The Orbital Mechanics Podcast

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Natural Sciences
**The Orbital Mechanics Podcast**

Every week we cover the latest spaceflight news, discuss past, current and future exploration efforts, and take a look at upcoming events. Tune in to hear about how humans get to space, how they stay in space and how unmanned craft reach farther and farther into the universe around us.

Latest Episodes:

Episode 393: Sequential Signal Loss Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— ABL failure analysis (HT Mike Stewart: twitter.com/ablspacesystems)

Short & Sweet

— NASA scales back ISS scientist program (spacenews.com)

— JUICE is ready for Jupiter (spacenews.com)

— Lucy’s Loose Limb (spacenews.com) (HT Brown Pau: blogs.nasa.gov)

— ClearSpace raises funds for its first mission (spacenews)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— From the intro: Vulcan delivered to the Cape (twitter.com/SpaceFlorida)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— Jan 24, 1985: Launch of STS-51-C (en.wikipedia.org) (satelliteobservation.net)

— Next week (1/31 - 2/6) in 1971: I re-read the specs, let’s give it another shot.

Episode 392: Virgin Suborbital Jan 18, 2023

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— Soyuz MS-22 rescue (spacenews.com) (russianspaceweb.com)

— Virgin Orbit failure (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (virginorbit.com)

— Virgin Galactic recently restructured their leadership (spacenews.com)

— Virgin Orbit is suffering financial woes (arstechnica.com)

— ABL RS1 failure (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (HT Sam: twitter.com/ablspacesystems) (HT Sam: twitter.com/shaggrugg) (twitter.com/Harry__Stranger)

Short & Sweet

— Soyuz-OneWeb hostage negotiations underway (russianspaceweb.com)

— JWST Killing It (spacenews.com) (HT DeltaV: twitter.com/jeff_foust)

— Starship approaches a launch date? (spacenews.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— January 22, 1968: Launch of Apollo 5 (en.wikipedia.org) (americaspace.com) (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov) (PDF HT Mike Stewart: ibiblio.org)

— Destin of Smarter Every Day interviewed a U.S. Space and Rocket Center Docent and Apollo engineer (youtube.com) (youtube.com)

— LEM study guides are a great resource for finding answers to systems questions. (ibiblio.org) (ibiblio.org)

— Next week (1/24 - 1/30) in 1985. From Lunar Orion to Listening Orion.

Episode 391: Galloping Gertie Jan 11, 2023

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— LunaH-Map struggles to enter lunar orbit (spacewatch.global) (PDF: static1.squarespace.com VIA busek.com) (PDF: digitalcommons.usu.edu)

— Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) enters lunar orbit (space.com)

— Hakuto-R M1 successfully completes second maneuver (spaceref.com) (ispace-inc.com VIA hobbyspace.com)

— Chandrayaan-3 fully integrated (indiatoday.in) (indiatimes.com)

Short & Sweet

— China to expand Wenchang spaceport (spacenews.com)

— Impulse Space has a mission (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— Dennis is reading Dragonfly by Bryan Burrough (bryanburrough.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— 14 Jan, 2009: Russian thruster firing shakes the ISS (spacenews.com) (space.com) (en.wikipedia.org) (nbcnews.com) (youtube.com)

— Next week (1/17 - 1/23) in 1968: Fire in the hole

Episode 390: Baby, It’s Coolant Outside Dec 21, 2022

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— MS-22 coolant leak (arstechnica.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (spaceflightnow.com)

Short & Sweet

— Lockheed Martin performs habitat burst test (cnet.com) (lockheedmartin.com) (youtube.com)

— Zhuque-2 fails to reach orbit (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— Chris Hofmann: Honeybee purchase (discord.com)

— Unc’ Willy and Csaba: Pyrophoric vs. hypergolic (discord.com) (discord.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— Dec 24, 1968. The Earthrise photograph was taken by Apollo 8 (en.wikipedia.org) (smithsonianmag.com) (nasa.gov) (thespaceaboveus.com)

— LM4 has an excellent archive of the radio recordings, with visuals! (youtube.com)

— A few weeks from now (1/10 - 1/16) in 2009: Tacoma Narrows at Mach 25

Episode 389: The Emperor's New Alpaca Dec 14, 2022

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— The finalists return - HLS2 (spacepolicyonline.com) (space.com) (spacepolicyonline.com)

Short & Sweet

— New Chinese rocket debuts with a sea launch (nasaspaceflight.com)

— dearMoon crew revealed (americaspace.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— December 15, 1970: Landing of Venera 7, first spacecraft to return data from another planet (en.wikipedia.org) (spaceflightinsider.com) (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov) (vpk.name)

— V7 was built on a 3MV bus (mentallandscape.com)

— Next week (12/20 - 12/26) in 1968: Just calm down.

Episode 388: NASA Cuts Carbs Dec 07, 2022

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— Artemis I Update

— RS-25 analysis (nasaspaceflight.com) (PDF: nasa.gov VIA twitter.com/sciencepolicia)

— Reached DRO halfway point on Nov 28 (spacenews.com)

— Departed DRO on Dec 2 (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Phantom Space Corp wins NASA launch task order (nasa.gov)

— Bluewalker-3 reaches full brightness on orbit (payloadspace.com) (iau.org)

— iROSA installation + power issue (nasaspaceflight.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— From the intro: ABL released a scrub summary (HT Sam: twitter.com/ablspacesystems)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— Dec 7, 2010. AKATSUKI fails to enter Venusian orbit (PDF: arxiv.org) (PDF: lpi.usra.edu) (planetary.org) (jaxa.jp)

— Next week (12/13 - 12/19) in 1970: That’s a long way to go to hard boil an egg

Episode 387: Big Bird and Friends Nov 30, 2022

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— Artemis I progress (americaspace.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (nasa.gov)

— NASA history report on Administrator James Webb released (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— China to test space-based solar power (spacenews.com)

— Canada to develop lunar rover for power generation (spacenews.com)

— ISRO tests Gaganyaan parachute system (isro.gov.in)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— Dec 5, 2014: The launch of EFT-1 (en.wikipedia.org) (americaspace.com) (youtube.com) (collectspace.com)

— The clue was taken from an interview with Sesame Street’s Elmo (youtube.com)

— Orion suffered more MMOD damage than models had predicted, resulting in changes to the vehicle for Artemis I (nasaspaceflight.com) (americaspace.com)

— Next week (12/6 - 12/12) in 2010. Feeling salty.

Episode 386: DOWNLINK--Margaret Weitekamp, Smithsonian National Air And Space Museum Nov 23, 2022

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— Artemis I Launch (nasaspaceflight.com) (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com) (planetary.org) (HT MCC: twitter.com/derekdotspace)

— SLS suffered slight hurricane damage prior to launch (spacenews.com)

— SLS still had LH2 leaks (nasaspaceflight.com) (HT deltaV: twitter.com/ZachSellinger)

— A bad ethernet switch took down range assets (HT deltaV: twitter.com/thesheetztweetz)

— Post-launch photo opportunities were limited (twitter.com/SciGuySpace) (twitter.com/wapodavenport)

— Artemis I Ride-alongs and little ‘uns (twitter.com/jeff_foust) (parabolicarc.com)

— CAPSTONE arrives at the Moon (spacenews.com)

— Orion completes TLI (spacenews.com) (youtu.be)

Short & Sweet

— Hermeus completes key test towards hypersonic aircraft (HT Czarified, Csaba: defenseone.com) (HT Czarified: youtube.com)

— Busy week of spacewalkin’ (space.com) (space.com) (space.com) (americaspace.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Japan formalizes its commitment (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— From the intro: Cygnus array jam photo (twitter.com/Space_Pete)

— Csaba: Real-time Artemis I tracker (nasa.gov) (eyes.nasa.gov)

— DeltaV: Rocket 4 Payload User’s guide (twitter.com/Astra)

Interview -- Margaret Weitekamp, Curator and Chair of the Space History department at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

— airandspace.si.edu

— twitter.com/mgtwspace

— facebook.com/margaret.weitekamp.12

— Buy the book: (amazon.com) (barnesandnoble.com) (smithsonianbooks.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— 27 Nov, 2012. The end of Falcon 9 Air’s development (flightglobal.com VIA 12ft.io) (en.wikipedia.org) (en.wikipedia.org)

— Orbital designed Pegasus II “Thunderbolt” as a replacement (space.com)

— Next week (11/29 - 12/5) in 2014: [Audio clue]

Episode 385: PSLV: Pumpkin Spice Latte Vehicle Nov 16, 2022

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— Cygnus Winged (spacenews.com) (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (spaceflightnow.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— X-37B returns to Earth after record-breaking 900+ days in orbit (spaceforce.mil)

— China changes plans for Long March 9 (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com)

— Artemis I gettin’ stormy (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— From the intro: LOFTID was successful (nasa.gov)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— Nov 17, 1967. Surveyor 6 does a brief flight from the lunar surface (nasa.gov) (PDF: sci-hub.se) (drewexmachina.com)

— Next week (11/22 - 11/29) in 2012: Jumping off a not-yet-dead Roc

Episode 384: Spaceplane, Spaceplane, Fire Nov 09, 2022

Show notes

Spaceflight News

— Rocket Lab’s Catch Me If You Can Wasn’t (parabolicarc.com) (businesswire.com) (theorbitalmechanics.com)

Short & Sweet

— Chinese Spaceplane Releases Object On-orbit (spacenews.com)

— Spaceplane Aurora Tested at Peenemünde (spacewatch.global)

— Fire Alarm Scrubs NG-18 Launch (nasaspaceflight.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— Practical Engineering’s look at Endeavor’s trip through LA (youtube.com)

— Vertical payload integration (youtube.com)

— Reflective Layer (youtube.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— November 11, 2013: Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer’s reentry (en.wikipedia.org) (articles.adsabs.harvard.edu) (spaceflight101.com)

— GOCE had sophisticated accelerometers (HT Colin: link.springer.com)

— Next week (11/15-11/21) in 1967: Actually, I thought it’d be right about this high at MECO.