The Orbital Mechanics Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Spaceflight News

-- Starliner crew to return on Dragon (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

-- EscaPADE arrives in Florida (spacenews.com)

-- SLS gets bumped up a block (spacenews)

-- RFA first stage lost in test-firing anomaly (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com) (europeanspaceflight.com) (youtu.be)

This Week in Spaceflight History

-- 27 Aug, 1985. Launch of STS-51-I (PDF: nasa.gov) (youtube.com) (forum.nasaspaceflight.com) (historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov) (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov) (wikiarchives.space) (en.wikipedia.org)

-- Next week (9/3 - 9/9) in 1988: Shouldn’t have had that last cup of coffee

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

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

Spaceflight News

— Starship prep, Falcon repairs (nasaspaceflight.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (spaceexplored.com)

Short & Sweet

— Intelsat loses control of satellite (satellitetoday.com)

— Starship HLS demo will keep it simple (spacenews.com)

— Starliner CFT delay (spacenews.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— Sept 3, 2002: Discovery of Earth-orbiting asteroid J002E3 (en.wikipedia.org) (adsabs.harvard.edu) (spaceref.com)  (PDF: ibiblio.org)

— Next week (9/6 - 9/12) in 1982: Second of three outcomes: shot before leaving Independence, successfully forded the river, died of dysentery.

Spaceflight News

— Artemis III landing site candidates released (nasa.gov) (spacenews.com)

— Artemis I rolled out August 16 (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Russian spacewalk cut short (nasaspaceflight.com) (cnet.com)

Short & Sweet

— Northrop Grumman to start astronaut training program (northropgrumman.com)

— Starship gets commercial satellite customer (spacenews.com)

— Spaceplane buddies (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Correction Burns

— Masten bankruptcy bids… whole or piecemeal? (spacenews.com)

— Espen Urkedal via email: SLS FTS batteries?

Interview - Chris Carella, Benchmark Space Systems and Mahadevan Krishnan, AASC

— benchmarkspacesystems.com

— aasc.space

This Week in Spaceflight History

— 29th August 2001, Maiden launch of H-IIA (en.wikipedia.org) (PDF: mhi.com) 

— Two payloads were onboard: VEP-2 and LRE (space.skyrocket.de) (astronautix.com)

— Next week (8/30 - 9/5) in 2002. That’s no moon. That’s some of Huntington Beach’s finest work.

Spaceflight News

— Artemis I lookahead (planetary.org) (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Starlink hits bad weather (spacenews.com)

— Antares gets a domestic upgrade (spacenews.com) (space.com)

— SSLV falls short (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: a bid for Masten Space’s assets (parabolicarc.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

—  21 Aug, 1993. Communication with Mars Observer lost (en.wikipedia.org) (web.archive.org) (msss.com) (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov) (PDF: spacese.spacegrant.org)

— Next week (8/23 - 8/29) in 2001: When east meets west, it’s a good thing.

Spaceflight News

— Rocket 3 is dead, long live Rocket 4 (astra.com) (spacenews.com) (astra.com)

Short & Sweet

— Russian Satellite might be Snooping In Orbit (space.com)

— Russia remains on Station (spacenews.com)

— Possible Secret Chinese spaceplane (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— From the intro: Real Engineering visited Spin Launch (HT Espen: youtube.com)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— Aug 14, 1959. Explorer 6 takes first image from Earth orbit (twitter.com/NASAhistory) (nasa.gov) (youtube.com)

— Next week (8/16 - 8/22) in 1993: Missing top

Spaceflight News

— Helicopters join Mars Sample Return (cnet.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (spacenews.com) (nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— Eutelsat/OneWeb merger (spacenews.com)

— Masten Space Files for Bankruptcy (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/jeff_foust)

— OSIRIS-REx shows asteroids surfaces age quickly (nasaspaceflight.com)

— SLS for Artemis, SLS for commercial launches (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— From the intro: a pair of reentries

— CZ-5B (twitter.com/W0lverineupdate) (vxtwitter.com/KadekDwiArista) (twitter.com/Drizzle78878087)

— Dragon (twitter.com/MarcusHouse)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— August 2, 1993: Titan IV loss of vehicle on ascent (en.wikipedia.org) (thespacereview.com) (spaceline.org)

— Pratt and Whitney had a list of known problems with grain restrictor (PDF: gobluechase.files.wordpress.com)

— Next week (8/9 - 8/15) in 1959. Partial power picture.

Spaceflight News

— Wentian launched (nasaspaceflight.com)

— An array of new research facilities is onboard (twitter.com/CNSpaceflight)

— CZ-5B may experience an uncontrolled reentry (twitter.com/TheSpaceGal)

Short & Sweet

— Impulse and Relativity announce joint mission to Mars (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Nancy Grace has a ride to space (spacenews.com)

— First private company to launch from French Guiana (isaraerospace.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— Gopal via Discord: BE-4 reuse plans (discordapp.com) (twitter.com)

— Unc' Willy via Discord: Titan II bwooop (discordapp.com) (youtu.be)

Interview – R. Matt Villarreal, Founder and CEO of Infinite Composites

— infinitecomposites.com

— twitter.com/infinite_c_t

— twitter.com/mattvillarreal 

— linkedin.com/company/infinite-composites 

— linkedin.com/in/rmattvillarreal

— instagram.com/infinitecomposites

— facebook.com/infinitecomposites

This Week in Spaceflight History

— July 28 1961: NASA invitation to bids for Apollo prime contract (astronautix.com) (PDF HT Mike Stewart: ia800308.us.archive.org VIA archive.org)

— Ep 220 featured the LEM contract (thanks The Greek!) (theorbitalmechanics.com)

— Next week (8/2 - 8/8) in 1993: Space is dangerous, and another word for space is gap.

Spaceflight News

— ABL static fire (spacenews.com)

— Rocket Factory Augsburg static fire (rfa.space)

— Superheavy FOOMPF (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com)

— Post-fire images/video show apparent sheet metal blow-outs (twitter.com/NASASpaceflight)

— New, possibly replacement, engines arrived at the pad (twitter.com/NicAnsuini)

— Going forward, SPX won’t be doing simultaneous spin-starts (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Ariane 6 ground support equipment (esa.int) (spacedaily.com)

Short & Sweet

— New robotic arm for ISS (spacenews.com)

— Rogozin moves on (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (meduza.io)

— CAPSTONE completes second TCM (advancedspace.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

— Dennis: Parmitano’s leak was caused by tap water (youtube.com)

— From the intro: JWST beauty shots (flickr.com) (PDF HT MMC: stsci.edu) (HT MMC: youtube.com/jwstobserver)

This Week in Spaceflight History

— 24 July, 1992. Launch of the Geotail spacecraft (PDF: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com VIA ​​wiley.com) (jaxa.jp) (eoportal.org)

— The unusual HEO orbit used is viewable on SatelliteXplorer (HT SciKyle: geoxc-apps.bd.esri.com)

— Next week (7/26 - 8/1) in 1961: Twelve Prime