Elon Musk has sent a lot of “stuff” up in space over the past few years. However, eventually, it is the intention to do this with humans and other living organisms. Unfortunately, there have been some anomalies with electric equipment on previous space missions. These anomalies were caused by radiation and there is not a lot of information about it. However, the National Central University of Taiwan, has successfully launched a Deep Space Radiation probe to start measuring the radiation. Keep on reading to discover more about it.
It’s the nation’s first payload to leave low Earth orbit
On January 16th the National Central University (NCU) successfully launched its first lunar mission. They launched a Deep Space Radiation Probe, which is supposed to land on the moon in 4 months. The Probe was sent to the moon aboard ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 2 lander via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. However, the probe itself is the first domestically made payload to leave low Earth orbit, which is 2000 meters. To celebrate this, the people of the NCU who developed the probe put the emblem of the school and the quote “Made in Taiwan” on the corner.
The Lunar Lander, which has the probe, is expected to land on the moon in 4 months, however, the probe will already start it’s operations just 36 hours after launch!
Taiwan’s domestically built probe is going to be used to measure radiation
The probe itself is quite unique as it only weighs 399 grams, but it is not fragile at all. The DSRP should be able to handle up to 33 times its own weight. It is also designed to be able to operate in extremely radiated conditions of up to 10 kids. The intention of the Deep Space Radiation Probe is to measure the radiation dose between the Earth and the moon. However, it will also check the radiation of the lunar surface.
It’s important to get a better understanding of what is happening since there have been technical anomalies of the electronic equipment in space, which the radiation caused.