NASA to launch rocket from remote wilderness in northern Australia
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SYDNEY – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will launch a rocket from the remote wilderness of northern Australia on Sunday (26/6/2022) evening local time. This is Australia’s first commercial space launch and the first from a commercial spaceport.
The suborbital rocket will be visible shortly after its scheduled launch at 22:44 (13:44 GMT) Australian Central Standard Time. The rocket will travel 300 kilometers into space.
Australian National University astrophysicist Brad Tucker said Australia’s dry location and proximity to the equator offered optimal conditions for space launches. It will be 400 meters from the launch pad at the Arnhem Space Centre.
“At 12 degrees in Arnhem you don’t get a lot of places closer to the equator. Especially you don’t get anywhere close to the equator where you can get dry, stable air. Florida, where Cape Canaveral is, is kind of a bog,” he said, referring to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
NASA has said three launches from the Arnhem Space Center in June and July will help it explore how starlight can affect a planet’s habitability. This Sunday’s mission from Australia will bring detectors to measure X-rays produced by the hot gas filling interstellar space to help study how this affects galaxy evolution.
Tucker said the second and third missions in July would observe Alpha Centauri, the closest star to Earth, and the closest constellation Southern Cross shown on the Australian flag. The constellation and Alpha Centauri can only be seen in the Southern sky.
“The big goal is to see if there are potentially Earth-like planets in the vicinity,” he said. He added that scientists had waited a decade to launch a rocket from the Southern Hemisphere. It will be visible for 10-50 seconds.
“100 seconds after launch, the science team will be active and they will control the telescope on board. They will know in real time how successful it was,” he said.
NASA is the first client for a commercial spaceport operated by Equatorial Launch Australia, and a staff of 70 NASA has traveled to Australia on three missions. The payload and the rocket will return to Earth the same night.
