SPACE/COSMOS
Five reasons human space flight is a bigger challenge today than it was during the Apollo era.
Andrew Romano, Reporter
Tue, March 31, 2026
Updated Tue, March 31, 2026
Yahoo
Astronaut Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin during an Apollo 11 moon walk in 1969.(Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
On Sept. 12 1962, President John F. Kennedy famously declared that the United States would “go to the moon … and do it first, before this decade is out.”
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,” Kennedy said, “not because they are easy but because they are hard.”
Then America followed through. Less than seven years later, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended from their lander and left humankind’s first lunar footprints.
Today that pace of progress might seem impossible. On April 1, NASA is scheduled to launch Artemis II — America’s first crewed lunar spaceflight in more than a half century. Its mission is clear-cut: Send four astronauts around the moon and back in 10 days.
But Artemis II’s mission is also … familiar. In 1968, three Apollo 8 astronauts circled the moon without landing, then traveled back to Earth.
In other words, NASA already pulled off a version of Artemis II nearly 60 years ago — and did so without the long delays that have plagued Artemis II itself (which was previously scheduled to lift off, and then delayed, almost every year since 2021).
How can going to the moon be so difficult if we already did it? Here are five reasons human space flight is such a big challenge today.
Rustiness
The last time humans set foot on the moon was in 1972, with Apollo 17. That was also the last crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit — period. Even uncrewed lunar landers fell out of favor soon after, with more than 35 years elapsing between one successful robotic landing on the moon’s surface (the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976) and the next (China’s Chang’e 3 in 2013).
“There were decades when people were not developing landers,” one expert told the Guardian in 2024. “The technology is not that common that you can easily learn from others.”
Turns out that it’s hard to resume human space exploration after a multi-decade hiatus — especially when complex new technologies need to be integrated with older ones.
“We stopped, and then we forgot,” Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, recently told Scientific American. Just because you ran an Olympic marathon 50 years ago, Pace went on to explain, doesn’t mean you could do it again tomorrow.
Yahoo
Astronaut Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin during an Apollo 11 moon walk in 1969.(Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
On Sept. 12 1962, President John F. Kennedy famously declared that the United States would “go to the moon … and do it first, before this decade is out.”
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,” Kennedy said, “not because they are easy but because they are hard.”
Then America followed through. Less than seven years later, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended from their lander and left humankind’s first lunar footprints.
Today that pace of progress might seem impossible. On April 1, NASA is scheduled to launch Artemis II — America’s first crewed lunar spaceflight in more than a half century. Its mission is clear-cut: Send four astronauts around the moon and back in 10 days.
But Artemis II’s mission is also … familiar. In 1968, three Apollo 8 astronauts circled the moon without landing, then traveled back to Earth.
In other words, NASA already pulled off a version of Artemis II nearly 60 years ago — and did so without the long delays that have plagued Artemis II itself (which was previously scheduled to lift off, and then delayed, almost every year since 2021).
How can going to the moon be so difficult if we already did it? Here are five reasons human space flight is such a big challenge today.
Rustiness
The last time humans set foot on the moon was in 1972, with Apollo 17. That was also the last crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit — period. Even uncrewed lunar landers fell out of favor soon after, with more than 35 years elapsing between one successful robotic landing on the moon’s surface (the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976) and the next (China’s Chang’e 3 in 2013).
“There were decades when people were not developing landers,” one expert told the Guardian in 2024. “The technology is not that common that you can easily learn from others.”
Turns out that it’s hard to resume human space exploration after a multi-decade hiatus — especially when complex new technologies need to be integrated with older ones.
“We stopped, and then we forgot,” Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, recently told Scientific American. Just because you ran an Olympic marathon 50 years ago, Pace went on to explain, doesn’t mean you could do it again tomorrow.
The Space Launch System (SLS), with the Orion crew capsule, at Kennedy Space Center in 2026.(Steve Nesius/Reuters)
Ambition
Despite some superficial similarities, the Artemis program isn’t really Apollo, part two. Apollo sought to put people (briefly) on the moon. Artemis aspires to establish a permanent base there — a base that astronauts can later use as a stepping stone to Mars.
That’s a much more ambitious goal, and it defines every facet of Artemis: the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that propels the astronauts beyond Earth’s atmosphere; the Orion spacecraft in which the four of them can spend 21 days; separate next-generation space suits for launch and entry as well surface exploration; robotic landers carried on commercial rockets that deliver equipment to the moon itself; and finally, the reusable rocket-and-human-lander system — either SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin's Blue Moon — that will eventually orbit the moon and dock with Orion before transporting the Artemis crew to and from the surface.
In short, there are more moving parts now than there were in the 1960s, which means more potential delays.
Motivation
In the 1960s, the U.S. was competing with the Soviet Union in an existential space race. Cold War conventional wisdom decreed that whichever superpower arrived on the moon first would reinforce its military dominance — and project precisely the kind of soft power that could sway newly independent countries to choose democracy over communism.
There’s a certain clarity about one-on-one competition, and the U.S. immediately mobilized around beating the Soviets to the moon. Now that clarity is gone. In its place is a more nebulous (and less pressing) objective: international cooperation in the name of scientific discovery. Japan, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and the European Space Agency are all collaborating with the United States on Artemis.
As a result, one president’s spaceflight plans are often canceled by the next, only to be resurrected later in a different form, and delays accrue while countries do the important work of getting on the same page about the future of space and contributing hardware to the cause.
Money
Between 2012 and 2025, the U.S. spent roughly $93 billion on the Artemis program. Total spending is expected to top $105 billion by 2028, the year the first Artemis astronauts are supposed to land on the moon.
That’s no small sum. But Apollo cost more than three times as much: about $320 billion in today’s dollars, according to the Planetary Society. Likewise, about 4% of the federal budget went to NASA in the Apollo era. Today the space agency is lucky to get 1%.
Experts say that shift is sensible. “There’s no reason to spend money like it was a war,” John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University and founder of the Space Policy Institute, told Scientific American. “There’s really no national interest or political interest that provides the foundation for that kind of mobilization at this point.”
But sensible or not, less funding almost always means slower progress.
Left to right, the Artemis II crew at Kennedy Space Center in 2025: pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of CSA (Canadian Space Agency), commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialist Christina Koch.(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)More
Safety
Given the scientific, cooperative nature of today’s moon missions — not to mention all the advances in computer modeling since the 1960s — it would be irresponsible for NASA not to consider every possible safety consequence of Artemis — to the astronauts themselves and to the broader environment.
This wasn’t quite the case during the Apollo era. Back then, swashbuckling fighter pilots were converted to astronauts and rocketed into space much in the way they’d previously been deployed to war: with the knowledge that they were doing something very, very dangerous. The risk was worth the reward (i.e., winning the space race).
But today engineers can run detailed simulations on Orion’s materials and the stresses the capsule will be under, including high temperatures and intense acceleration forces — and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for years.
Even then, Artemis I — an uncrewed moon-orbiting mission launched in 2022 — showed that Orion’s heat shield broke down differently than predicted; that bolts on the spacecraft faced “unexpected melting and erosion”; and that the power system experienced anomalies that could endanger the future crew.
It took time for NASA to resolve these issues — just as it will take time to address any issues with, say, Orion’s life support systems that arise during its first crewed mission. Building earthbound infrastructure is slower and more expensive today than it was in the 1960s; so too is exploring the cosmos.
Some would argue that the tradeoff is worth it. “For Artemis, having a more robust rocket system, asking people what they think, keeping people safer and working with global partners are probably better for this world — even if they don’t result in expedience off-world,” Scientific American concluded in its recent story on the subject.
Put another way: At least NASA is still doing hard things, even if they’ve gotten (a lot) harder.
Why are NASA's Artemis astronauts wearing orange? What are they bringing to space? What to know about the preparation for their moon mission.
The custom suits are equipped with survival gear in case the crew has to exit the spacecraft after splashdown — and are easily visible in the ocean.
Dylan Stableford, Reporter
Updated Tue, March 31, 2026
Yahoo
Left to right: Artemis II NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.(Frank Michaux/NASA)More
The four astronauts preparing to take part in NASA’s Artemis II moon mission will be wearing bright orange spacesuits on the Orion spacecraft for this week’s historic launch.
Officially called the Orion Crew Survival System, NASA says the spacesuits can help keep astronauts alive if they lose cabin pressure.
“Astronauts could survive inside the suit for up to six days as they make their way back to Earth,” the space agency explains on its website.
The suits are also equipped with survival gear should they have to exit the spacecraft after splashdown.
Each suit comes with its own life preserver that includes a personal locator beacon, a rescue knife, and a signaling kit with a mirror, strobe light, flashlight, whistle and light sticks.
And the reason they’re neon orange? “To make crew members easily visible in the ocean,” NASA says.
The astronauts will also be equipped with another spacesuit “that functions as a self-contained personal spaceship,” and is designed to be worn outside the spacecraft.
When is Artemis II scheduled to launch?
A full moon is seen shining over NASA's Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 1.(ASSOCIATED PRESS)More
After weeks of delays, NASA is targeting April 1 for the launch of the Artemis II mission — the first U.S. human lunar spaceflight in over 50 years.
The countdown clock officially started on Monday afternoon, and a two-hour launch window opens Wednesday at 6:24 p.m. ET, with additional launch opportunities through Monday, April 6.
The crew — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — won’t be landing on the moon. Instead, they’ll venture 600,000 miles around the moon and will return at 30 times the speed of sound, according to NASA.
During their 10-day trip, they’ll test life support systems in the Orion capsule for future crewed missions to the moon’s surface. A moon landing would occur during Artemis III, which is targeted to launch in 2027.
How else is the crew preparing for the mission?
The Artemis II crew arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday and have been in quarantine ahead of launch.
The four astronauts have spent months getting to know each other while preparing for the launch, which Wiseman says has helped him as the mission's commander.
“I can just watch my crewmates here. I know their facial expressions. They know mine,” Wiseman said during a virtual press conference on Sunday. “We know when we're tense. We know when an immediate decision needs to be made.”
Wiseman also said that the crew has practiced restraint.
“We try to remind ourselves — every single time we fly, we say, ‘No fast hands in the cockpit,’” he explained. “You do not want to do anything too quick in this vehicle. You need to take your time. You need to process everything.”
He added: “We're going to go slow and we have the ultimate trust in each other. And that's how we will get through this.”
Is the crew bringing anything special to space?
The astronauts will have a mascot named Rise, designed by Lucas Ye, a second-grader from Mountain View, Calif., which will serve as a zero-gravity indicator to visually indicate when they are in space.
Ye’s design was selected from more than 2,600 submissions from over 50 countries, according to NASA.
Inside the mascot is an SD card with the names of more than 5.6 million people who participated in the “Send Your Name With Artemis” campaign.
What will the crew eat?
The quality of airline food is often the butt of jokes, but NASA’s menu for the Artemis crew is enough to make even Earth-bound diners jealous.
A total of 189 unique food items will be brought along for the journey, including beef brisket, macaroni and cheese and cobbler. The food brought on board isn’t just chosen for its taste, however. It’s carefully chosen to meet the astronaut’s needs.
“Food selections are developed in coordination with space food experts and the crew to balance calorie needs, hydration, and nutrient intake while accommodating individual crew preferences,” NASA wrote.
Everything also needs to last without being refrigerated, and be easy to prepare and safe to eat in microgravity — that means minimal crumbs. Even with those restrictions, NASA is able to send a surprising variety of options, including 10 different drinks; five hot sauces; nine condiments, spreads and spices; and a variety of sweets.
Why does NASA want to go to the moon again?
The Artemis program is NASA’s long-term mission to return humans to the moon to establish a continuous human presence. The goal is to develop a lunar settlement at its south pole, a region where it’s believed water ice is abundant and could be used for drinking, breathing and as a source for rocket fuel.
Another long-term mission of Artemis is to lay the foundation for future crewed missions to Mars. The program is building on the legacy of the Apollo-era missions to the moon in the late 1960s and early ’70s. The Artemis program is named for the ancient Greek goddess of the moon — the twin sister of Apollo.
“It is our strong hope that this mission is the start of an era where everyone — every person on earth — look at the moon and think of it as also a destination,” Koch said.
Scientists Investigating Whether Object NASA Is Approaching Is Core of Destroyed Planet
Victor Tangermann
Tue, March 31, 2026
FUTURISM
Researchers tried to figure out whether asteroid 16 Psyche, which NASA is visiting in 2029, is the remnant of a planet's core.
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Scientists are studying the asteroid 16 Psyche to determine if it is a core of a planetesimal or a homogeneous mixture of iron and rock.See more
Scientists have long been intrigued by an enormous potato-shaped asteroid, dubbed 16 Psyche, that they suspect to be teeming with metal — and therefore potentially worth a ludicrous amount of money to future asteroid mining operations.
The 173-mile object, which orbits the Sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, features two enormous crater-like depressions, which researchers say could be closely related to its still largely unknown origin story.
In a new paper published in the journal JGR Planets, an international team of researchers tried to get to the bottom of one of the key questions regarding 16 Psyche that remains unanswered. Is it a core of a planetesimal, a billions-of-years-old building block of a planet, in which case it would have a “large metallic core buried under rocks,” or is it a “homogeneous mixture of iron and rock?”
Put differently, could 16 Psyche be the ancient exposed remains of a planetary core whose crust and mantle were blown off, or is it a separate primordial lump of far less dense and potentially riddled-with-holes rock that either started out metal-rich or became blended with metal after colliding with other asteroids?
While the latest paper doesn’t necessarily exclude any of these possibilities — its simulations support both hypotheses — the goal was to know what to look out for once NASA’s mission to the space rock, which launched in October 2023, arrives roughly three and a half years from now.
Once there, the spacecraft could finally allow us to solve the mystery surrounding 16 Psyche’s history once and for all. As Universe Today points out, 16 Psyche’s size makes it far more approachable than the thousands of miles we’d have to drill into the Earth. (So far, we’ve only made it around 0.2 percent of the way to our own planet’s center.)
For their paper, the researchers took into consideration 16 Psyche’s unusual dented shape, previous findings that concluded it may be teeming with metal material, and its porosity.
“Large impact basins or craters excavate deep into the asteroid, which gives clues about what its interior is made of,” said first author and University of Arizona doctoral candidate Namya Baijal in a statement. “By simulating the formation of one of its largest craters, we were able to make testable predictions for Psyche’s overall composition when the spacecraft arrives.”
“One of our main findings was that the porosity — the amount of empty space inside the asteroid — plays a significant role in how these craters form,” she added. “Porosity is often ignored because it’s difficult to include in models, but our simulations show it can strongly affect the impact process and shape of craters left behind.”
A more porous asteroid would theoretically feature deeper and steeper-sided craters on its surface. The researchers are hoping that close-up observations by NASA’s Psyche mission could allow them to determine its porosity and therefore infer if its interior is metal clad in rock, or a more homogenous mix of both.
To explain their line of thinking, the researchers used the unusual metaphor of an abandoned pizza parlor.
“The cooks have long left, but you can look at what’s left behind — the ovens, scraps of dough, the toppings — and make inferences about how the pizzas were made,” said coauthor and University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory professor Erik Asphaug in a statement. “We can’t get to the cores of Earth or Mars or Venus, but maybe we can get to the core of an early asteroid.”
The team came up with two possible interior structures.
“One is a layered structure with a metallic core and a thin, rocky mantle, which likely formed if a violent collision stripped away the outer layers,” Baijal explained. “The other is a uniform mixture of metal and silicate, created by a more catastrophic impact that mixed everything together, like some metal-rich meteorites found on Earth.”
By simulating a series of asteroid belt collisions with objects of varying sizes, they tried to reproduce the known dimensions of 16 Psyche’s craters.
“We found that an impactor about three miles across would create a crater of the right dimensions,” Baijal said. “The crater’s formation is consistent with both scenarios of Psyche’s makeup.”
In short, while we’re only inching closer to answering the question of whether 16 Psyche is the ancient remains of a planetary core, we’ll be ready when NASA’s mission gets there.
“When the spacecraft arrives at Psyche in a few years, the geochemists, geologists and modelers on the team will all be looking at the same object and trying to interpret what we see,” said Asphaug.
“This work gives us a head start,” he added.
Oops! NASA Once Lost a $125 Million Spacecraft Because Engineers Forgot to Convert to Metric
Elizabeth Rayne
Tue, March 31, 2026
Epic math fail doomed a NASA spacecraft
NASA - Getty Images
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
The Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) launched in late 1998 and was predicted to reach Mars nine months later. But that never actually happened.
As the MCO approached Mars, it ventured far too close and either burned up in the atmosphere or was lost to another orbit.
NASA’s postmortem later found that the failure of the mission was a result of their contractor, Lockheed Martin, neglecting to convert to metric units in the software.
December 11, 1998—launch day for the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) and the accompanying Polar Lander, both of which were part of a larger NASA initiative known as Mars Surveyor ’98. NASA had commissioned Lockheed Martin to design and build the MCO, which was was destined to gather data on Martian weather while communicating with the Polar Lander.
There was just one problem: The orbiter would never reach Mars.
Superficially, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Lockheed Martin was at the design helm, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was overseeing every aspect of the project. The MCO was equipped with eight thrusters intended to boost it into Mars orbit. It also had reaction wheels that could adjust its altitude and orientation, though they occasionally overdid the momentum, resulting in the MCO needing an angular momentum desaturation (AMD) event to reset itself. Once in orbit, the MCO was supposed to beam data back to specialized software on Earth, which would figure out its position and plan any necessary AMD events for the near future.
That communication was crucial, as it is for all active space missions. But soon after launch, software problems began to arise. During the journey, which was projected to last nine and a half months, the MCO’s software began acting up, requiring ground navigation data to be emailed to NASA for solutions. Even with corrections to the software, however, the MCO was still transmitting nonsensical data back to Earth.
In September of 1999, engineers computed and executed the final planned Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM-4) to refine the Mars Climate Orbiter’s approach to Mars. The intended trajectory would have produced a first periapsis (closest position to Mars) of about 140 miles (226 km) above the planet after orbit insertion. But navigators determined that the spacecraft’s predicted closest approach was lower than expected, revealing a serious trajectory error. The planet’s gravity was beginning to pull the orbiter in.
By the morning of September 23, 1999, the MCO had vanished with no way to reestablish communication. So…what happened?
According to NASA’s initial postmortem analysis, the spacecraft was only about 35 miles (57 km) from the ruddy surface of Mars when contact was lost. Engineers concluded that the orbiter either burned up in the Martian atmosphere or skipped off the atmosphere and was lost in space. When the agency investigated the following month and found a data issue, they noticed something suspicious about the small forces software that had been responsible for determining the MCO’s position and AMD: while everything else used metric units, this software was using Imperial units.
Lockheed Martin’s use of the wrong units in its software meant that the MCO was not even close to the trajectory it was supposed to be on. While NASA required Lockheed Martin to convert its measurements to metric units, the agency never verified which measurement system the company had employed before sending the MCO off to Mars, and there was reportedly no response from upper management when navigation staff voiced their concerns during the mission.
Investigators claimed that NASA was the party responsible for the failure of the mission, rather than Lockheed Martin. They stated that NASA officials had rushed everything to the detriment of the mission, neglecting to thoroughly test the small forces software as they should have, and that it was impossible to tell whether the systems engineering team had validated and verified the software to begin with.
Unfortunately, no matter whose fault it was, the Mars Polar Lander bore the brunt of the unit-conversion failure. Not long after this simple error pulled it disastrously away from its intended orbit, it was doomed to crash and bur
Starlink Satellite Explodes In Orbit, Yet Another Moment Of SpaceX Engineering Excellence
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
The Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) launched in late 1998 and was predicted to reach Mars nine months later. But that never actually happened.
As the MCO approached Mars, it ventured far too close and either burned up in the atmosphere or was lost to another orbit.
NASA’s postmortem later found that the failure of the mission was a result of their contractor, Lockheed Martin, neglecting to convert to metric units in the software.
December 11, 1998—launch day for the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) and the accompanying Polar Lander, both of which were part of a larger NASA initiative known as Mars Surveyor ’98. NASA had commissioned Lockheed Martin to design and build the MCO, which was was destined to gather data on Martian weather while communicating with the Polar Lander.
There was just one problem: The orbiter would never reach Mars.
Superficially, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Lockheed Martin was at the design helm, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was overseeing every aspect of the project. The MCO was equipped with eight thrusters intended to boost it into Mars orbit. It also had reaction wheels that could adjust its altitude and orientation, though they occasionally overdid the momentum, resulting in the MCO needing an angular momentum desaturation (AMD) event to reset itself. Once in orbit, the MCO was supposed to beam data back to specialized software on Earth, which would figure out its position and plan any necessary AMD events for the near future.
That communication was crucial, as it is for all active space missions. But soon after launch, software problems began to arise. During the journey, which was projected to last nine and a half months, the MCO’s software began acting up, requiring ground navigation data to be emailed to NASA for solutions. Even with corrections to the software, however, the MCO was still transmitting nonsensical data back to Earth.
In September of 1999, engineers computed and executed the final planned Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM-4) to refine the Mars Climate Orbiter’s approach to Mars. The intended trajectory would have produced a first periapsis (closest position to Mars) of about 140 miles (226 km) above the planet after orbit insertion. But navigators determined that the spacecraft’s predicted closest approach was lower than expected, revealing a serious trajectory error. The planet’s gravity was beginning to pull the orbiter in.
By the morning of September 23, 1999, the MCO had vanished with no way to reestablish communication. So…what happened?
According to NASA’s initial postmortem analysis, the spacecraft was only about 35 miles (57 km) from the ruddy surface of Mars when contact was lost. Engineers concluded that the orbiter either burned up in the Martian atmosphere or skipped off the atmosphere and was lost in space. When the agency investigated the following month and found a data issue, they noticed something suspicious about the small forces software that had been responsible for determining the MCO’s position and AMD: while everything else used metric units, this software was using Imperial units.
Lockheed Martin’s use of the wrong units in its software meant that the MCO was not even close to the trajectory it was supposed to be on. While NASA required Lockheed Martin to convert its measurements to metric units, the agency never verified which measurement system the company had employed before sending the MCO off to Mars, and there was reportedly no response from upper management when navigation staff voiced their concerns during the mission.
Investigators claimed that NASA was the party responsible for the failure of the mission, rather than Lockheed Martin. They stated that NASA officials had rushed everything to the detriment of the mission, neglecting to thoroughly test the small forces software as they should have, and that it was impossible to tell whether the systems engineering team had validated and verified the software to begin with.
Unfortunately, no matter whose fault it was, the Mars Polar Lander bore the brunt of the unit-conversion failure. Not long after this simple error pulled it disastrously away from its intended orbit, it was doomed to crash and bur
Starlink Satellite Explodes In Orbit, Yet Another Moment Of SpaceX Engineering Excellence
Ryan Erik King
Tue, March 31, 2026
The Headquarters of SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, with a Falcon 9 booster in March 2024. - Sven Piper/Getty Images
There are roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit, making it a crowded place due to Elon Musk's business ventures.
It would be ideal if satellites in a massive communications constellation didn't just spontaneously explode, but here we are. SpaceX announced that one of its Starlink satellites "experienced an anomaly on-orbit" on Sunday, which is a gentle way of saying that it blew to smithereens. This isn't the first time an Elon Musk internet box has detonated in low Earth orbit, with a similar incident in December. I would be surprised if Sunday's explosion was the last.
SpaceX claimed that the loss of Starlink satellite 34343 poses no new risk to the International Space Station or NASA's planned launch of Artemis II this week. According to The Verge, the incident created a debris field of "tens of objects." The debris should burn up in the atmosphere in a few weeks. Starlink satellites are already designed to die and completely disintegrate at the end of their service life. Hopefully, the debris doesn't cause any chaos in orbit before re-entry.
Space may be a near-perfect vacuum, but it isn't empty
Illustration concept of a fleet of Internet Starlink satellites in orbit above planet Earth. A line of communication satellites with the sun in the horizon. - xnk/Shutterstock
There are roughly 10,000 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit, over a third of all the tracked objects in that part of space. Low Earth orbit is a crowded place, largely due to the business ventures of Elon Musk. It could get even worse. SpaceX filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission in January to launch one million AI data centers into orbit. Ignoring the fact that energy and cooling needs make that harebrained scheme impossible for even a single data center, the constellation would cut Earth off from the rest of space.
It would only be a matter of time before a SpaceX orbital data center exploded, spraying debris into neighboring data centers and triggering a chain reaction. The theoretical scenario was first posited in the 1970s by NASA scientists Donald Kessler. A Kessler syndrome event would destroy every satellite in low Earth orbit and smother the planet in a cloud of debris, making space launches impossible. While experimental technologies are being developed to capture space debris, it has already impacted human spaceflight: a Chinese crewed capsule was deemed unsafe following a debris strike in orbit last year.
