Space exploration

Prof. Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab and former NASA deputy director, speaks with Blake Burman of NewsNation’s The Hill about how long-duration stays in space can affect the human body and how NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will reacclimate to Earth’s gravity. “Gravity is something! When you haven’t been in gravity” for nine months, Newman explains, “it’s going to take a week or two, it takes a month until you really get your motor control back. So just slow adaptation now.” 

Ariel Ekblaw SM ’17, PhD ’20, founder of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative, joins WCVB-TV to discuss the successful return of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, and the impact of nine months in space on the human body. "When you're living in a long-duration microgravity mission, you do lose some of your muscle mass,” Ekblaw explains. “Your heart weakens because it's not having to pump your blood against the force of gravity. And even funny things like your eyesight can change because the shape of your eyeball is a little different in microgravity.”

Ariel Ekblaw, principal investigator for the “To the Moon to Stay” mission and a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, speaks with Chaiel Schaffel of WBZ News Radio about the three payloads MIT engineers built for a recent mission to the moon. Of the AstroAnt rover that Ekblaw and her team developed for spacecraft assembly and external servicing, she explains: "What we want to do in the future is send hundreds or thousands that will crawl on the outside of space stations, maybe crawl on the outside of a lunar habitat, and do the inspections that would be really risky for humans to do."

Researchers at MIT have sent three payloads into space, including the AstroAnt, a small robotic device developed to help monitor spaceship conditions, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. The AstroAnt rover is about the size of a “Hot Wheels” toy car and can measure a lunar rover’s temperature and communicate via a wireless Bluetooth connection. “MIT researchers envision that swarms of AstroAnts could be used to perform various tasks in space,” Chang explains. 

Orlando Sentinel reporter Richard Tribou spotlights the AstroAnt, a small robotic device developed by MIT researchers to monitor spaceship conditions during lunar missions. The device can wheel around the roof of a lunar rover “to take temperature readings and monitor its operation.”  

MIT researchers developed a small robotic rover called the AstroAnt and a depth-mapping camera for use in monitoring spaceship conditions during space missions, reports Richard Luscombe for The Guardian. The AstroAnt is designed to “eventually assist in diagnostic and repair tasks for spacecraft during lunar missions,” explains Luscombe.

Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray spotlights how MIT researchers developed a thumb-sized rover and a depth-mapping camera, technologies that will be used on a mission to the south pole of the Moon. The mini rover, dubbed AstroAnt, could one day be used to “patrol the exteriors of lunar probes, satellites, or space stations. Some might use cameras to spot meteorite damage, while others could apply sealants to prevent air or fuel leaks.”

Prof. Richard Binzel speaks with Salon reporter Matthew Rosza about his work creating the Torino Impact Hazard Scale, which measures the threat posed by space rocks. Previous measurements expressed “themselves in different ways, and that could be very confusing to the public,” says Binzel. “This was the motivation for finding a common communication system, a common scale that we could put into context any newly discovered object.” 

USA Today reporter Eric Lagatta spotlights how MIT engineers and scientists are sending three payloads into space, on a course set for the Moon’s south polar region. The payload includes a mini, thumb-sized rover dubbed “AstroAnt” that the MIT researchers designed to help monitor the larger space vehicle. “AstroAnt is designed to inspect external surfaces of spacecraft, and will also collect thermal data and measurements while the rover explores,” writes Lagatta. 

Graduate student Palak Patel speaks with BBC News reporter Chris Baraniuk about her work designing an “experimental molten regolith electrolysis system, for extracting oxygen and metal from the lunar soil.” Palak explains: “We’re really looking at it from the standpoint of, ‘Let’s try to minimize the number of resupply missions.’” 

Graduate student Samantha Hasler and her colleagues have gathered new information on Uranus using the Hubble Space Telescope and the New Horizons spacecraft, reports Jamie Carter for Forbes.  "Studying how known benchmarks like Uranus appear in distant imaging can help us have more robust expectations when preparing” for future missions, explains Hasler. 

Researchers at MIT have developed a “set of wearable robotic limbs to help astronauts recover from falls,” reports Amy Gunia for CNN. “The so-called ‘SuperLimbs’ are designed to extend from a backpack containing the astronauts’ life support system,” explains Gunia. “When the wearer falls over, an extra pair of limbs can extend out to provide leverage to help them stand, conserving energy for other tasks.”

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found a connection between “the bursts and tidal disruptions events” of black holes, research that could help "astrophysicists understand the extreme environments around supermassive black holes, as well as the occupants of those environments,” reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo. “There had been feverish speculation that these phenomena were connected, and now we’ve discovered the proof that they are,” says Research Scientist Dheeraj Pasham. “It’s like getting a cosmic two-for-one in terms of solving mysteries.” 

Researchers at MIT have developed “AstroAnts,” autonomous, magnetic, robotic rovers roughly the size of a Hot Wheels toy car designed to monitor space vehicles and other hard-to-reach machinery, reports Jesus Diaz for Fast Company. “The idea is that, by constantly watching over the temperature and structural integrity of their cosmic rides, spaceships will be more resilient to the extreme conditions of space and astronauts will be safer,” explains Diaz.

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered an exoplanet that “is 50% larger than Jupiter and as fluffy as cotton candy,” reports Aylin Woodward for The Wall Street Journal. “Basically, for over 15 years now, the astronomy community has been puzzled by a category of gas giants that are bigger than what they should be given their mass,” explains Prof. Julien de Wit.