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Mars ascent vehicle + Hubble’s flaw informs Webb’s perfection + BH hits Earth?

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This miniature rocket could be the first NASA craft launched from Mars
https://www.popsci.com/technology/nasa-s...velop-mav/

EXCERPT: Earlier this month, NASA announced that defense contractor Lockheed Martin would be building the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), the rocket that will someday take off from the surface of Mars to start the return journey with samples of the planet’s dirt, rocks, and atmosphere.

The MAV will be a small rocket designed to get from the surface of Mars up into the planet’s orbit. In some ways, it will be just like any other rocket, explains Philip Franklin, NASA’s chief engineer on MAV. It will run on solid propellant, just like other rockets that take off from Earth.

NASA has already made most of the major design decisions, like the size and shape of the spacecraft and how it will be powered. Think of NASA as like the architect on the MAV project. The blueprints are basically done, says Dave Murrow, Lockheed Martin’s deep space exploration business development lead. Now, Lockheed Martin will take what NASA has planned to build the rocket, refining the design as needed to make sure everything works as intended, Murrow says. His team will work out details like how much the steering nozzle will be able to move around to efficiently steer the rocket, he says.

Of course, the rocket has to get to Mars before it can take off from there. NASA will launch the MAV inside a larger spacecraft, which should take off from Earth around 2028. Since it’s being carried to Mars, the team is paying extra attention to keeping the vehicle small and light. “Mass is king,” Franklin says. The MAV will be somewhat diminutive. It will measure in at around 10 feet tall, and will weigh just under half a ton—so it’ll be shorter than a basketball hoop and weigh about the same as a grand piano, says NASA’s MAV project manager Angie Jackman.

The rocket will have a compartment in the top for samples, as well as two engines that will power it up into orbit. The contract with Lockheed Martin could total up to $194 million... (MORE - missing details)


Hubble’s flaw informs Webb’s perfection
https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/h...perfection

EXCERPTS: . . . While James Webb Space Telescope has always been billed as the successor to Hubble, Feinberg said there’s a remarkable thread, a crossover between the two missions: The same computer algorithms used to correct Hubble’s flaw are now being used to align Webb’s mirror segments.

“We adapted what was done to fix Hubble, in a way that helped us figure out how to move the mirror segments to properly align them,” Feinberg explained. These learnings allowed for the ability to have a segmented, foldable primary mirror. “So, there is a real continuity there. And it’s pretty neat.” If not for the flaw in Hubble’s mirror, a spherical aberration, there’s a chance that the design of the James Webb Space Telescope could be very different from what it is today.

[...] now, Hubble’s legacy lives on in the algorithms –– developed over 30 years ago –– to align Webb’s mirror segments into the perfect shape. The process, called phasing, uses the algorithms to determine how each primary mirror segment can be moved –– with adjustments as small as 1/10,000th the diameter of a human hair.

“When we first started developing Webb and came up with its design,” Feinberg said, “we realized that when the mirrors aren’t perfectly aligned, they actually represent an aberrated primary mirror that is a lot like the aberrated primary mirror of Hubble. So that’s why we can use a very similar set of algorithms for Webb.”

[...] for all the naysayers who worried about Webb being 1.5 million km (1 million miles away) from Earth, with no ability to service the telescope, Webb will actually be able to perfect its own vision, thanks to Hubble.

“If there was spherical aberration across the entire primary mirror of Webb (across all 18 segments when aligned), similar to Hubble, the actuators would allow us to remove most of it so that is not something we worry about,” Feinberg said, adding one caveat:

“There are possible flaws in individual mirror segments that could not be compensated for,” he said. “So that is something we still need to prove.  This should be known at the end of fine phasing in March.” (MORE - missing details)


What will happen when a black hole hits Earth?
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...hit-earth/

EXCERPTS: Let’s start with some good news: although we have an enormous number of black holes in the Universe, including in our own galaxy, the odds that one of them will strike the Earth are incredibly small...

[...] Of course, a black hole doesn’t need to collide with you to pose a threat. If it gets close enough to you, it can:
  • gravitationally wreck your orbit,
  • eject you from your stellar system entirely,
  • or even spaghettify you, where the tidal forces shred the planet apart entirely.
These are things to be wary of, but fortunately, a black hole would have to get remarkably close to cause any of these problems...

[...] “At least,” you might think, “if a star is going to come into our Solar System and give us a serious cosmic makeover, we’ll see it coming.” But is there any way to get a warning that a black hole is on its way?

The answer, remarkably, is absolutely yes. Black holes might not be luminous, but they do gravitate just as strongly as anything with the same amount of mass. In addition, because black holes aren’t extended objects that take up a large volume, like stars are, but rather are collapsed down into very small regions of space hidden behind a tiny event horizon, they strongly distort the light from objects that appear behind it relative to our perspective.

That means we have three ways to detect the presence of a black hole that gets close enough to our neighborhood... (MORE - missing details)
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