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 473: DOWNLINK--Rocket Lab's EscaPADE Team Aug 21, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- First polar-orbiting crewed mission announced (spacenews.com) (arstechnica.com)

Short & Sweet

-- New solid rocket game in town (breakingdefense.com) (spacenews.com)

-- Spaceport Rundown (flyingmag.com) (europeanspaceflight.com) (cnbc.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

-- From Espen Urkedal via email: Raptor 3 is not as incomplete as it looks (twitter.com/gwynne_shotwell)

Interview -- Rocket Lab’s Cristophe Mandy and Sarah Blyde

-- There’s also a brief appearance by Lane Cook, Senior Program Manager

-- Thank you so much to the Rocket Lab team for making their time and facility available to us!

-- rocketlabusa.com

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- 24 Aug, 1958: The failed launch of Explorer 5 (en.wikipedia.org) (PDF: nasa.gov)

-- Next week (8/27 - 9/2) in 1985: Big Astronaut, Little Astronaut

Episode 472: Megadebris Aug 14, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- Megadebris? (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (slingshot.space)

Short & Sweet

-- NEOWISE ends operations (space.com) (spaceflightnow.com)

-- Starliner still stuck at Station (spaceflightnow)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

-- From Upcoming Spaceflight Events:

-- JUICE Earth flyby #1 on Aug 19/20 (esa.int)

-- Online FAA meeting RE: Starship launch cadence on Aug 20 (faa.gov)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- August 15, 1969: Creation of ISRO (en.wikipedia.org) (britannica.com)

-- Next week (8/20 - 8/26) in 1958: Catching a second wind

Episode 471: Rubber Baby Whipple Bumper Aug 07, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- ADRAS-J rendezvous (HT Zach: twitter.com/CRD2_JAXA) (astroscale.com) (PDF: astroscale.com VIA astroscale.com)

Short & Sweet

-- POLARIS spaceplane startup back on track (europeanspaceflight.com)

-- Dawn does docking (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

-- From the intro: JWST looks at Epsilon Indi A (nasaspaceflight.com)

-- Ryan R: TEA-TEB is a pre-mixed fluid (discord.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- 10 Aug, 1992. Launch of the first major oceanographic research satellite, TOPEX/Poseidon (en.wikipedia.org) (jpl.nasa.gov) (eoportal.org) (aviso.altimetry.fr)

-- T/P data is used in this sea level rise dashboard (climate.nasa.gov)

-- Next week (8/13 - 8/19) in 1969: This agency is ro-bust

Episode 470: DOWNLINK--Martin Frederick Jul 31, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- Falcon 9 Return to Flight (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

-- ABL Static fire failure (spacenews.com)

-- Starliner Debugging (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

-- The RAX bug was caused by differing clocks (youtube.com)

Interview -- Martin Frederick, Northrop Grumman Corporate Director, Civil Space Programs

-- linkedin.com

-- Further reading:

-- JWST (northropgrumman.com)

-- TRMM (gpm.nasa.gov) (trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- July 31, 1992: Launch of Atlantis on STS-46 (en.wikipedia.org) (americaspace.com)

-- EURECA was also the subject of a TWSF about STS-57 (theorbitalmechanics.com)

-- TSS-1 was also the subject of a TWSF about STS-75 (theorbitalmechanics.com)

-- Next week (8/6 - 8/12) in 1992: The zeroth argonaut.

Episode 469: Runk Jul 24, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- NASA nixes VIPER (spacenews.com) (newscientist.com)

European Short & Sweet

-- Ariane 6 may carry crew (europeanspaceflight.com)

-- Europe announces RAMSES mission to Apophis (arstechnica.com) (esa.int)

-- Themis gets delayed (europeanspaceflight.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- 29 Jul, 1999. Deep Space 1, NASA’s first S/C with ion propulsion, flies by asteroid 9969 Braille (en.wikipedia.org)

-- We interviewed DS-1’s chief mission engineer and deputy mission manager Marc Rayman in Episode 75 (theorbitalmechanics.com)

-- Ron Garret discussed the RAX bug in his talk The Remote Agent Experiment (youtube.com)

-- Next week (7/30 - 8/5) in 1992: We’ll hang on to this one, and come back for that one later

Episode 468: Upper Stage Downer Jul 17, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- Falcon 9 Failure (spacenews.com) (spaceflightnow.com)

-- Ariane 6 anomaly (europeanspaceflight.com) (spaceflightnow.com)

-- Hyperbola-1 mishap (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

-- Europa Clipper faces last-minute obstacle (space.com)

-- Dawn gets green light for spaceplane tests (spacenews.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- 17 July, 1977. First launch of a complete TKS spacecraft (en.wikipedia.org) (russianspaceweb.com) (nasa.gov)

-- Next week (7/23 - 7/29) in 1999: Is that a grid of dots on that asteroid?

Episode 467: DOWNLINK--MSI-DFAT Jul 10, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- Luch (Olymp) 2 “caught” snooping (sattrackcam.blogspot.com) (sattrackcam.blogspot.com) (russianspaceweb.com) (thespacereview.com)

Short & Sweet

-- The Poles make it to space! (europeanspaceflight.com)

-- ISRO announces major size increase to Indian space station (x.com/ISROSpaceflight)

Interview -- MSI-DFAT

-- We talked to:

-- Alex Carrella, VP Strategy & Growth

-- Bradley Hope, Business Manager

-- Max Myers, Systems Engineer/Lead Rigger

-- Before DFAT (and RFAT), we had feet. (youtube.com)

-- msidfat.com

-- linktr.ee/msidfat

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- July 12, 2001. Launch of Artemis GEO satellite (en.wikipedia.org) (esa.int) (PDF: esa.int)

-- Next week (7/16 - 7/22) in 1977: One month now, 312 months later

Episode 466: All Aboard? Jul 03, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- The Vulcan train is leaving the station (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

-- Starliner’s extended-er ISS stay (spacenews.com)

-- A not-so-static test fire (spacenews.com)

-- Resurs P1 breaks up (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

-- From the intro: (americaspace.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- 8 July, 1994. Launch of STS-65 (en.wikipedia.org)

-- Next week (7/9 - 7/15) in 2001: Spiraling into control

Episode 465: Reflown Don Jun 26, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- Long March 10 hot firing (spacenews.com) (weixin.qq.com) (youtube.com) (spacenews.com)

-- Latest taikonaut class selected (space.com)

Short & Sweet

-- ESA gets involved in Vega C’s transfer (europeanspaceflight.com)

-- Ariane 6 gets dressed (spacenews.com)

-- Starliner’s extended ISS stay (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- Next week (7/1 - 7/8) in 1994: From rocket to lab

Episode 464: Starliner Seep Jun 19, 2024

Show notes

Spaceflight News

-- Starliner OFT (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com) (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (HT deltaV: twitter.com/cbs_spacenews) (twitter.com/SciGuySpace)

-- Suni Williams gave a tour on orbit (HT Dennis O: youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

-- Chinese space plane proximity ops (sattrackcam.blogspot.com)

-- NASA selects companies to explore Mars Sample Return methods (nasa.gov) (spacenews.com)

-- VOYAGER’S BACK!!! (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

-- From the intro: ISS replicates War of the Worlds radio drama (space.com) (twitter.com/airplaneian)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- 24 Jun, 1982. Soyuz T-6 carries Jean-Loup Chrétien, the first Frenchman, to Salyut 7 (en.wikipedia.org) (spacefacts.de)

-- Next week (6/25 - 7/1) in 1983: Six seconds calls for vodka

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