THE TRIBUNE
Wednesday, December 16, 2020, PAGE 9
TECHTALK ‘LOST CONNECTION’ HAMPERS VIRGIN GALACTIC’S TEST FLIGHT
AMAZON’S ZOOX UNVEILS AUTONOMOUS ELECTRIC VEHICLE AN AUTONOMOUS vehicle company acquired this year by Amazon has unveiled a fourperson “robo-taxi,” a compact, multidirectional vehicle designed for dense, urban environments. The carriage-style interior of the vehicle produced by Zoox Inc. has two benches that face each other. There is no steering wheel. It measures just under 12 feet long, about a foot shorter than a standard Mini Cooper. It is among the first vehicles with bidirectional capabilities
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN and PAUL DAVENPORT Associated Press
and four-wheel steering, allowing for better maneuverability. It has a top speed of 75 miles per hour. The vehicle is being tested in the company’s base of Foster City, California, as well as Las Vegas and San Francisco, Zoox said Monday. Zoox, based Foster City in Silicon Valley, was founded in 2014 and acquired by Amazon in June. It operates as an independent subsidiary at Amazon. (AP)
JAPAN’S SPACE AGENCY FINDS AMPLE SOIL, GAS FROM ASTEROID By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Officials from Japan’s space agency said Tuesday they have found more than the anticipated amount of soil and gases inside a small capsule the country’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft brought back from a distant asteroid this month, a mission they praised as a milestone in planetary research. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its staff initially spotted some black particles sitting on the bottom of the capsule’s sample catcher when they pulled out the container on Monday. By Tuesday, scientists found more of the soil and gas samples in a compartment that stored those from the first of Hayabusa’s two touchdowns on the asteroid last year. “We have confirmed a good amount of sand apparently collected from the asteroid Ryugu, along with gases,” JAXA Hayabusa2 project manager Yuichi Tsuda said in a video message during an online news conference. “The samples from outside of our planet, which we have long dreamed of, are now in our hands.” Tsuda called the successful return of the asteroid soil and gas samples “a major scientific milestone.” The pan-shaped capsule, 40 centimetres (15 inches) in diameter, was dropped
SOIL samples, seen inside a container of the re-entry capsule brought back by Hayabusa2, in Sagamihara, near Tokyo, Tuesday. Officials from Japan’s space agency said Tuesday they have found more than the anticipated amount of soil and gases inside a small capsule the country’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft brought back from a distant asteroid this month, a sample-return mission they praised as a milestone for planetary research.(JAXA via AP) by Hayabusa2 from space to a predetermined spot in a sparsely populated Australian desert on Dec. 6 at the end of its six-year round trip to Ryugu, more than 300 million kilometres (190 million miles) from Earth. The capsule arrived in Japan last Tuesday for research that scientists hope will provide insight into the origins of the solar system and life on Earth. Hirotaka Sawada, a JAXA scientist, was the first to look inside the
capsule’s sample-catcher. Sawada said he was “almost speechless” with joy when he found that the samples inside included some that were, as expected, dust size, but also some the size of pebbles. Soil samples in photos shown in Tuesday’s presentation looked like heaps of dark coffee grounds mixed with granules. Sawada said the tightly sealed capsule successfully brought back asteroid gases that are clearly different from the air on Earth
— a first sample-return of gases from outer space. Kyushu University scientist Ryuji Okazaki said that gases could be related to minerals in asteroid soil and that he hopes to identify the gaseous samples and determine their age. Scientists are hoping samples from the asteroid’s subsurface can provide information from billions of years ago that are unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors. JAXA scientists say they
are particularly interested in organic materials in the samples to learn about how they were distributed in the solar system and if they are related to life on Earth. Sei-ichiro Watanabe, a Nagoya University earth and environment scientist working with JAXA, said having more sample material to work with than expected is great news as it will expand the scope of studies. The samples were gathered from two touchdowns that Hayabusa2 made last year on Ryugu. The landings were more difficult than expected because of the asteroid’s extremely rocky surface. The first landing collected samples from Ryugu’s surface and the second from underground. Each was stored separately. JAXA said it will look into another compartment, used for a second touchdown, next week, and will continue an initial examination ahead of the later studies of the material. Following studies in Japan, some of the samples will be shared with NASA and other international space agencies for additional research beginning in 2022. Hayabusa2, meanwhile, is now on an 11-year expedition to another asteroid to try to study possible defences against meteorites that could fly toward Earth.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A Virgin Galactic test flight Saturday ended prematurely as the spacecraft’s rocket motor failed to ignite and it then glided down safely to its landing site in southern New Mexico. The spacecraft’s engine is supposed to ignite moments after the craft is released from a special carrier jet, sending it in a near-vertical climb toward the edge of space. “After being released from its mothership, the spaceship’s onboard computer that monitors the rocket motor lost connection,” CEO Michael Colglazier said in a statement. “As designed, this triggered a fail-safe scenario that intentionally halted ignition of the rocket motor.” The pilots flew back to Spaceport America and landed gracefully as usual. “As we do with every test flight, we are evaluating all the data, including the root cause assessment of the computer communication loss,” Colglazier said. “We look forward to sharing information on our next flight window in the near future.” The hourlong flight was to be the first rocket-powered trip to space from Virgin Galactic’s headquarters at Spaceport America, a futuristic desert outpost where the aircraft carrying the spacecraft took off at about 8:25 a.m. Before first announcing the spacecraft’s safe return to land and then the problem with the rocket, Virgin Galactic’s updates on Twitter about the flight’s progress were cryptic and sparse during a 15-minute period that began with an announcement that the spacecraft was “go for release” from the carrier aircraft after reaching high altitude. The release of the spacecraft from the aircraft usually occurs at about 50,000 feet (15.2 kilometres). At that point, the spaceship would enter a gentle glide and within seconds the rocket motor would be fired and the spaceship’s nose pitched to a near-vertical climb. The suborbital flights are designed to reach an altitude of at least 50 miles (80.5 kilometres) before the rocket motor is turned off and the crew prepares to reenter the atmosphere and glide to a landing. After delays because of the coronavirus pandemic and dicey weather earlier this week, the crew had been cleared for a morning launch amid clear conditions. The spaceship was crewed by two pilots. There was payload belonging to NASA onboard but no passengers. It’s unclear how soon another window will open for Virgin Galactic’s next attempt at a powered flight to space. Once the company checks that box, the next phase of final testing for the Virgin Galactic team will involve company mission specialists and engineers being loaded into the spaceship’s passenger cabin for powered flights. They will evaluate all the hardware, camera settings and which angles will provide the best views.