What can we hope (or dread) to see in 2025?
Last week we talked about the 2024 strangeness. Now we’re gonna talk about the upcoming space stories for 2025 that we’re looking forward to. It’s a nice mix of new rockets, new missions and new fly-bys.
Show Notes
- 2025 Space Stories to Look Forward To
- Corona Borealis Nova
- Vera Rubin Telescope
- Planet Nine Search
- New Glenn Rocket
- Starship Developments
- Space Missions in 2025
- Hera and Lucy Missions
- Europa Clipper
- Lunar Missions
- Rocket Lab’s Neutron Rocket
- Farewell to Key Missions
- Parker Solar Probe
- Gaia Mission
- Astronomical Events
- Venus and Jupiter Conjunction
- Crescent Moon, Venus, and Regulus
Transcript
Human transcription provided by GMR Transcription
Fraser Cain [00:00:49] Astronomy cast. Episode 738. Looking ahead to 2025, welcome to Australian Castrol Weekly fact based Journey to the Cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today. With me, as always, is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of Cosmic Quest. Hey, panel, how you doing?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:01:10] I am doing well. I survived the American Geophysical Union meeting with 30,000 closest friends and I it was really good to reconnect with people, to see everything that’s being done. And. Wow, just. Wow. How about you?
Fraser Cain [00:01:31] Were you able to avoid con crud?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:01:34] Yeah, totally. So I’m like a crazy person, so I actually haven’t been sick at all other than, like, hurting myself because I’m a klutz since January 2020.
Fraser Cain [00:01:49] Yeah. The. The only time I’ve been sick in the last four years I’d like since Covid.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:01:56] Yeah.
Fraser Cain [00:01:56] Was when I was in Europe and, and both my kid and I picked up some bug that everybody had this sort of nasal cough thing going on. But apart from that. Yeah. So it’s weird. We give these side benefits from trying to be careful about spreading infectious diseases. Who would have thought? Now you should explain what the coming weeks are going to look like for astronomy cast because you know it’s holiday time. And so when can people expect things to happen?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:02:27] So this is one of those years where we have the magical Christmas and New Year’s are on Wednesdays, which means everybody is taking all of two weeks off my life, possibly in your life. And as a result of this, the next live recording of Astronomy Cast is going to be on January 6th, which means the next recorded episode will go live on January 13th. Okay, we’re going to record two live episodes on January 13th because the 20th I’m going to be in Florida for podcast and to hopefully see a launch and then everything should be back to normal after that. So welcome to the holidays, everyone.
Fraser Cain [00:03:09] Yeah, yeah. But also like emotionally, prepare yourself for hiatus coming four months, five months after that.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:03:17] Yeah.
Fraser Cain [00:03:20] All right. So last week we talked about the 2024 strangeness. Now we’re going to talk about the upcoming space stories for 2025 that we’re looking forward to. It’s a nice mix of new rockets, new missions and new flybys. Now, we’ll talk about it a second, but it’s time for a break.
Speaker 3 [00:03:36] Katie that way. Yeah, they got a bond. It will be. Must be Kenya Medevac. Like I may look terrific. Either they budget that says same as Grandi El-Gamaty total DVD, though. Or is it the maximum permanent Nintendo that river lovers have been wrapped for consume endless compulsively. Either bottom as me yes econ LBC forex total mint electrical auroras own mess electrified content Toyota punto con Toyota by Germans Hunters.
Fraser Cain [00:04:08] And we’re back. Okay, Pamela, I. Ladies choice. Which mission Science results thing are you looking forward to? But if you steal my thunder or be so mad, what are you looking forward to?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:04:22] I don’t think I’m going to with this one. Okay, so. So last July, we told everyone to be on high alert because te Corona borealis was supposed to go Nova.
Fraser Cain [00:04:36] This is your choice, okay?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:04:37] And they didn’t? Yeah. So now we have a recurring nova that is being utterly dis obedient, which is actually scientifically super cool. And so my question for 2025 is, is it going to blow? Wow. This is my big thing. Yes.
Fraser Cain [00:05:01] Like every day that goes by that this thing doesn’t go off as a nova. Breaking what is multiple cycles of observations means something really interesting is happening.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:05:12] Yeah. And so the question becomes, was there some sort of an evolution in the Star that has had material stolen off of it? Is there just some sort of a change in how the material’s getting distributed? What is going on? I’m just making up guesses that are wild. And the truth is, we have no idea. It should have gone off by now. And the fact that it hasn’t is super cool. So keep on keeping on. Corona Borealis, You have us captivated.
Fraser Cain [00:05:47] This is awesome. I love that. Okay, well, you didn’t steal my thunder, so I will now deliver the thunder. And that is kick. Can you guess what I’m most excited about for 2025? Veer Rubin. Come on.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:06:02] All right. All right. Yeah. That totally makes sense.
Fraser Cain [00:06:04] Yeah. Of course. The very Rubin telescope, which is actually in the commissioning phase right now. I’ve been following the blog for Vera Rubin, and they are. They are operating this telescope. They are taking test images. They are trying to figure out if the thing is working as expected. And so someone out there, many people out there have looked at pictures taken by Vera Rubin.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:06:27] But not with the good camera.
Fraser Cain [00:06:29] But we’re going to see the proper 20, 25, you know, completion of the commission. And it will become a it will go into its science operations in 2025. And like it is so close now that I really feel like there’s no reason why it won’t happen in 2025. And what are we going to get right? We are going to get this incredible 8.4m telescope that is observing several degrees of the sky every 15 minutes. It’s going to create an entire view of the night sky from the southern hemisphere. Every three days it’s going to produce ten terabytes of data a day that’s going to be collected in these giant archive servers that then astronomers can look through to find everything that the universe does when we’re not looking and it goes bump in the night. But it’s also going to have a separate stream, which is going to be like Veer Rubin’s favorite bookmarks. And so if interesting things that meet with certain kind of criteria and new supernovae, interesting motions of of large objects, things like that, it’s going to highlight them for astronomers to get on them right away. And so I’m kind of excited. I’m hoping that the way this is going to work is that we can do some kind of live stream or gather together a bunch of astronomers and we’ll just will watch the feed and go, new supernova and blah, blah, blah. And then I’ll maybe turn my telescope and see if we can actually see the supernova and talk about what it is and like, you know, Planet nine was found.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:07:56] Pray for 2026 is my, my, that is my thunder. It seems like we will finally know for certain. Is there a Planet nine out there that meets the criteria set forward by Konstantin? I can never remember how to say his last name. And you.
Fraser Cain [00:08:18] Okay? Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:08:18] Yeah. And Michael Brown’s research in 2026. We’ll know for sure if that’s there.
Fraser Cain [00:08:24] Yeah, I mean, or they’ll find it in 2025. Like. Like there’s a chance to find in 2025. More likely they’ll, they’ll find it by 2026 or fail to find it by 2026. And so that is, is super useful and interesting. So. All right, We will continue our interesting stories, but it’s time for another break.
Speaker 3 [00:08:48] Katie that way. Yeah, they got a bond. It will be. Must be Kenya Medevac. Like I might look terrific. Either they budget that they assume as Grandi el-gamaty totalement devido or put it that axiom permanent. They thought that river levels had been wrapped for consume in this combustible either. What amazed me. Yes econ lbc forex total mint electrical auroras own mess electrified content Toyota punto con Toyota by Germans Hunters.
Fraser Cain [00:09:19] And we’re back. All right. The ball’s in your court, Pamela.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:09:23] So I knew Glenn. Will it or won’t it? This is the question. And because I’m going to be in Florida for two weeks in January, part of me is like, Please wait. Please hold. Just stand by. I’m almost there. Right. But we need new Glenn to work. We need another large rocket that is capable of delivering landers and other big cargo to the surface of the moon. Now, one of the things that that is like eating my soul is the NASA’s budget. And. Starship is so far behind and the US is not. And if we have to figure out how to store these massive rockets and we have further delays on the human spaceflight program to the moon that’s going to eat into the science budget if the science budget is allowed to persist. And so if we can get a new Glenn with their blue moon to move faster, there is a chance that will just leapfrog which of the two landers were using. So please new Glenn work. These science budget requires that I’m currently following human spaceflight because of fear of SMD losing funding.
Fraser Cain [00:10:47] Right. Yeah. So, so the plan is to actually do a test flight of New Glenn in December and hopefully we will even have to wait until 2025 for that to happen. But if it does slip and like what rocket slip, you know, Blue Origin slip, what then? You know, you’re I think you’re exactly right that we may see it get tested in 2025. But but Blue Origin is on a schedule, and that is that they’ve got to demonstrate that this works because they they were supposed to have launched the escapade mission back in in November.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:11:25] Right.
Fraser Cain [00:11:26] That’s been pushed to March. But that is the end of the window to go to Mars if you don’t get new Glenn off the pad with escapade on top on the way to Mars by March, then you’re waiting two years. And that is a serious failure by Blue Origin to fulfill on their contract.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:11:44] So I wanted delayed due only to bad weather. And the fact that FAA has certain windows, it doesn’t allow big launches because it’s the holiday travel season. So please don’t no time us. Yeah. So.
Fraser Cain [00:11:59] Right. Yeah. Okay. Come on, Blue Origin. All right. So I’m going to just do the counter to yours, which is that I’m looking forward to starship, which is, you know, and I think you, you know, you hinted at this, which is that, you know, starship is on the critical path for the Artemis three mission. It is the landing system that is going to carry the astronauts down to the surface of the moon. And and so it needs to be in place. And there is a giant list of things that starship still needs to complete. At the very minimum, they need to demonstrate that they can do cryogenic propellant transfer in orbit. They need to refill a tanker in space. They need to or refill the human landing system, which needs to be built and operational. And they need to fire that off to the moon and it needs to go into orbit around the moon. It needs to loiter there for several months. And they need to demonstrate that it can reawaken still having all of its propulsion on board, go down to the surface of the moon, come back into lunar orbit like there’s a big list and there’s a whole bunch of other stuff. You know, if it’s not absolutely necessary, if they’re willing to throw away starships, then they don’t need to demonstrate that things can be captured by mech of the way that we saw the the booster did. Yeah, but, you know, we’re looking at 15 to 20 refueling missions of starships to get the human landing system off to the moon. So it’s a hugely. Yeah. And I want them to accomplish them right. Like I want them to demonstrate that this next generation two stage rocket system is going to work and provide heavy lift, inexpensive flight to space.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:13:43] We need.
Fraser Cain [00:13:44] Both. We need both at all.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:13:46] Yeah.
Fraser Cain [00:13:46] Right. You know, because then end to end for it to be reusable because then a whole class of new missions becomes possible that theoretically the launch costs could go significantly down. It sort of proves categorically that anyone can build these two stage reusable rockets and you should see the entire industry switch over to what is a more reusable, lower cost future. You know, right now we’re throwing away rockets. The Europeans throw away rockets, the Chinese throw away rockets, Americans throw away rockets. Why throw them away? Reuse them. And so. You know, no matter. And then if we can have that competition with Blue Origin and Space X, then that’s my perfect world where you’ve got this healthy competition, multiple groups who are competing for business and pushing each other to be better and better. All right. We are going to continue on with our list, but it’s time for another break.
Speaker 3 [00:14:47] Katie that way. Yeah, they got a bond. It will be. Must be Kenya. Maybe that KG may look terrific. Either they budget that says as must Grandy El-Gamaty total video. Or is it the maximum permanent total river level satin wrap for consume in as combustible either bottom as me yes econ LBC forex total mint electrical auroras own mess electrified Cathay Toyota Punto Con Toyota by Germans Hunters.
Fraser Cain [00:15:18] And we’re back. All right. What’s your next one?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:15:22] For reasons I can’t explain, other than that’s the way the worlds orbit. Both Hera and Lucy and Europa Clipper are going to be doing flybys in March, April. So we have Europa Clipper and Hera are both doing in March, Mars Flybys and Lucy visits Donald Johanson on April 20th, 2025. And it’s just cool to see these little brand new missions show off that they are working. Or panic all of us because they aren’t. But we’re sure. I’m I’m counting my missions before they have done anything that these little missions are going to be able to do the job.
Fraser Cain [00:16:06] I always love when you get these flybys because it’s a chance, as you say, to test. So Europa Clipper is going to do a flyby of Mars. Turn on its instruments. Pretend it’s at Europa and see what it can see. You know what I mean? They’re such well-studied worlds. But what do you think we might learn from these flybys?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:16:30] Well, the cool thing about flybys like this is the missions that we have orbiting Mars can’t get a full disk image because they’re too close. Here at Earth, we can get a full disk image, but the resolutions kind of blur because we’re way over here. These missions are going to be able to get those full disk images completely filling their detectors. And this will allow us to see weather patterns, to see if there’s any dust storms going on. And there’s also plans to look at the moons and we don’t look at those moons nearly enough. And as we look to a future where perhaps for visiting moons instead of visiting Mars, we’re going to need all the data we can get on those moons.
Fraser Cain [00:17:17] And like Hera specifically, you know, this is going to be going out to Didymus and dimorphism. Yes, it’s going to do a flyby of Phobos and Deimos. And so it’s going to have a great chance to both give us a lot more information on those moons and also just test out, you know, it’s not going past asteroids, going past moons, but they really look like asteroids. And so it’s sort of like the perfect test of its instruments. So all of these are going to be great. I love how every spacecraft that has a flyby of Earth, I mean, there aren’t any of these planned for this year, but they try to find life on Earth. They try to find to see if Earth is a habitable world, as you know. And this is this wonderful thing thought by Carl Sagan back when Galileo did the fly its flyby of earth. And he said, Will we see Earth is a has a biosphere, that it is a it is a living planet, you know, and it’s sort of a great idea. Miles. Let’s see, what else have I got here? Through something in. Okay, so the moon there are I like I tried to count them up, but at least five, maybe six different missions headed to the moon in 2025. Like and these are the Eclipse program, the commercial lunar payload, and from a bunch of different companies. So Intuitive Machines is going to be sending it’s a second attempt at a lander to the moon. Firefly Aerospace is going to be sending their first lander to the moon. And there’s like a whole bunch more Blue Ghost. Yeah, Blue Ghost, Yeah. And there’s a whole bunch more missions that are going to be going as well. So if all goes well, we should see a whole bunch of lunar landing attempts on the moon in 2025. And that will feel very, you know, this great vindication from all of the trouble that we saw from the Japanese Lunar Lander and Intuitive Machines First Lander.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:19:19] And this is the year we’re really going to see can commercial space do the thing that it is said it can do? Can it live up to its promise? There has been a lot of chatter about, well, maybe all the money that we’re spending on Eclipse is not money well spent. Maybe it’s just not ready yet. Well, this is the year we find out. Yeah, it’s it’s either going to change everything or make us sad. Please change everything.
Fraser Cain [00:19:51] Right. Don’t make it sad. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I felt so sad when both solemn and the intuitive was at Odyssey. Anyway, the first Intuitive Machines missions didn’t.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:20:07] And it cost Viper. It cost viper back.
Fraser Cain [00:20:11] Yeah. Yeah. And. And so there’s so many interesting ideas. Opposed for the moon. And I want to see these experiments starting to run. You know, you always sort of think, you know, we want to see human footsteps on the moon, but they’re not going to do a lot of science with our time is three. It’s really just planting a flag and saying we did it. We still have the ability to go to the moon. Yeah, but with the Cops program, with all of this lunar science, it’s it’s a total revolution. And you can imagine this going even farther with, say, Mars, that there’ll be these commercial programs flying to Mars and people just put an instrument on board. We want to send a microphone to Mars. No problem. That’ll cost you, you know, $1 million on the on the Mars mission. And this is like a really a proper test to that. All right. So a rocket that I is scheduled to fly in 2025 and I am skeptical. And yet I you know, I think we should bring it up because nobody has officially canceled it. And that is neutron. Yeah. Which is the next level mission. Rocket lab. Yeah. From rocket lab, if you will, to do the electron launches out of New Zealand. And, you know, they’re building capacity to launch rockets in the United States and Neutron is hopefully going to be a fully reusable rocket. And they’ve made their way through a lot of the, you know, the tasks in their to do list. And but they are hopefully going to be able to do an actual test launch of this rocket in 2025. And I don’t think people were expecting this. You know, all eyes are on starship. All eyes are on on New Glenn. But Rocket Lab has been just dominating.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:21:55] Yeah.
Fraser Cain [00:21:55] This small satellite market.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:21:58] Yeah. The the electrons are a huggable rocket. Like you can walk up to one. Don’t do this while they’re filled because they’re too cold. And you can get your arms a good way around the rocket. Yeah. And they can’t currently launch, as you said, from New Zealand. They’re also launching from Wallace, which is really near Washington, DC, which is an interesting political choice. And they’re just going all the time and it just works and they’re becoming more reasonable as they go. They’re working on catching them with helicopters, which is a completely different tech than we’re seeing with everyone else. And it requires a whole lot less weight to pull it off, which when you’re launching Huggable Rockets is important. And I’m just super impressed with what they’re pulling off and they’re doing it with a creativity of naming and a humor and a tongue in cheek that I’m really enjoying everything coming out of Rocket Lab.
Fraser Cain [00:23:01] And, you know, it still remains to be seen how much of it is going to be fully reusable. You know, they’re describing it as a partially reusable. Right. But one of the things that’s really interesting is that they’re going to have a fairing that opens up and delivers satellite and then closes back down and is part of the rocket that is returned to Earth. And so the hope is that they will be able to just keep reusing that fairing on the top and nobody does that. Everybody, you know, even Space X was trying to recover the fairings as they were landing in the ocean. And I don’t think has really put too much effort into that anymore. But in theory, Neutron is going to have this fairing, you know, as part of the vehicle. And, you know, the future starship will have the same thing, that it will be able to open up these giant jaws and and spit out satellites. But but still sort of remains to be seen how well that’s actually going to work. And so neutron is going to really help try and push that forward.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:24:00] I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see what they name them. Also, it’s such a stupid thing, but it brings me joy. And we need joy.
Fraser Cain [00:24:07] Yeah. Yeah. What else are you looking forward to?
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:24:10] So, Parker, it’s doing its next closest round of encounters. Its very last encounter scheduled for my birthday, December 12th of 2025. And so it’s going to be undergoing senior review. I don’t even know if it can do anything else without plunging into the sun as it goes. This is the year we have to prepare to say goodbye and we also get to learn so much more. And then there’s just like lame stuff. Like, I’m looking forward to seeing if Sloan Digital Sky survey puts out data release 19 because every time they put out a data release, science I was not expecting suddenly appears on the archive. So I look forward to data and I sadly look forward to saying goodbye to Parker.
Fraser Cain [00:25:02] Yeah, yeah. And and one of the kind of most bittersweet ones for me is going to be saying goodbye to Gaia. And like, you know, we said that what we’re looking forward to. But, but really, this is events that we are noting in our calendar and circling and thinking about. And so the end of the guy emission is going to come probably in the end of January. They’re going to no longer be taking observations, are going to spend a couple of months to download all the data and then they’re going to push it into a graveyard orbit and they’re going to turn it off. And we will no longer you know, they will no longer be gathering data for Gaia, but that the next data release data release for is going to come probably 2026 and then data released and that’ll be like all the data. But you know, maybe not fully massaged yet, but you’re going to see tens of thousands of exoplanets. You’re going to see really interesting information about white dwarfs and neutron stars and the stars, Interstellar neighborhood and the more accurate compositions of of of stars out there. And then the final data release is due for 2030. So, yeah, we said goodbye to Gaia in 2025.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:26:15] It’s true. And and I do want to say we do actually, we don’t personally we have nothing to do with it. Space X does reuse their fairings. They’re just not putting the same effort into catching them because they’ve learned they can scoop them up and they’re fine.
Fraser Cain [00:26:30] Okay. Yeah. They pick them up out of the ocean. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. And then if you got anything else before we wrap up.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:26:38] I there’s, there’s always the little things that you look forward to going outside and seeing. So there’s on August 12th, which means you also have a chance of going and seeing meteor showers. Venus and Jupiter are going to fit within a single field of view of a binocular set. And September 19th, just a few weeks, well, I guess about a month and a half later, there’s going to be the thinnest of crescent moons and Venus and Regulus, all within just a couple degrees of each other. So when all fitting within a binocular field of view, just perhaps a different pair of binoculars. And and so sometimes it’s good to just remember there’s still cool stuff going on that you can see and not worry about the satellites.
Fraser Cain [00:27:22] Yeah, that sounds great. All right. So, well, hey, we had a great year, Pamela. I’m looking forward to picking things up again in the new Year. I hope you enjoy your holidays and we will see everybody next year. Thanks.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:27:39] Thank you. And thank you to everyone who has allowed us to keep going and keep our staff funded. This week. I want to thank Alex Rain and Esau Boria and three Loves Benjamin Mueller. Brenda Buzz percent Cody Rose, Danny McGlashan, David Pogue. Dion Mons. Aaron Segev. Frederick Salvo. Jeff MacDonald. Gold. Gregory Singleton. James Roger. Janelle Wenk. Jeremy Kerwin. Joanne Mulva. Jonathan Pogue. Justin Proctor. Kellyanne and David Parker. Christian Golding. Lee Harbaugh and Mark Phillips. Matthew Horstman. Michael Hart Ford. Michelle Cullen. Noah Albertson, Pauline Middle Inc. Robert Cordova. Reuben McCarthy. Scott Bieber. Ziggy Ccamlr, The Air Major Tim Gerrish and Wanderer Am 1 to 1. Thank you so much everyone.
Fraser Cain [00:28:35] Thanks everyone and we will see you next year for bye.
Dr. Pamela Gay [00:28:43] Astronomy Cast is a joint product of universe today and the Planetary Science Institute Astronomy Cast is released under a Creative Commons attribution license. So Lovett share it and remix it, but please credit it to our hosts, Fraser Cain and Dr. Dr. Pamela Gay. You can get more information on today’s show topic on our website, Astronomy Cars.com. This episode was brought to you thanks to our generous patrons, unpatriotic. If you want to help keep this show going, please consider joining our community at patriarchy slash astronomy cast. Not only do you help us pay our producers a fair wage, you will also get special access to content right in your inbox and invites to online events. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined our Patreon community already. Anyways, keep looking up. This has been astronomy cast.