is preventing it from collecting samples in sealed tubes. The team is looking for a solution that will help it clean it so that it can continue