March 27, 2023

Good Morning,

Enjoy these interesting stories from the scientific community.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Scientists discover building blocks of RNA in asteroid sample

Scientists have discovered some of the building blocks of life in samples recovered from the Ryugu asteroid. The discovery lends credence to the idea that many of the important chemicals that formed life on Earth came from outer space, researchers say.

The sample was collected by the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft in 2018 and returned to Earth in 2020.

The samples are the oldest scientists have been able to study in a lab, as they predate the full formation of Earth and offer clues into the kinds of chemicals that were being seeded onto the planet in its primordial phase.

An initial examination of the sample revealed that it contained organic matter, including racemic amino acids, one of the building blocks of ribonucleic acid or RNA. The initial analysis also revealed the presence of other organic compounds including, alkylamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrogen heterocyclic, and carboxylic acids.

Further research, lead by Yasuhiro Oba of Japan's Hokkaido University, and published in the scientific journal Nature, uncovered uracil and nicotinic acid. The discovery of uracil is significant because it is key nucleases in RNA.

"The present study suggests that such molecules of pre-biotic interest commonly formed in carbonaceous asteroids including Ryugu and were delivered to the early Earth," researchers said in the study.

A difference in uracil concentration levels between samples is likely due to exposure to cosmic rays, the researchers said.

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Relativity Space's 3D-printed rocket launches, fails to reach orbit

Relativity Space launched the world's first 3D-printed rocket Wednesday night following two previous launch aborts this month. Despite the successful launch, the rocket failed to reach orbit after suffering an engine problem.

The rocket Terran 1 blasted off from Launch Complex-16 at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:25 p.m. EDT, but experienced a problem several minutes into the flight with its upper stage, which is designed to ignite separate engines to boost it into orbit.

"Today's launch proved Relativity's 3D-printed rocket technologies that will enable our next vehicle, Terran R," Relativity Space tweeted shortly after the test flight.

"We successfully made it through Max-Q, the highest stress state on our printed structures. This is the biggest proof point for our novel additive manufacturing approach," the company added.

"Today is a huge win, with many historic firsts. We also progressed through Main Engine Cutoff and Stage Separation. We will assess flight data and provide public updates over the coming days."

The tweet ended with the hashtag #GoodLuckHadFun, which was the company's nickname for the test flight.

The two-stage Terran 1 rocket is a 110-foot-tall launcher designed to carry more than a ton of cargo into low Earth orbit. The Terran 1 will target the commercial launch market for small to mid-size satellites, but did not carry any satellites when it launched Wednesday.

"There are a number of firsts here potentially on this rocket," Josh Brost, vice president of revenue operations at Relativity Space, said before the launch. "It has the chance of being the first liquid natural gas/liquid oxygen rocket to make it to orbit."

"It has, by far, the highest 3D-printed content of any rocket in history. We're sitting at about 85% by mass, where I don't think any other rocket has gone past maybe 4%," Brost added.

Wednesday's launch was the rocket's third attempt for the aerospace startup, which is headquartered in Long Beach, Calif. Launches were called off March 8 and on March 11 after a series of aborts were triggered during the countdowns, just seconds before liftoff.

Relativity Space said the first abort was related to a "corner case in the state separation automation" that "properly aborted" within a second of liftoff.

After pushing the launch to the edge of the three-hour launch window, an automated abort triggered around T-45 seconds because fuel pressure for the rocket's second stage was low.

"The team went HARD today and we intend to do so during our next attempt," Relativity Space said March 11.

The first scheduled liftoff was postponed three days earlier after the launch system automatically aborted during countdown twice because of fuel temperature issues, pushing the launch beyond its liftoff window.

Work to prepare for Wednesday's successful Terran 1 launch involved a number of "software redline tweaks" to resolve preset limits that were tripped and automatically aborted the first two liftoffs, according to Tim Ellis, co-founder and chief executive officer of Relativity Space.

"No new company has ever had their liquid rocket make it to space on their first attempt," Brost said before the company attempted its third launch.

"So if everything goes incredibly well, and we achieve orbit on our first launch Wednesday, that would be a remarkable milestone for us, which we would be, over the moon excited about."

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