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The Orbital Mechanics Podcast

Exploration

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.

Location:

United States

Description:

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.

Language:

English


Episodes
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Episode 483: 100 Abort Criteria

10/29/2024
Spaceflight News — Starship Flight 5 Review “Leaked” (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/elonmusk) (spacenews.com) (HT DennisO: x.com/StarshipGazer) Short & Sweet — Crew-8 post-landing medical issue (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (blogs.nasa.gov) — Companies to bring commercial launch to Ireland (europeanspaceflight.com) — ACS-3’s a little crooked (space.com) (blogs.nasa.gov) — Mars Sample Revision (spacenews.com) Questions, Comments, Corrections — From the intro: Aerojet 260 solid rocket test (en.wikipedia.org) This Week in Spaceflight History — 3 Nov, 1994. Launch of STS-66 (en.wikipedia.org) (PDF: nasa.gov) (nss.org) (youtu.be) — Next week (11/5 - 11/11) in 2004: A blind bowling ball

Duration:00:45:17

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Episode 482: Geostationary Explosive Orbit

10/22/2024
Thanks to Dennis O for naming this week’s episode! Spaceflight News — Intelsat 33e loses power and blows up (spacenews.com) (x.com/S4S_SDA) (reddit.com) Short & Sweet — Sirius Space hot fire (europeanspaceflight.com) — A Firefly to launch a Jackal (satellitetoday.com) Questions, Comments, Corrections — Ross Peterson: Super Heavy’s reentry heating — Taylor S Marks: ISS graveyard orbit (discord.com) This Week in Spaceflight History — 27 Oct, 1992. Launch of the Znamya 2 solar power antenna (en.wikipedia.org) (thespacereview.com) (qsl.net) (skypub.com VIA web.archive.org) — Next week (10/29 - 11/4) in 1994: holding the weight of LEO on your shoulders

Duration:00:54:30

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Episode 481: Deorbit Strategies

10/15/2024
Spaceflight News — Worries about ISS making a splash (spacenews.com) (PDF: nasa.gov) (spacenews.com) (space.com) Short & Sweet — X-37B to perform aerobraking maneuver (defenseone.com) — Rocket Lab wins Mars Sample Return concept award (spacenews.com) — Vast unveils details on Haven-1 (payloadspace.com) Questions, Comments, Corrections — From the intro: Starship Flight Test 5 (youtu.be) (nasaspaceflight.com) This Week in Spaceflight History — October 17, 1974: Founding of OTRAG (en.wikipedia.org) (youtube.com) (youtube.com) (bernd-leitenberger.de) — Next week (10/22 - 10/28) in 1992: To shreds, you say!

Duration:00:30:01

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Episode 480: Phenolic Burnthrough

10/8/2024
Spaceflight News -- Vulcan anomaly (spacenews.com) (youtube.com) (spaceflightnow.com) (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/dwisecinema) (spacenews.com) Short & Sweet -- Voyager 2 turns off science instrument (inverse.com) -- Super bright Qianfan satellites (spacenews.com) -- NASA reduces rate of ISS leak (spacenews.com) Questions, Comments, Corrections -- Unc’ Willy: Crossfield’s employer (discord.com) This Week in Spaceflight History -- 8 Oct, 2012: The launch of CRS-1 (en.wikipedia.org) (nasaspaceflight.com) -- Next week (10/15 - 10/21) in 1974: The original SpaceX

Duration:00:55:07

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Episode 479: VIPER Sting

10/1/2024
Spaceflight News -- VIPER opinions (spacenews.com) (sam.gov) Short & Sweet -- Chinese lunar spacesuit revealed (cgtn.com) (space.com) -- Upper stage anomaly grounds Falcon 9 (space.com) (spacenews.com) -- MaiaSpace moves in (spacenews) This Week in Spaceflight History -- 2 Oct, 1921. Birth of Scott Crossfield (en.wikipedia.org) (PDF: govinfo.gov) (magazine.washington.edu) -- Next week (10/8 - 10/14) in 2012: A boxy box delivery

Duration:00:43:05

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Episode 478: ISRO Audit

9/24/2024
Spaceflight News -- ISRO rising (spacenews.com) Short & Sweet -- Iran successfully launches research satellite (almayadeen.net) -- Ariane 6 software fix (spacenews.com) -- Yutu 2 turns six (space.com) Questions, Comments, Corrections -- From the intro: Sirius Space will launch from Australia (europeanspaceflight.com) This Week in Spaceflight History -- Launch of Shenzhou 7 (神舟七号) (en.wikipedia.org) (PDF: nescacademy.nasa.gov) (youtube.com) (youtube.com) -- Next week (10/1 - 10/7) in 1921: Flying with Michael Burnham

Duration:00:35:37

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Episode 477: Land Ahoy

9/17/2024
Spaceflight News -- Landspace lands (spacenews.com) (youtube.com) Short & Sweet -- New Glenn to attempt landing (HT Chris Radcliff: https://twitter.com/davill) -- Chang’e-6 extended mission (spacenews.com) Questions, Comments, Corrections -- From the intro: Polaris Dawn spacewalk (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (youtube.com) This Week in Spaceflight History -- 22 Sep, 2006. Launch of Hinode (日の出) (nasa.gov) (eoportal.org) (esa.int) (en.wikipedia.org) -- Next week (9/24 - 9/30) in 2008: And then there were three

Duration:00:29:54

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Episode 476: Qrbital MeQaniQs

9/10/2024
Spaceflight News -- BepiColombo insertion delayed (europeanspaceflight.com) (spacenews.com) (youtube.com) (esa.int) Short & Sweet -- EscaPADE DelAYED (spacenews.com) -- Starliner Returned (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) -- Vega’s final launch (satellitetoday.com) Questions, Comments, Corrections -- From the intro: Blue Origin’s new drone ship (HT DennisO: https://x.com/_mgde_) (space.com) -- Haragopal: Europa Clipper’s flying on Falcon Heavy, not New Glenn (discord.com) This Week in Spaceflight History -- 10 Sept, 2009: The launch of HTV-1 (en.wikipedia.org) (humans-in-space.jaxa.jp) (PDF: nasa.gov) -- Next week (9/17 - 9/23) in 2006: Flying to where the Sun never rises

Duration:00:46:12

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Episode 475: Falcon Crunch

9/3/2024
Spaceflight News -- B1062 lost (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (youtube.com) (HT ArcadeEngineer: twitter.com) Short & Sweet -- Intuitive Machines selected for lunar South Pole mission (spacenews.com) -- Stoke Space wins contract to prototype cargo delivery (satellitetoday.com) (stokespace.com) -- Starliner wob wob (spacenews.com) (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com) (blogs.nasa.gov) Questions, Comments, Corrections -- From the intro: Europa Clipper (planetary.org) This Week in Spaceflight History -- 6 Sept, 1988: The troublesome landing of Soyuz TM-5 (russianspaceweb.com) (en.wikipedia.org) -- Next week (9/10 - 9/16) in 2009: Stork with a smile

Duration:00:31:41

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Episode 474: Another Six Months

8/27/2024
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

Duration:00:52:38

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Episode 473: DOWNLINK--Rocket Lab's EscaPADE Team

8/20/2024
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

Duration:01:14:13

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Episode 472: Megadebris

8/13/2024
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

Duration:00:31:29

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Episode 471: Rubber Baby Whipple Bumper

8/6/2024
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

Duration:00:38:32

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Episode 470: DOWNLINK--Martin Frederick

7/30/2024
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.

Duration:01:24:25

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Episode 469: Runk

7/23/2024
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

Duration:00:53:18

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Episode 468: Upper Stage Downer

7/16/2024
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?

Duration:00:33:31

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Episode 467: DOWNLINK--MSI-DFAT

7/9/2024
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

Duration:01:26:10

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Episode 466: All Aboard?

7/2/2024
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

Duration:00:32:46

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Episode 465: Reflown Don

6/25/2024
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

Duration:00:25:19

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Episode 464: Starliner Seep

6/18/2024
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

Duration:00:42:38