The Orbital Mechanics Podcast (David Fourman, Ben Etherington, and Dennis Just)

This week in SF history

— September 18–19, 1980, Damascus Missile Disaster (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— BFR announcement (youtube.com)

— dearmoon.earth

Short & Sweet

— PD Aerospace announces a new spaceplane with “hybrid” engine. (japantimes.co.jp)

— Orion parachute test is a success. (parabolicarc.com)

— Delta II has launched for the last time. (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 29 September 1945: Von Braun arrives in the US (apesinspace.co)(wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— MINERVA-2 touches down on Asteroid Ryugu (nasaspaceflight.com) (twitter.com/haya2e_jaxa)

— Hayabusa cat tribute (youtube.com)

— Approach GIF (twitter.com/tariqjmalik)

— Diagram of interior rotating mass (spaceflight101.com)

— TESS gets to work (nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceX and Boeing say they both meet NASA crew safety requirements. (spacenews.com)

— Crewed missions to Mars face significant radiation hazard (newatlas.com)

— HTV launches with return capsule (spaceflightnow.com)

— GEM 63 has its first test fire. (spaceflightinsider.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Ben Hallert via email

— Older ICBMs weren’t hypergols

— 9M rockets should be able to move by sea no problem

— /u/Nerobro: COP, COL, COM (reddit.com/r/orbitalpodcast)

This week in SF history

— 7 September 1958 First flight of Black Knight (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Vector patents propylene engine (arstechnica.com)

— Fuel stats (yarchive.net)

Short & Sweet

— ULA selects the BE-4 for Vulcan first stage (spaceflightinsider.com)

— Stratolaunch releases some info about its new engine (spacenews.com)

— SpaceX will send another company’s robots to the Moon in 2021 (futurism.com)

Data Relay: Power Generation with Chris Bush

— Solar Power

— Cubesat panels can be found for ~$650 per W (cubesatshop.com)

— GOES accounts for solar pressure/atmospheric drag (PDF, site down at time of publishing: gsfc.nasa.gov)

— ISS array degrads ~0.5% a year in capacity (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Solar arrays take radiation damage in multiple modes(spenvis.oma.be)

— Solar Power for Outer Planets Study (PDF: lpi.usra.edu)

— Paper on solar power for inner planets (nasa.gov)

— MESSENGER added mirrors to it’s solar array (spacedaily.com)

— Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG)

— They’re expensive (inldigitallibrary.inl.gov)

— Oak Ridge National Laboratory produced Pu-238 in 2015 (ornl.gov)

— Nuclear Fission

— SAFE-400 (sci-hub.tw)

— Kilopower (PDF: nasa.gov) (youtube.com)

— Four part blog post on the history and future of kilopower (beyondnerva.wordpress.com)

— Power for surface missions

— Example 500 day mars mission (researchgate.net)

— Books Referenced

— Hyder, A. K. (2003). Spacecraft power technologies. London: Imperial College Press.

— Patel, M. R. (2005). Spacecraft Power Systems. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

This week in SF history

— October 12, 1977, ALT-15, first flight of Shuttle without tail cone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approach_and_Landing_Tests)

Spaceflight news

— MASCOT successfully lands on Ryugu’s surface (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/mascot-landing-on-ryugu-successful.html)

— Wonderful images of

— Its shadow (planetary.s3.amazonaws.com)

— a 3-frame movie of its descent (planetary.org)

— a nice image of both the rover/hopper and its shadow (planetary.s3.amazonaws.com)

— a surface image showing it reflecting sunlight (planetary.s3.amazonaws.com)

— Orbit and operations website (haya2now.jp)

Short & Sweet

— Changes are being planned for SLS’ upper stage (spacenews.com)

— Commercial Crew test flights slip to next year (spaceflightnow.com

Questions, comments, corrections

— /u/nerobro clarifies pressure-fed vs autogenously pressurized tanks (reddit.com/r/orbitalpodcast)

Data Relay: Combustion Instability

— Thanks to Arin Cross for presenting this topic! (linkedin.com)

— Historical Perspective of Combustion Instability in Motors: Case Studies* (PDF reader: docslide.net)

— NASA Experience with Pogo in Human Spaceflight Vehicles (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Apollo 13 had issues with Pogo (youtu.be)

— Overview of Combustion Instabilities in Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engines (PDF: core.ac.uk)

— Comprehensive Review of Liquid-Propellant Combustion Instabilities in F-l Engines (PDF: gatech.edu)

— How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 “moon rocket” engine back to life (arstechnica.com)

— F-1 injector diagrams, and an example of different impinging injector setups (heroicrelics.org)

— Combustion Instabilities in Solid Propellant Rocket Motors (PDF: dtic.mil)

— Lessons Learned In Solid Rocket Combustion Instability (PDF: dtic.mil)

— Newspace examples

— SpaceShipOne “was a cranky, shuddering, shaking, vibrating motor” (dailymail.co.uk)

— SpaceShipTwo possibly suffered combustion instabilities due to the selection of HTPB (telegraph.co.uk)(aviationweek.com)

— Treatment of BE-4 suggests it’s had instability issues in the past (spaceflightnow.com)

— Rocketlab may be concerned about fuel sloshing (cosmosmagazine.com)

— Active damping systems may be viable in the future (PDF: princeton.edu)

This week in SF history

-- October 18, 1963, first flight of a cat (gizmodo.com) (youtu.be)

-- Véronique AG1 is a V-2 derivative with detachable fins (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

-- Soyuz MS-10 fails during second stage flight (nasaspaceflight.com)(youtube.com)

-- Primary cause: Soyuz-FG first stage separation failure (JPG: wikipedia.org) (spaceflightinsider.com)

-- “Lower part of first stage disintegrated” (http://tass.com/science/1025675)

-- D booster at fault (twitter.com/NASASpaceflight)

-- This is the second ever successful in-flight abort with crew. The previous was also a Soyuz (wikipedia.org)

-- ROSCOSMOS claims to have footage from a camera facing the boosters (twitter.com/NASASpaceflight)

-- Impact on other rockets

-- Arianespace considering impact on their Soyuz-STs (spacenews.com)

-- Commercial crew can’t be safely pushed faster (spacenews.com)

-- Hubble and Chandra are down!

-- Hubble (twitter.com/BadAstronomer) (nasa.gov)

-- Chandra (nasa.gov) (twitter.com/planet4589) (twitter.com/astrogrant)

Questions, comments, corrections

-- Arin Cross: Injector elements weren’t vibrating per se, it was the propellants inside

-- DR call for contributors

-- Email us at info@theorbitalmechanics.com and use the subject line “Data Relay Contributor”

Data Relay: Saturn V umbilicals

-- Thank you to Anderson da Nova for presenting this topic! (twitter.com/DaSupaNova)

-- Umbilicals are connected to the Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT) (JPG: wikipedia.org)

-- From bottom to top, the umbilicals are:

-- Aft Umbilical Carrier #1 - various pneumatic couplings, 8 electrical connectors and a 6" LOX connector

-- Aft Umbilical Carrier #2 - various pneumatic couplings, 8 electrical connectors and a 6" RP-1 connector

-- Aft Umbilical Carrier #3 - various pneumatic couplings, two 4" air conditioning couplings

-- S-IC Inter / "Aft" - LOX fill and drain, and GHe for POGO suppression

-- S-IC Fwd - GN2 air conditioning

-- S-II Aft - Human access

-- S-II Inter - LH2, LOX, vent line, pneumatic/electrical, air conditioning, and instrument cooling

-- S-II Fwd - GH2 vent, electrical/pneumatic interfaces

-- S-IV B Aft - LH2, LOX, electrical/pneumatic, and air conditioning

-- S-IV B Fwd - Split umbilical, serving S-IVB forward section (GH2, electrical and pneumatic) and IU section (air conditioning, GH2, electrical and pneumatic)

-- Service Module - Air Conditioning, vent line, coolant, and electrical/pneumatic interfaces

-- Command Module Access Arm - crew access

-- Bonus: a 360 degree, 25 ton crane (reddit.com/r/space)

-- Sliding Wire Escape System (youtube.com)

-- See also:

-- Apollo (SATURN V) launches in 60FPS HD w/ AUDIO (youtube.com)

-- Umbilical Arms for the Saturn V Vehicle (ieee.org)

-- Saturn V Flight Manual (PDF: nasa.gov)

-- Apollo/Saturn Mobile Launcher (savethelut.org)

-- Lots of diagrams in one place (apollosaturn.com)

-- LUT Engineering Camera Footage

-- Tail Service Mast (Umbilical Aft) (youtube.com)

-- Tail Service Mast (second angle) (youtube.com)

-- S-IC Aft (youtube.com)

-- S-II Inter (youtube.com)

-- S-II Inter (youtube.com)

-- S-II Fwd (youtube.com)

-- S-IVB Fwd (youtube.com)

-- S.M. (youtube.com)

-- S.M. and S-IVB Fwd (youtube.com)

-- Arms retracted during liftoff (JPG: wikipedia.org)

-- POGO oscillation (wikipedia.org)

-- Technical information summary (Leads to PDF: nasa.gov)

-- Saturn V Mechanical Ground Support Equipment (erau.edu)

-- Saturn V Launch Vehicle GSE Fact Booklet (PDF viewer: scribd.com)

-- Umbilical Systems: V-2 to Saturn V (PDF viewer: scribd.com)

-- NASA report: Response to ground wind excitation (PDF: nasa.gov)

-- Wind damper system (PDF: nasa.gov)

This week in SF history

— Oct. 26, 2004. Cassini’s first Titan flyby (nasa.gov)

Spaceflight news

— Soyuz update (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (HT: Sam Moore russianspaceweb.com)

Short & Sweet

— Hubble Space Telescope nears operational status (twitter.com/TodLauer)

— Paul Allen passes away. (spacenews.com)

— Rocket Lab has selected a U.S. launch site. (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Astra Space Rocket 2 licensed for launch soon (PDF: faa.gov)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Ben Hallert, via email: Soyuz LES isn’t needed later in ascent because of the airspeed of the vehicle

— Phoenix meetup Wednesday December 5th!

— Four Peaks on 8th street in Tempe

— Please RSVP if you’re interested in hanging out with us

This week in SF history

— October 24, 1957: Beginning of the Dyna-Soar program (wikipedia.org)(astronautix.com)

Spaceflight news

— Soyuz will resume crewed flight in December. (spaceflightnow.com)

Short & Sweet

— Hubble up and running. (nasa.gov)(spacenews.com)

— Landspace falls short of orbit. (spacenews.com)

— Kepler is in safe mode (spacenews.com)

— Post-recording note: Kepler has officially been retired. (twitter.com/NASAKepler)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Chris Hofmann via DM: Astra Rocket 1 *did* fly

— Data Relay contributor applications closed for now.

This week in SF history

— November 5, 2013: Launch of Mangalyaan (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Dawn’s dead (spacenews.com)

— We talked to mission manager Marc Rayman on episode 75 (theorbitalmechanics.com)

— MS-10 was failure caused by a bent pin (nasaspaceflight.com) (youtube.com)

— Scott Manley has slow-mo analysis (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

— OSIRIS-REx captures first view of Bennu. (astronomynow.com)

— Starman is now beyond Mars. (space.com)

This week in SF history

— November 14, 1933. The birth of Fred Wallace Haise Jr. (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Lucy passes key decision point C (americaspace.com)

— Project life cycle (PDF: nasa.gov)

— SpaceX will fly mini BFR ship as second stage for F9. (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Scott Manley did a great overview/speculation video (youtube.com)

Data Relay: NASA Mars InSight

— Thank you to Richard Durden for presenting this topic. (twitter.com/rkdurden)

— InSight press kit is very valuable (PDF: jpl.nasa.gov)

— Launch Press Kit (PDF: jpl.nasa.gov)

— Failure of a vacuum vessel on SEIS delayed Insight from the 2016 launch window to the 2018 launch window. (spaceflightnow.com) (space.com)

— MarCo-A and -B are nicknamed “Wall-E” and “Eva” by JPL Engineers (space.com)

— Has a parafin-actuated five finger grabber (space.com)

— Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) (springer.com)

This week in SF history

— November 21 1960: Mercury MR-1’s very short flight (youtube.com) (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— SLS program may be voluntarily ended. (businessinsider.com) (nextbigfuture.com)

— SpaceX will not be upgrading Falcon 9 second stage. (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/elonmusk)

Short & Sweet

— The FCC approves four large satellite constellations. (spacenews.com)

— Russia is looking into reusable rockets too. (parabolicarc.com)

— OSIRIS-REx unfurls its sampling arm for first time en route to Bennu (arstechnica.com)

This week in SF history

— 1 December 2000: Launch of STS-97 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Virgin Orbit completes captive carry test flight (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— Crew Dragon’s Test Flight Scheduled (spacenews.com)

— China Prepares for Lunar Lander (spacenews.com)

— A Glimpse Into SpaceX’ Spaceship Testing (spacenews.com)

— NASA picks a landing site for Mars 2020 Rover. (spaceflightnow.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Maximum Aerodynamic Pressure released by Tim Dodd (youtube.com)

Interview

— Richard Witherspoon, mission operations systems engineer, Lockheed Martin

— asteroidmission.org

— twitter.com/OSIRISREx

This week in SF history

— December 5, 2002, launch of TDRS-10 (wikipedia.org)

— Built on the Boeing 601 chassis (wikipedia.org)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Richard Witherspoon via email: TAGSAM separation plane

— Ben Hallert via email: Falcon Heavy and a handful of Falcon 9s have launched from 39A.

— Meetup! (twitter.com/orbitalpodcast)

— Wednesday the 5th, 6 pm at four peaks brewing company on 8th ave in Tempe.

This week in SF history

— December 12, 1965: Gemini 6A launch abort (wikipedia.org)

— AST: Why did Gemini use ejection seats? (youtube.com)

Spaceflight news

— Fun CRS-16 landing (spacenews.com)

— Video

— Land tracking (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Onboard (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— John Kraus took some great photos, particularly of recovery (johnkrausphotos.com)

— Core B1050 might be reused for an internal SpaceX mission (witter.com/elonmusk)

— B1050 r/SPX wiki tracking (reddit.com/r/spacex)

— Scott Manley analysis (youtube.com)(youtube.com)

— Starship/Super Heavy update

— Heavy changes enroute

— Demo Starship is being built now (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— No update during Dear Moon announcement due to big changes (twitter.com/Erdayastronaut)

— Unintuitive, metal design (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Images of demo Starship coming soon (twitter.com/elonmusk)

Short & Sweet

— OSIRIS-REx enters orbit around Bennu. (asteroidmission.org)

— Chang’e 4 launches successfully. (spacenews.com)

— Astra Space suffers a launch failure (spacenews.com)

— Mars InSight is looking good so far. (parabolicarc.com)

This week in SF history

— December 20 1999, STS-103, Hubble Servicing Mission 3A (wikipedia.org)(nasa.gov)

— Aft shroud latches damaged by high temperatures (spacetelescope.org)(nasa.gov)

— Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) (nasa.gov)

— Solid State Recorder (PDF: nasa.gov)

Spaceflight news

— SpaceShipTwo (spacenews.com) (twitter.com)

— Mark Stucky and C.J. Sturckow piloted the craft, and will get astronaut wings. (twitter.com/jackiewattles)

— Soyuz hole investigated on spacewalk (space.com) (youtube.com)

— Strela used to help climb down (wikipedia.org)

— Kononenko performed similar spacewalk in 2008 (nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— Chang’e-4 enters lunar orbit. (spacenews.com)

— RS-25 stand test aborted (twitter.com)

— OneWeb cuts its constellation by a third. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Andrew Levine via email: OSIRIS-REx “entering orbit” around Bennu

This week in SF history

— December 30, 1995, launch of Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (wikipedia.org) (nasa.gov)

Spaceflight news

— More Starship photos and tweets. (teslarati.com) (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Technical presentation promised (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Comparison to publicity photos (nasaspaceflight.com)

— New metallurgy (twitter.com/elonmusk) (twitter.com/elonmusk)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceX reveals first completed Crew Dragon spaceship. (teslarati.com)

— New Shepard is scrubbed until early 2019. (spaceflightnow.com)

— Dream Chaser passes Integrated Review 4 (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— /u/Bananas_on_Mars: Resin sample testing for cover-up glue! (reddit.com/r/orbitalpodcast)

— Show notes mailing list (eepurl.com)

— Space is Cool As Fk (ltpbooks.com)

This week in SF history

— 2 January 2004: Stardust flies past Wild 2 (wikipedia.org)

— Whipple shielding (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Chang’e 4 pre-landing summary (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceX on schedule for its first commercial interplanetary launch. (teslarati.com)

— India to launch its own astronauts. (indiatimes.com)

— Crewed Orion spacecraft passes critical design review. (nasaspaceflight.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Peter via email: cosmic background radiation is only in the microwave spectrum

This week in SF history

— 9 January 1990. Launch of STS-32 (wikipedia.org)

— Syncom IV-F5/Leasat 5 used a “Frisbee” deployment (youtu.be)

— LDEF, Long Duration Exposure Facility had a lot of experiments onboard (youtube.com)

Spaceflight news

— New Horizons rings in the new year! (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Preliminary science results (sci-news.com)

— OSIRIS-REx rings in the new year! (nasa.gov)

— M3A originally “bounced” the spacecraft orbital direction (PDF: nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— Demo-1 is imminent. (spaceflightinsider.com)

— Chang’e-4 landed successfully (spacenews.com)

— An Orbcomm satellite breaks up. (satnews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Chris Birke et all via slack: static friction doesn’t change with gravity

— Marian via Discord: The people behind the dust experiments on the recent SpaceShipTwo launch have a podcast! walkaboutthegalaxy.com

Data Relay: Sea Dragon

— Research report presented to NASA by Aerojet-General Corporation (PDF: neverworld.net)

— Excellent recent animation of a launch (youtube.com)

This week in SF history

— 19 Jan 2006: launch of New Horizons (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Further Hubble issues (universetoday.com)

— Other instruments, including ACS are working fine (PDF: arizona.edu)

Short & Sweet

— Hayabusa2 releases date for first sample collection. (space.com)

— Stratolaunch taxi test reaches 136 mph, almost takeoff speed. (geekwire.com)

— SpaceX’s DM-1 mission delayed. (spacenews.com)

— SpaceX to cut roughly 10 percent of its workforce. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Transcripts: get in touch if you’re interested in helping or have expertise to share.

This week in SF history

— 24 January, 1978. Kosmos 954 decayed over russia. (wikipedia.org)

— This was a Upravlyaemy Sputnik Aktivnyy (Управляемый Спутник Активный) “Controlled Active Satellite” (wikipedia.org)

— Wikipedia has a great list of nuclear reactors in space, including their fates (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Chang’e-4 enters Lunar night (spacenews.com) (cnn.com)

— Scott Manley made a landing footage analysis video (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

— Relativity Space gets a launch pad. (spaceflightnow.com)

— Stratolaunch scraps its launch vehicle program. (spacenews.com)

— ISRO aims to test reusable rocket technology this summer. (indiatimes.com)

Data Relay: Exotic Propulsion

— Thanks to Ben McPheron for researching and presenting this topic.

— twitter.com/bdmcpheron

— benjaminmcpheron.com

— youtube.com/DMExplains

— Ion drives (wikipedia.org)

— Electrostatic (theorbitalmechanics.com)

— Electrothermal (PDF: nap.edu)

— Electromagnetic (wikipedia.org)

— Photonic sails

— Proposed mission to use Sol as a gravitational lens (PDF via archive.org: spaceroutes.com)

— Related: Magnetic sail (onlinelibrary.wiley.com) (PDF: usra.edu)

— IKAROS (esa.int)

— Nuclear thermal engines

— Open Cycle (projectrho.com)

— Pulsed NTR (aiaa.org)

— Nuclear fusion (space.com)

— PuFF (Pulsed Fission-Fusion) (nasa.gov)

— Laser powered Ion Drive (nasa.gov)

— Mach Effect drive (nasa.gov)

This week in SF history

— January 31, 1961: Mercury MR-2 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Starship Hopper's nose cone knocked over by heavy winds. (brownsvilleherald.com)

Short & Sweet

— Commercial crew swaps an astronaut. (spacenews.com)

— Blue Origin is coming to Alabama. (spacenews.com)

— Hubble’s primary camera is back online.
(spaceflightnow.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— By-line mixup, Chris Bush vs Ben McPheron

Data Relay: Spacecraft Navigation

— Thanks to Ben McPheron for researching and presenting this topic

— twitter.com/bdmcpheron

— benjaminmcpheron.com

— youtube.com/DMExplains

— Three interrelated systems: Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) (wikipedia.org)

— Onboard sensors

— Even high quality sensors drift (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk) (youtube.com)

—Inertial sensors (IEEE)

— Gyroscopes (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk)

— Hubble used gas bearings (spacetelescope.org)

— Optical gyroscope (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk) (wikipedia.org) (PDF: nasa.gov)

— First optical gyroscope in space was the Rossi X-Ray timing Explorer spacecraft, launched in 1995 (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Sagnac Effect (youtube.com)

— Inertial measurement Units (wikipedia.org) (nasa.gov)

— Magnetometers measure the size and orientation of the magnetic field (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk)

— Eight different types in one particular source (engineersgarage.com)

— Orbital models (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk)

— Non inertial sensors for determining attitude

— Sun sensors (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk) (wikipedia.org)

— Solar Panels (youtube.com)

— Star Trackers/Star imagers (nasa.gov) (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk) (science.gov)

— Update rate on star trackers are generally 1-10 Hz, but can be up to 100 Hz at max (PDF: OSApublishing.org)

— Hubble’s Fine Guidance System (HubbleSite.org)

— Apollo ‘Person In Loop’ Star Tracking (NASA.gov) (Astronomy.com) (youtube.com)

— Lovell had to work hard due to the field of debris around his vehicle (wikipedia.org)

— Shuttle had one too, located forward and left of commander’s window (NASA.gov)

— RADAR/LIDAR (NASA.gov)

— Used in Apollo, specifically for lunar landing (NASA.gov)

— Offboard sensors

— RF beacons can be used as reference (PDF: orbit.dtu.dk) (wikipedia.org)

— DSN Precise One Way Metric Tracking (PDF: jpl.nasa.gov)

— Single-sample accuracy up to 0.05 mm/s and 3 m (scientificamerican.com) (PDF: researchgate.net)

— NASA would like to update this to use laser communications (PDF: nasa.gov)

— JPL leading development of a deep space atomic clock to further improve this system (jpl.nasa.gov)

Future technologies

— X-ray pulsar navigation

— Developed at NASA Goddard (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Closely analogous to GPS tracking (nasa.gov)

— Make use of a large number of extremely stable millisecond pulsars (howstuffworks.com, nasa.gov)

— SEXTANT experiment on ISS (nasa.gov)

This week in SF history

— 7 February 2001: The launch of Destiny on Space Shuttle Atlantis, STS-95

— WORF patch is awesome (collectspace.com)

Spaceflight news

— NASA Making Renewed Efforts to Contact Mars Rover Opportunity (spacenews.com)

Raptor update

— Scott Manley points out Merlin has come a long way (youtube.com) (b14643.de)

— Photos from Elon (twitter.com/elonmusk)

Short & Sweet

— Blue Origin gets another customer (spaceflightinsider.com)

— ABL Space Systems gets more competitive (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Chairboy: Starship nosecone wasn’t mounted when it blew over (twitter.com/chairboy)

— Buy a shirt, suppor the show! (sfsf.shop/support-tom)

This week in SF history

— February 14, 2000: NEAR-Shoemaker enters orbit of Eros (wikipedia.org)

— Anomaly analysis (PDF near.jhuapl.edu)

Spaceflight news

— MarCO satellites are now silent (spacenews.com) (jpl.nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— ISS suffers another leak, but this time of the messy, non-dangerous type (nasaspaceflight.com)

— NASA seeks a human-rated lunar lander. (spaceflightinsider.com)

— Updated Shape Model of 2014 MU69 surprises planetary scientists (arstechnica.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— SFSF giveaway on Twitter this week! (sfsf.shop/support-tom)

— Jim Wagner: China space pronunciation guide (realcoffeemaker.com)

— TOM glassware (facebook.com) (twitter.com/NancyCareyPR)

— TOM on the radio! (ideafablabs.com/maker-radio)

Data Relay: Composite Materials

— Thank you to Ben Crews for researching and presenting this topic.

— Humans have been using composites for thousands of years! (mar-bal.com)

— Proof that wood is a composite (youtube.com)

— Spray-on insulation is a composite. (PDF: ulalaunch.com)

— Markings on parts like “>PP-GF15<” indicate a “glass filler,” thus making them a composite. (PDF: bombardier.com)

— Practical Engineering on Youtube is doing a great series on concrete. (youtube.com)

— Study on hybrid composites (journals.sagepub.com)

— Composites can form efficient monocoque structures. (wikipedia.org)

— Real Engineering’s video on Carbon Fiber (youtube.com)

— Space Ship 2 is entirely Carbon Fiber (cnn.com) (popsci.com)

— The Space Shuttle Orbiter had some sandwich panels with aluminum honeycomb core and carbon-fiber facesheets. (nasa.gov) (nasa.gov)

— Composites reduced the thrust structure weight by 21% (PDF: (nasa.gov)

— 787 Dreamliner used 50% (by weight) compsits. (boeing.com)

— Orion CCM, Falcon 9 Payload fairing, Dragon heat shield are all composites (space.stackexchange.com)

— Thin and thick laminates must be analyzed differently (wikipedia.org).

— “Corrugated cardboard” composites (core.ac.uk)

— Machining sandwich board cores can result in complex structures, proposed for use in atmospheric reentry (PDF: pdfs.semanticscholar.org)

— Ceramic Matrix Composites were used in the Shuttle TPS (wikipedia.org) (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Carbon/carbon can provide lighter and much stronger alternatives to smaller metallic machinings. (fibermaterialsinc.com)

— CMCs are currently being researched to replace components in engine compartments and high-temp environments. (aerodefensetech.com)

— Metallic Matrix Composites (MMC) (wikipedia.org)

— This is so cool! You’re so cool! Where can I learn more?

— Robert M. Jones (1999) Mechanics of Composites

— Strong (2008) Fundamentals of Composites Manufacturing

— Kollar, Springer (2009) Mechanics of Composite Structures

— Stress analysis example (notebooks.azure.com)

— Composites Wiki Page (wikipedia.org)

— NASA 360 (youtube.com)

This week in SF history

— February 21, 1964: The birth of Scott Kelly (wikipedia.org)

— February 21, 1964: The birth of Mark Kelly (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Saying Goodbye to Opportunity (americaspace.com)(spacenews.com)(youtube.com)

— Close call in 2005 (newscientist.com)

— Superlatives (wikipedia.org)

— Possible Deep sleep issue (twitter.com/elakdawalla)

Short & Sweet

— Fourteen more days of night for Chang’e-4. (spacenews.com)

— RS-25 testing resumes at NASA Stennis (nasaspaceflight.com)

— NASA Officials downplay government shutdown’s effect on JWST’s launch (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— RPG night (patreon.com)

— T-shirt giveaway (sfsf.shop/support-tom)

— Congrats, Rich! (twitter.com/therealrichnez)

This week in SF history

— 2004 February 26. First ISS EVA with no one inside (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Beresheet prepares to land on the Moon (planetary.org)

— PS this booster will be the one used for the in-flight abort (americaspace.com)

Short & Sweet

— Despite issues, Soyuz successfully deploys EgyptSat-A (nasaspaceflight.com) (twitter.com/RussianSpaceWeb/)

— Another successful test flight for Virgin Galactic. (spaceflightnow.com)

— Hayabusa2’s first sampling! (engadget.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Fantastic Starman sweatshirt (etsy.com)

— RPG night on the 8th! (patreon.com)

Data Relay: Hypergols

— Thanks to Arin Cross for researching and presenting this topic! (linkedin.com)

— BFRCs - produced when launches with NTO go wrong (youtube.com)

— Early hypergolic testing history: Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, by John Drury Clark (google.com/books)

— Video showing a drop of RFNA into a pool of MMH (purdue.edu)

— See also

— Investigation into the hypergolic ignition process initiated by low weber number collisions. (aiaa.org)

— Advances in hypergolic propellants: ignition, hydrazine, and hydrogen peroxide research. (hindawi.com)

— Flame structure, a la Arin Cross (proquest.com)

— Space Shuttle OMS engines used hydrazine and NTO (books.google.com)

— JWST has hypergolic and monopropellant thrusters (jwst-docs.stsci.edu) (PDF: nasa.gov)

— More info on JWST momentum dumps (jwst-docs.stsci.edu)

— Ariane 5 ECA purges with helium before and after burns (books.google.com) (esa.int)

— GSLV and PSLV use Vikas engine (isro.gov.in)

— High-thrust Vikas Engine (HTVE) is now used on GSLV Mk III (spacetechasia.com)

— Named after Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai. Recommended reading: From Fishing Hamlet to Red Planet: India’s Space Journey (isro.gov.in)

— ISRO sent a team of ~50 scientists to France in 1974 to participate in Viking/Ariane development. (indiatimes.com)

— Side note: a rag left in a water coolant pipe during installation destroyed a Viking engine in flight (wikipedia.org)

— Viking uses transpiration cooling (airandspace.si.edu)

— Lots of work is happening in “green” hypergolics (harvard.edu)

— A mixture of furfuryl alcohol, ethanolamine and copper (II) chloride (fuel) and 70% hydrogen peroxide was tested at one point (PDF: researchgate.net)

— Gelled hypergolics are also an option (docs.lib.purdue.edu)

— Hydrazine in a solid fuel for hybrid application (doi.org)

— Further reading

— Humble, Ronald. Space Propulsion Analysis and Design. United Kingdom: McGraw-Hill Companies,Incorporated, 1995.

This week in SF history

— 5 March, 1931. Birth of Jerrie Cobb (wikipedia.org)

— March, 1931. Ruth Rowland Nichols set the women's world altitude record. (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— DM-1!

— Globe plushie (celestialbuddies.com)

— Docking (arstechnica.com) (twitter.com/SpaceflightNow) (youtube.com)

— David Saint-Jacques and Oleg Kononenko entering Crew Dragon capsule for 1st time (twitter.com/SpaceflightNow)

— Were Super Dracos installed? (space.stackexchange.com)

Short & Sweet

— Spaceport America hopes to see crewed Virgin Galactic space flights (kob.com)

— Mars lander InSight encounters trouble while preparing to dig (futurism.com)

— Beresheet update (spacenews.com) (planetary.org)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Chairboy: Hypergolics correction (twitter.com/chairboy/)

— RPG night (patreon.com)

— Congrats to Roisin and Li! They won Falcon Heavy models (drive.google.com)

This week in SF history

— March 17, 1958 the US Naval Research Laboratory launched Vanguard 1 (wikipedia.org)

— Thanks to another Ben for the assist (twitter.com/chairboy)

Spaceflight news

— Hayabusa2 touches down on Ryugu (planetary.org) (planetary.org)(hayabusa2.jaxa.jp)

— Sampling Process (hayabusa2.jaxa.jp) (youtube.com) (PDF: hayabusa2.jaxa.jp)

— Status blog (hayabusa2.jaxa.jp)

Short & Sweet

— Crew Dragon returns safely (nasaspaceflight.com) (spacenews.com) (youtube.com)

— EELV comes to an end, but in name only. (spaceflightnow.com)

— MAVEN begins aerobraking to a lower orbit (nasaspaceflight.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— twitter.com/MarkChica: Minuteman III, actually does use hypergolic fuel, MMH and N2O4, not as it’s main fuel, but in its PSRE (Propulsion System Rocket Engine).

Interview: Anthony Scodary

— Gridspace.com

— Scodary.com

— twitter.com/gridspaceinc

This week in SF history

— 23 March, 1965: Launch of Gemini 3 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— SLS missions transferred to commercial launchers (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (spacenews.com)

— Cute graphic of Orion on various launchers (reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge)

— Infographic illustrating cargo capacity vs Orion mass (HT: DeltaVof4point3: reddit.com/r/spacex)

Short & Sweet

— SABRE rocket engine passes preliminary design review (esa.int)

— Chang’e 4 mission enters its third lunar night (spacenews.com)

— Raptor spotted in Boca Chica (twitter.com/NASASpaceflight)

This week in SF history

— 28 March, 1986: ISEE-3/ICE Comet Halley Distant Flyby (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Crew Dragon is close, but not quite ready for human flight (and other SPX news) (spacenews.com)

— Pre-launch presser (github.com)

— Tested heat shield (engadget.com)

— Hopper tests (spacenews.com) (nextbigfuture.com)

Short & Sweet

— Beresheet is on course for the moon (spacenews.com)

— The ISS gets some fresh batteries (spaceflightnow.com)

— NASA engineers still unclear on why InSight’s heat probe is stuck (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Chris Birke via Discord: Molly Brown was the last gemini capsule that was named.

Interview: Professor Erika Hamden

— Applying to Small Explorer program (wikipedia.org)

— TESS’s orbit is weird (spaceflight101.com)

— UV standard stars paper (researchgate.net)

— twitter.com/ErikaHamden

— ehamden.org

— instagram.com/erika.hamden

This week in SF history

— 3 April 1973: launch of Salyut 2/Almaz 1 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Spacesuit issues interrupts first all-female EVA (spacenews.com)

— EVA 52/53 briefing (youtube.com)

— State-of-the-EMU audit (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Laura Forczyk discussed how this issue is pervasive (twitter.com/LauraForczyk)

Short & Sweet

— First image of a piece of a Vulcan rocket revealed (arstechnica.com)

— Mars Helicopter hovers (spaceflightinsider.com)

— India performs an ASAT. (parabolicarc.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Space Skull fanart (lachrimaestro.tumblr.com)

This week in SF history

— April 9, 1959, Mercury 7 announced (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Beresheet enters orbit (spacenews.com)

— Landing details (technology.spaceil.com)

Short & Sweet

— Starliner gets delayed once again. (spaceflightnow.com) (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Hayabusa2 impactor successfully strikes asteroid’s surface (sciencenews.org) (planetary.org)

— Starhopper hops (spacenews.com)

Interview -- SEDS UCF IREC

— Thanks to Pedro for coordinating this interview!

— Thanks also to the team members who took the time to talk to us:

— Ben S. - Electronics lead

— Alec - Propulsion lead

— Ryan - Airframe Lead

— Tyler - Project Manager

— Fundraising (gofundme.com)

— IREC 2019 promo (youtube.com)

— twitter.com/irectempest

— instagram.com/sedsucf

— twitter.com/sedsucf

This week in SF history

— 15/16 April 1960: Luna E-3 no1 and no2 failures (wikipedia.org)(wikipedia.org) (astronautix.com)

— Similar to successful Luna 3 mission (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Beresheet crashes on the moon (planetary.org)(spacenews.com)(spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— DARPA contest seeks to improve rapid launch capabilities (darpa.mil)

— A successful test flight for Stratolaunch. (spaceflightnow.com) (youtube.com)

— Rocketlab unveils Photon smallsat bus (spacenews.com)

— Software simulation begins for SLS. (nasaspaceflight.com)

This week in SF history

— 23 April 1957: Vandenberg established (wikipedia.org) (astronautix.com)

Spaceflight news

— Dragon 2 Capsule Explodes during testing (twitter.com/EmreKelly) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Scott Manley’s speculations (slightly outdated) (youtube.com)

— A BFRC isn’t great. (theorbitalmechanics.com)

— Seen on radar (twitter.com/GISRockstar)

— Explosion video (twitter.com/Astronut099)

— Unconfirmed reports indicated that the capsule was destroyed. (floridatoday.com/)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceX loses a booster to rough seas (spaceflightnow.com)

— An update on Beresheet (spaceflightnow.com)

— Intelsat-29e is declared a total loss (spacenews.com)

Interview -- Keri Bean, Systems Engineer

— twitter.com/planetarykeri

— keribean.com

This week in SF history

— May 5, 1961: Alan Shepard is first American launched into space on a suborbital flight (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Europa Clipper’s custom magnetometer is dead in the water (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com)

— ICEMAG details (PDF: lpi.usra.edu)(adsabs.harvard.edu)

— Galileo also had a magnetometer (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov) (wikipedia.org)

Short & Sweet

— Mars InSight Detects First Marsquake (jpl.nasa.gov)

— Yutu-2 enters its fourth lunar day. (planetary.org)

— Curiosity memory issue is partially solved (planetary.org) (planetary.org)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Ben Hallert: Roll-away assembly building at Vandenberg was repurposed for Delta! (twitter.com/chairboy)

This week in SF history

— May 10, 1967. Famous M2-F2 crash (wikipedia.org)(check-six.com)

Spaceflight news

— Dragon was destroyed prior to SuperDraco firing (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— CRS-17 makes it to Station after several setbacks. (spaceflightinsider.com)

— Firefly successfully tests Alpha rocket's upper stage (arstechnica.com)

Data Relay: Brazilian Space Program

— Thanks to Anderson da Nova for researching and presenting this topic!

— twitter.com/DaSupaNova

— Unrelated, but fun resource discovered while researching (nakka-rocketry.net)

— "Smith Plan" resulted in the construction of 2 institutions; the ITA and the IPD (periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br) (fab.mil.br)

— Perspective paper (seer.cgee.org.br)

— Brazil’s first launch complex was CLBI (Barreira do Inferno Launch Center) (clbi.cta.br)

— Nike-Apache was the first rocket launched here (wikipedia.org)

— Sonda rocket family (I II, III, IV) (wikipedia.org) (astronautix.com)

— Sonda II was a new design (mtc-m12.sid.inpe.br)

— IAE (Aeronautics and Space Institute) (iae.cta.br)

— Alcantara Launch Center (CLA) (astronautix.com) (goo.gl/maps)

— Satellite Launching Vehicle (VLS) (wikipedia.org)

— Dove-OSCAR 17 (skyrocket.de)

— Data Collecting Satellite (SCD-1 and 2) - (inpe.br)

— SACI-2 spacecraft (skyrocket.de) (PDF: researchgate.net)

— Operation São Luis - VLS-1 disaster (PDF: aereo.jor.br)

— CBERS (wikipedia.org)

— Crewed space program (tecnoblog.net)

— Marcos Pontes was the first Brazilian in space! (twitter.com/astro_pontes)

— Contributions to the ISS (gizmodo.uol.com.br)

— Alcântara Cyclone Space (ACS) (parabolicarc.com)

— Launched Cylone-4 (npointercos.jp)

— Amazônia-1 (skyrocket.de)

— Programa Cruzeiro do Sul (pt.wikipedia.org)

— L75 Rocket Engine (researchgate.net)

— Heroes of the Brazilian Space Program who died in Aug 22nd 2003

— Amintas Rocha Brito

— Antonio Sergio Cezarini

— Carlos Alberto Pedrini

— Cesar Augusto Costalonga Varejão

— Daniel Faria Gonçalves

— Eliseu Reinaldo Moraes Vieira

— Gil Cesar Baptista Marques

— Gines Ananias Garcia

— Jonas Barbosa Filho

— José Aparecido Pinheiro

— José Eduardo De Almeida

— José Eduardo Pereira

— José Pedro Claro Peres Da Silva

— Luis Primon De Araujo

— Mário César De Freitas Levy

— Massanobu Shimabukuro

— Mauricio Biella De Souza Valle

— Roberto Tadashi Seguchi

— Rodolfo Donizetti De Oliveira

— Sidney Aparecido De Moraes

— Walter Pereira Junior

Questions, comments, corrections

— Lee Stevens via email: Starlink orbit advantages

This week in SF history

— May 15, 1963, launch of MA-9 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Dragon had a parachute failure (spacenews.com)

— Blue Moon (spacenews.com)

— Earlier articles (washingtonpost.com) (aviationweek.com)

Short & Sweet

— Virgin Galactic is coming to Spaceport America. (spacenews.com)

— Sixty Starlink satellites to launch on Wednesday. (twitter.com/elonmusk)

This week in SF history

— May 25, 2008: Phoenix lands on Mars (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— SpaceX engages in internal competition (arstechnica.com) (forum.nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Identifies Beresheet Lander’s Crash Site (www.planetary.org) (lroc.sese.asu.edu)

— Landspace assembles a methalox engine. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Artur via email: I’m the son of one of those killed in the VLS disaster

This week in SF history

— 26 May 1951. Birth of Sally Ride

— Rogers Commission (wikipedia.org) (PDF: spaceflight.nasa.gov)

— Columbia Accident Investigation Board (wikipedia.org) (PDF: nasa.gov)

Spaceflight news

— Starlink deployment begins (spacenews.com) (youtu.be/riBaVeDTEWI)

— N2YO is a good satellite tracking resource (n2yo.com)

— Visibility concerns (vimeo.com) (twitter.com/Alex_Parker/) (twitter.com/cgbassa)

— Auto-avoidance (ieee.org)

— Hayabusa2 aborts second marker deployment (planetary.org)

Short & Sweet

— Student-built Rocket Reaches Space (PDF: squarespace.com) (uscrpl.com)

— OSIRIS-REx Citizen Science (asteroidmission.org) (bennu.cosmoquest.org)

— Vulcan passes its critical design review. (spaceflightinsider.com)

— Long March 4 suffers a failure. (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— June 8, 1965: Launch of Luna 6 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Stratolaunch rumors (reuters.com)

— OmegA failure (youtube.com) (space.com)

Short & Sweet

— All 60 Starlink satellites are doing well. (spacenews.com)

— Hayabusa2 successfully deploys target marker after earlier aborted attempt (twitter.com/haya2e_jaxa)

— An update on the Crew Dragon anomaly. (nasaspaceflight.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Let us know what you’d like to see in our RSS feed.

— Buy a paper Falcon Heavy! Use code ORBITAL for free shipping. (worldflightstore.com)

Interview: Laura Forczyk

— Astralytical.com

— twitter.com/astralytical

— twitter.com/lauraforczyk

— linkedin.com/in/lauraforczyk

This week in SF history

— 16 June 1963. Launch of Vostok 6 with Valentina Tereshkova (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Planned retirement of Spitzer (spaceflightnow.com)

— Final GO, launched in 2003 at ~1:30am (boeing.mediaroom.com)

— Private Funding (spaceflightnow.com)

— Iconic image of Andromeda Galaxy (spitzer.caltech.edu)

— Another iconic image, the Helix Nebula (spitzer.caltech.edu)

Short & Sweet

— ISS wants to go commercial (spacenews.com)

— NASA tries new strategy for stuck Martian instrument (mars.nasa.gov)

— China carries out a successful sea launch. (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 22 June 1978. Discovery of Pluto’s moon Charon by John Christy (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Psyche review/preview (spacenews.com)

— Just passed Key Decision Point C (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Multispectral Imager is based on MSL’s Mastcam, MAHLI, and MARDI (hou.usra.edu)

— Deep space laser communication demo (wikipedia.org)

Short & Sweet

— India’s Chandrayaan-2 has launch date (theprint.in)

— India has plans for its own space station. (parabolicarc.com)

— SOFIA improvements (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Valentin Frank: follow up on Tereshkova’s head injury

— /u/MomoSapiensAD: Herschel mission time correction (reddit.com/r/orbitalpodcast)

— Apollo / Mariner / Viking / Voyager oral history (twitter.com/jccwrt)

— Support the Rocket Cat fund! (gofundme.com)

This week in SF history

— 28 June 1969. First flight of Black Arrow (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Upcoming non-Earth science missions

— 2019

— Chandrayaan-2 (wikipedia.org)

— Spektr-RG (wikipedia.org)

— CHEOPS (wikipedia.org)

— Chang’e 5 (wikipedia.org)

— Lunar Scout / MX-1E (wikipedia.org)

— 2020

— Solar Orbiter (wikipedia.org)

— PROBA-3 (wikipedia.org)

— Aditya-L1 (wikipedia.org)

— Exomars (wikipedia.org/Rosalind_Franklin, wikipedia.org/Kazachok)

— Hope Mars Mission (wikipedia.org)

— Mars 2020 (en.wikipedia.org)

— Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (wikipedia.org)

— 2021

— Astrobotic M1 (wikipedia.org)

— Luna 25 (wikipedia.org)

— SLIM (wikipedia.org)

— XRISM (wikipedia.org)

— IXPE (wikipedia.org)

— JWST (wikipedia.org)

— Double Asteroid Redirection Test (wikipedia.org)

— ASTER (wikipedia.org)

— Lucy (wikipedia.org)

— 2022

— PUNCH (wikipedia.org)

— EUCLID (wikipedia.org)

— MOM 2 (wikipedia.org)

— TEREX (wikipedia.org)

— DESTINY+ (wikipedia.org)

— Psyche (wikipedia.org)

— JUICE (wikipedia.org)

— Comet Interceptor mission approved (spaceflightnow.com)

Short & Sweet

— Stratolaunch is up for sale (cnbc.com)

— Firefly is offering free rides. (spaceflightnow.com)

— Worries raised about U.K. spaceport site in Scotland (bbc.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— arahanga.space

This week in SF history

— July 2, 1952: birth of Linda Godwin (wikipedia.org)

— STS-37 (wikipedia.org)

— STS-59 (wikipedia.org)

— STS-76 (wikipedia.org)

— STS-108 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Dragonfly (planetary.org) (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com) (jhuapl.edu)

— Falcon Heavy successfully flies STP-2 mission (spacenews.com) (teslarati.com)

— Center core TVC failure (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Ms. Tree caught half a fairing (twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Help name the Mars 2020 rover! (futureengineers.org)

— twitter.com/hashtag/Mars2020

— Clara Ma’s winning entry for Curiosity (nasa.gov)

— twitter.com/call_him_bob

This week in SF history

— 10 July, 1992: Giotto flies past 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup (wikipedia.org)

— Ten instruments onboard (nature.com)

— Magnetometer experiment results (articles.adsabs.harvard.edu)

Spaceflight news

— Orion Abort test is a success (spacenews.com)

— Three Starlink satellites goes silent (spacenews.com)

— Jeff Bezos files with FCC for Kuiper constellation (geekwire.com)

Short & Sweet

— ExoMars 2020 suffers parachute problem (spacenews.com)

— DSCOVR is in safehold. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Andrew Zdanowicz via email: Dragonfly - why not a helicopter?

This week in SF history

— 18 July 1980: first successful launch of SLV, lofting Rohini RS-1 to orbit. (wikipedia.org)(wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Chandrayaan-2 summary (planetary.org)(wikipedia.org)

— InSight Lander’s heat probe is stuck. (nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— First Starhopper test hop coming up (spacenews.com)

— Firefly partners up to build a lunar lander. (spacenews.com)

— Tiangong-2 is ready to deorbit. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— RPG night scheduled! (patreon.com)

— Friday August 30 at 5.30pm PT/8.30pm ET

— Same setting, new game! (Risus)

This week in SF history

— 25 July 1962: Statement of work issued for LEM (hq.nasa.gov)

Spaceflight news

— Crew Dragon Explosion Conclusion (spaceflightinsider.com)

Short & Sweet

— Eight key space observatories renewed (nasa.gov)

— Starhopper static fire (nasaspaceflight.com)

Interview-- Ron Burkey

— Virtual AGC (ibiblio.org)

— Java port (svtsim.com)

— Scanned original documents (archive.org)

— Transcribed code (github.com)

This week in SF history

— 30 July 2008, first full firing of a Falcon 9 with all nine engines (spacex.com)

Spaceflight news

— NASA issues rare sole source contract to NGIS (spacenews.com, fbo.gov)

Short & Sweet

— Starhopper hopped (twitter.com/elonmusk) (youtu.be)

— Blue Origin fires its BE-7 lunar lander engine (geekwire.com)

— Lightsail-2 successfully deploys its sail and sends back imagery (planetary.org)

This week in SF history

— 9 August 2005: Landing of STS-114 (wikipedia.org)(space.com)

Spaceflight news

— Cause of GOES-17 satellite issue identified by NOAA+NASA (satellitetoday.com, nasa.gov)

— Issue first publicly declared in May 2018 (arstechnica.com)

— GOES-West live data (goes.noaa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— Elon Musk to give update on Starship in three weeks (arstechnica.com)

— OneWeb opens for production in Florida. (spaceflightinsider.com)

— EDRS shows off its abilities. (parabolicarc.com)

This week in SF history

— August 17, 1962: Carl Sagan advocates for sterilizing spacecraft (spacemedicineassociation.org) (PDF: pnas.org)

Spaceflight news

— Rocketlab reuse (spacenews.com) (arstechnica.com) (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

— First ion thruster use on a 1U cubesat (spacenews.com)

Interview-- Ella Atkins

— Thanks to IEEE for arranging this interview! (IEEE.org)

— Dr. Atkins’ profile and CV (umich.edu)

— (robotics.umich.edu)

— (aiaa.org)

This week in SF history

— August 21, 1959. Little Joe 1 failure (pao.ksc.nasa.gov) (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Linkspace hover test (spacenews.com)

— ESA confirms second Exomars parachute test has failed (spacenews.com)

— Vector Launch closes its doors (spacenews.com) (PDF: vector-launch.com)

Short & Sweet

— OSIRIS-REx mission selects candidate sampling sites (nasa.gov)

— Robonaut returns to Station. (https://spacenews.com/robonaut-to-return-to-iss/)

— BEAM to stay on ISS (spacenews.com)

— Virgin Galactic updates (parabolicarc.com) (engadget.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Come play an RPG with us! Friday August 30 at 5.30pm PT/8.30pm ET (patreon.com)

This week in SF history

— August 30, 1931. Birth of Jack Swigert (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1914: You know what might have killed Swigert….

Spaceflight news

— Uncrewed Soyuz aborts docking. (spacenews.com)

— Second attempt delayed to free up a new docking port. (twitter.com/roscosmos)

Short & Sweet

— Astrobotic chooses ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket to deliver its lunar lander (astrobotic.com)

— Sierra-Nevada selects ULA. (spacenews.com)

— Europa Clipper passes Key Decision Point-C (arstechnica.com)

Data Relay—Hot Structures

— Thanks to Ben Crews for researching and presenting this topic! (linkedin.com)

— X-15 Hardware Design Challenges (PDF: nasa.gov)

— NASA solicitation for research on hot structures (sbir.gov)

— Multifunctional Hot Structure (HOST) Heat Shield (techbriefs.com)

— Heat Shield Concepts and Materials for Reentry Vehicles (includes some familiar lifting-body vehicle form proposals!) (PDF: dtic.mil)

— Advances in Hot Structure Development (Brief with link to PDF: nasa.gov)

— Thermal-Structural Optimization of Integrated Tanks for RLV (embedded PDF: aiaa.org)

— Tim Dodd’s discussion on Starship transpiration cooling (youtube.com)

/— u/spacerfirstclass speculates on Spaceship’s use of hot structures. (reddit.com/r/spacex)

This week in SF history

— 7 September 1914: Birth of James Van Allen (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1962: cloud-based navigation

Spaceflight news

— Starhopper Completes Test Flight (spacenews.com)

— Scott Manley’s excellent coverage (youtube.com)

— More detailed photos (twitter.com/bocachicagal)

— Updates from Elon Musk (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— InSight mole update (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— The completed Rosalind Franklin rover displayed by Airbus engineers! (bbc.com)

— Mars 2020 helicopter integrated into the rover (bbc.com)

— JWST has now been physically assembled (nasa.gov)

This week in SF history

— 12 September 1959: Launch of Luna 2 (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Chandrayaan-2’s successful orbiter mission? (space.com) (reddit.com)

— Doppler curves (twitter.com/cgbassa)

— Lander crash site located (thehindu.com) (ndtv.com)

— Aeolus dodges a Starlink. (space.com)

Short & Sweet

— Target marker operation and dress rehearsal postponed for Hayabusa2 (hayabusa2.jaxa.jp)

— WFIRST passes PDR (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 21 September 1968: Landing of zond 5 (wikipedia.org) (russianspaceweb.com)

— Next week in 2003: generic no longer

Spaceflight news

— H-IIB launch pad fire (youtube.com) (spacenews.com) (HT Sam in the chat: twitter.com/mageshiman1025)

— NASA conducts ground test of the B330. (space.com)

— Tour of B330 (Mars Transporter Testing Unit) and Olympus B2100 (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

— Tianhe passes final review, though delays are still likely (spacenews.com)

— NASA’s LRO to take images of the Vikram Lander (spaceflightnow.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— GOES-13 correction from Kevin Smith (skyriddles.wordpress.com) (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— September 27 2003: last flight of Ariane 5 G, launching E-Bird

— First A5 flight, 1996, failed spectacularly (youtu.be) (wikipedia.org) (hownot2code.com)

— Next week in 1958: Twelve pages

Spaceflight news

— NASA planning on placing a cubesat in a Lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit (spacenews.com) (youtube.com)

— Meanwhile some Congressfolk are suggesting killing Lunar Gateway altogether (arstechnica.com)

Short & Sweet

— Updates on Rocket Lab and Blue Origin launch complexes (rocketlabusa.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— SpaceX is offering a buyout. (space.com)

— Japan seeks to double its launch capacity. (rocketrundown.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Off-Nominal DC (aka “inside the beltway”) meetup (events.offnominal.space)

This week in SF history

— October 1, 1958: NASA begins operations (wikipedia.org) (archives.gov)

— Next week in 2000: Sometimes a good explosion is exactly what you need

Spaceflight news

— InSight scientists presents three new discoveries (americaspace.com) (copernicus.org)

— Images show scoop packing down regolith around mole? (twitter.com)

— Starship update (spacenews.com) (youtube.com) (spaceflightnow.com)

— Our interview with Tess Caswell on CDRA (theorbitalmechanics.com)

Short & Sweet

— NASA awards a long-term contract to Lockheed Martin. (spacenews.com)

— Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter delayed to 2022 (spaceflightnow.com)

— NEO mission confirmed (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 2000 October 9: HETE-2, first orbital launch from Kwajalein (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1956: listen in for an audio clue.

Spaceflight news

— Plans in place to fix DSCOVR (spacenews.com)

— We first reported on this on Ep 218 as a S&S (spacenews.com)

— Faulty gyro? (twitter.com/simoncarn)

— Triana engineers considered laser gyro failures (PDF: nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— NASA Mars 2020 tests descent stage separation (jpl.nasa.gov)

— NASA issues request for information on xEMU. (nasaspaceflight.com)

— New Shepard will likely not fly humans in 2019. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— #TOMIAC2019

— Sunday: Off Nominal meetups (events.offnominal.space)

— Monday: museum day

— Udvar-Hazy and downtown Air and Space Museum

— Thursday: Dinner meetup

— mcgintyspublichouse.com

— 911 Ellsworth Dr, Silver Spring, MD 20910

— Friday: IAC no-ticket open day

This week in SF history

— October 17, 1956: Birth of Mae Jemison (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Battery replacement EVAs (americaspace.com)

— Commercial crew update (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com)

— Eric Berger says "full panic has ensued" (twitter.com/SciGuySpace)

— Dragon done in 10 weeks? (twitter.com/elonmusk)

Short & Sweet

— Virgin Orbit announces potential Martian cubesat missions. (theverge.com)

— Stratolaunch is now under new ownership. (spacenews.com)

— The Jason-2 mission has ended, but its satellite will remain. (spacenews.com)

Bit of a weird show this week! No news, tired hosts. We talk about our favorite things from this year’s International Astronautical Congress, and we promise more information later.

This show is brought to you by just over one hundred supporters on Patreon (and direct monthly supporters using Bitcoin and Paypal!) We couldn’t have done this without you, and we are so thankful for your confidence in our ability to bring you educational and entertaining content.

This week in SF history

— 29 October 1998: Launch of STS-95 (wikipedia.org) (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Next week in 1974: Solidarity

Spaceflight news

— Upgraded H3 rocket for lunar missions (spacenews.com)

— H-IIA had a proposed asymmetric configuration as well as liquid boosters (HT Sam in the chat: b14643.de)

Short & Sweet

— Chang’e-5 to launch late next year (spacenews.com)

— The X-37 sets another record. (spacenews.com)

— NASA gives funding to look into extended mission to Pluto (americaspace.com)

— Another plot twist for the mole on Mars. (spacenews.com)

Spaceflight news

— Starliner pad abort test complete (spacenews.com) (spaceflightnow.com)

— Chute failure caused by misplaced pin (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceX’s Mark 3 parachutes are almost ready to go! (spacenews.com)

— China tests gridfins (spacenews.com)

— The ISS may see reduced crew for 6 and a half months. (spacenews.com)

Interview: Andrew Rader, author, Beyond the Known

— andrew-rader.com

— twitter.com/marsrader

— (amazon.com)

This week in SF history

— 15 November 1974 Launch of AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (wikipedia.org) (hackaday.com)

— List of all OSCAR satellites (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1965: How about some nice lemon, gin and bob cut?

Spaceflight news

— Spacewalk to repair AMS (spacenews.com) (youtube.com)

— AMS overview (nasa.gov)

— Footage from the EVA

— The cover is detached from the restraint clip (youtu.be)

— Jettisoning the cover (youtu.be)

— Chris Cassidy shows off a zip tie cutter/capture device (youtu.be)

Short & Sweet

— Hayabusa2 departs Ryugu (japantimes.co.jp)

— SpaceX completes Crew Dragon Static Fire tests (spacenews.com)

— Launcher gets funding from the Air Force. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Win a book!

— Zach and Kelly Weinersmith wrote Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything.

— We have signed copies to give away! In honor of the alternate first words featured on the new TV show For All Mankind, tweet at us with what your first words on Mars would be.

— Random winners selected from Twitter and email.

— Episode 2 is missing!

— Do you have a copy of episode-2.mp3 lying around? Squarespace ate our copy!

This week in SF history

— November 19, 1956 Birth of Eileen Collins (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1964: The cold, dead 1%

Spaceflight news

— Starship overpressure explosion (spacenews.com)

— Rumors on 4Chan, via Reddit and NSF forum (reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge)(forum.nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— Some insights into failed lunar landings have come out. (spacenews.com)

— Starliner rolls out. (americaspace.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Congrats to our Soonish giveaway winners!

Interview

— After the interview, Spacety reported a successful firing of I2T5! (spacenews.com)

— Elena Zorzoli Rossi, lead experimental engineer, ThrustMe

— Thrustme.fr

— linkedin.com

This week in SF history

— November 28, 1964: Launch of Mariner 4 (wikipedia.org) (nasa.gov)

— Next week in 1945: You were discussing critical space stuff with your pals the other dayyyyyyyy

Sorry there are no links in this episode! Squarespace has broken that feature. Please visit theorbitalmechanics.com/show-notes/moon-prep for links and photos.

Spaceflight news

— RS-25 integration

Short & Sweet

— Orion capsule ships to Ohio for testing

— Australian company 3D prints large rocket

Questions, comments, corrections

— Tempe meetup!

— 5 pm Sunday, December 8th

— tempe.laboccapizzeria.com

— S. Mill Ave, Tempe, AZ 85281

This week in SF history

— December 4, 1945, Birth of Roberta Bondar

Next week in 1984: What’s the point of a weather balloon with a sample rate of 75 seconds?

Sorry about the links not working! Squarespace knows about the issue, but still hasn’t fixed it. Visit theorbitalmechanics.com/show-notes/kyla-edison for links and photos!

Spaceflight news

— First results from Parker Solar Probe! (nasa.gov) (nature.com)

Short & Sweet

— Running Out of Fingers successfully tests key elements of rocket reuse (techcrunch.com)

— Huntsville gets a new solid rocket motor maker (rocket.com)

Interview

— Kyla Edison

— Geology and Material Science Technician for PISCES Hawaii

— (linkedin.com)

— (pacificspacecenter.com)

— (instagram.com/geolo_geek)

This week in SF history

— December 15, 1984: Launch of Vega 1 (wikipedia.org)

— Balloon aerobot package (nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov)

— Structures and data article (articles.adsabs.harvard.edu)

— Next week in 1973 - What’s the point of a space telescope with a lifetime of less than a week?

Spaceflight news

— Rocket Lab inaugurates LC 2 at Wallops. (spacenews.com)

— Reuse footage from Running Out of Fingers (youtu.be)

— OSIRIS-Rex landing site selected (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— A new European rocket gets funding. (parabolicarc.com)

— SLS core stage is complete (spacenews.com)

— Vector files for chapter 11. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Art in aerospace?

This week in SF history

— 18 December 1973: Launch of the Orion 2 space telescope onboard Soyuz 13 (wikipedia.org) (wikipedia.org)

Spaceflight news

— Starliner OFT (nasaspaceflight.com) (collectspace.com)

— IR video (twitter.com/NASA)

— Re-entry video from the ground (twitter.com/MrTutskey)

Short & Sweet

— Omega has a payload. (spaceflightinsider.com)

— ULA selected to launch next GOES mission. (satellitetoday.com)

— SpaceX announces yet another Starlink launch. (teslarati.com)

This week in SF history

— December 23, 1968. Apollo 8 enters Lunar SOI (wikipedia.org)

— Two weeks ahead in 2015: running out of juice

Spaceflight news

— ISRO confirms plans for Chandrayaan-3 (spacenews.com)

— Chandrayaan-2 imagery (nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceX plans a moveable tower for pad 39A (spaceflightnow.com)

— Christina Koch breaks a record (spaceflightnow.com)

— Early signs of the Clean Space age: Iridium announces willingness to pay for third party cleanup of failed satellites (spacenews.com)

Interview: Dr. Martin Elvis, Senior Astrophysicist, Center for Astrophysics and Smithsonian

— harvard.edu/~elvis

— Simulated population of asteroids from Mikael Granvik (helsinki.fi)

This week in SF history

— 10 January 2015: first droneship landing attempt (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1977: Black side down

Spaceflight news

— Astra Space obtains launch permits

— Three polar launches from Kodiak (apps.fcc.gov) (www.faa.gov)

— DARPA launch from Wallops (apps.fcc.gov)

— Challenge seeks two launches from different locations with little foreknowledge of payload (darpalaunchchallenge.org

— Downselected to only candidate (spectrum.ieee.org)

Short & Sweet

— Virgin Galactic’s second spaceship passes important milestone. (satellitetoday.com)

— Another lunar lander is in the running. (spacenews.com)

— Starliner joint investigation announced (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— twitter.com/chairboy: Gridfins hydraulics

— The hydraulic system is closed loop since ~2015 (twitter.com/elonmusk)

This week in SF history

— 14 Jan 1977: first SCA, N905NA, delivered to Edwards (PDF: nasa.gov) (nationalgeographic.org) (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Next week in 2004: no need for TIRS

Spaceflight news

— Crew Dragon In-flight Abort Test successful (youtube.com)

— Beautiful views of in-air explosion (twitter.com/SpaceflightNow) (twitter.com/GregScott_photo)

— Second stage and interstage survivedl (twitter.com/johnkrausphotos) (twitter.com/mike_deep)

— Gorgeous shot of approaching fastboat (twitter.com/SpaceX)

Short & Sweet

— Dream Chaser on track for 2021 mission (spacepolicyonline.com)

— Second all-woman spacewalk a success (space.com)

Interview -- Silvia Alba, Visual facilitator

— instagram.com/silvia.draws

— twitter.com/silvia_draws

This week in SF history

— January 25, 2004, landing of Opportunity (citeseerx.ist.psu.edu) (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 2003: taking a selfie

Spaceflight news

— Spaceway-1 batteries (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Firefly suffers an anomaly on the test stand. (spacenews.com) (space.com)

— Solar Orbiter mission’s launch slips several days (spaceflightnow.com) (twitter.com/torybruno)

— Tethers Unlimited’s Terminator Tape is showing promise. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Andrew via email: Phantom Express (spacenews.com)

— Scott Manley covered this as well, with more info on the AR-22, which is actually a refurbished/retooled SSME! (youtube.com)

— Espen via email: second stage might have exploded above the water??? (youtube.com)

This week in SF history

— January 29, 2003: Launch of XSS-10 (space.skyrocket.de)

— Next week in 1947: A woman’s place is preparing meals, cleaning windows and toilets…. on the Shuttle.

Spaceflight news

— Near-miss of IRAS and GGSE-4 (c4isrnet.com) (spacenews.com) (kiro7.com) (space.com)

— Image of post-conjunction trails (twitter.com/juliancd38)

— NASA selects first commercial-destination module for ISS (nasa.gov) (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Voyager 2 malfunction (voyager.jpl.nasa.gov)

— JWST’s launch date will likely slip again. (arstechnica.com)

— CHEOPS takes big step towards coming online and taking data (sci.esa.int)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: Hi-Rise returns better imagery of the Schiaparelli crash (uahirise.org)

— Nick via email: skydiving parachutes have risers for reefing

This week in SF history

— February 5, 1947: the birth of Mary Cleave (wikipedia.org) (historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov)

— Next week in 1965: Sitting behind a boilerplate.

Spaceflight news

— ASAP report on CST-100 Starliner (arstechnica.com) (blogs.nasa.gov)

— Astra Space emerges from stealth mode (spacenews.com) (arstechnica.com) (astra.com) (bloomberg.com)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceX likely to spinoff Starlink business. (bloomberg.com).

— Cape Canaveral is getting a name change. (spaceflightnow.com)

Interview -- Jason Batt, Editorial and Creative Director, 100 Year Starship

— 100yss.org

— One Sky project (space.com) (nationalgeographic.com)

— Onliest, J Daniel Batt (amazon.com)

This week in SF history

— 16 February 1965, launch of Pegasus 1 (wikipedia.org) (astronautix.com)

— Next week in 1932: Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a…

Spaceflight news

— Discovery Program selects four finalists (nasa.gov) (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com)

— DAVINCI+ (PDF: hou.usra.edu) (wikipedia.org)

— IVO (PDF: hou.usra.edu) (wikipedia.org)

— Trident (PDF: hou.usra.edu) (wikipedia.org) (HT Sam in the chat: forum.nasaspaceflight.com)

— VERITAS (PDF: dlr.de) (wikipedia.org)

— Abstracts for the other proposals (HT sam in the chat: forum.nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— JAXA selects partner for country’s first debris removal project (spacenews.com)

— Spaceway-1 has been safely decommissioned. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Ben Hallert on AS-103/Pegasus (twitter.com/chairboy)

— Also, Iranian space suit (twitter.com/fab_hinz) (apnews.com)

— Espen via email: Starship and Starliner presser

— Interesting article we forgot to mention! (forrestheller.com)

— Correct pressure numbers (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— Lovarro quote (twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF)

— Andrew via email: thoughts on Starliner

This week in SF history

— February 19, 1932: birth of Joe Kerwin (wikipedia.org)

— A13 quotes mentioned (hq.nasa.gov)

— Next week in 1936: white hot stick

Spaceflight news

— InSight’s HP3 to get a lil push (www.dlr.de) (twitter.com/NASAInSight) (mars.nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— JAXA going forward with sample return mission to Phobos. (spaceflightnow.com)

— SpaceX has a date for a polar launch from the Cape. (teslarati.com)

— CSLI, selects the next round of 18 smallsats to fly on ELaNa missions (nasa.gov)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Andrew Z via email: Interesting read about Space Shuttle software development (aviationweek.com) (PDF: nasa.gov)

Interview -- Laura Forczyk, space careers counselor and author

— Read more about and purchase Rise of the Space Age Millennials

— astralytical.com/rise-of-the-space-age-millennials

— barnesandnoble.com

— amazon.com

— twitter.com/hashtag/SpaceMillennials

— Find out more about Laura

— astralytical.com

— twitter.com/LauraForczyk

— twitter.com/astralytical

— linkedin.com/in/lauraforczyk

This week in SF history

— February 29, 1936, birth of Jack Lousma (wikipedia.org)

— STS-3 landing (youtube.com)

— Next week in 2006: Car crashes apply dV in 300-400 ms. What about five months?

Spaceflight news

— SpaceX plans a mobile service tower (twitter.com/Falcon9Block5) (space.com)

— Starship SN-1 suffered pressure failure (twitter.com/JohnRand0061) (youtube.com)

— Artemis changes? (arstechnica.com)

— “This is not the plan.” says Bridenstine re Moon 2024 Mission Manifest (twitter.com/JimBridenstine)

Short & Sweet

— NASA's safety advisory panel finds Boeing didn't perform end-to-end software check prior to Starliner demo mission. (orlandosentinel.com) (twitter.com/ChabeliH) (twitter.com/ChrisG_NSF)

— OmegA’s second stage has been test fired. (spacenews.com)

— MEV-1 performs first ever docking between commercial spacecraft. (c4isrnet.com) (twitter.com/northropgrumman)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Paul via email: Lousma pronounced like “lousy.”

— Jason Friesen via email: Skylab rescue was a totally different mission from Skylab-4! (en.wikipedia.org)

This week in SF history

— March 10, 2006: MRO enters Mars orbit (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1934: Puppetteer

Spaceflight news

— Starliner update (spacenews.com) (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

— Last minute scrub costs Astra the DARPA Challenge (spaceflightnow.com)

— DSCOVR resumes operations. (spaceflightnow.com)

— SLS scheduling update (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Winning entry for the Mars 2020 naming contest (mars.nasa.gov)

— Destin’s ULA tour (youtube.com) (youtube.com)

This week in SF history

— 14 March, 1934. Birth of Eugene Cernan (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1965: No vacuum in a vacuum.

Spaceflight news

— RS-25 Testing (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Gateway officially non-critical for Artemis landing (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— SpaceLogistics teams with DARPA on satellite servicing vehicle. (c4isrnet.com)

— ExoMars gets delayed. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Law Loving via email on Musk and Bezos

— Thanks to Emory Stagmer for the outro music! (twitter.com/VAXHeadroom)

This week in SF history

— March 18, 1965: The launch of Voskhod-2 (wikipedia.org) (airspacemag.com)

— Next week in 2008: McEwen’s baby

Spaceflight news

— Artemis-1 Orion tests complete (spacenews.com) (americaspace.com)

— Ships to KSC March 23 (twitter.com/NASAKennedy)

— Cubesat ridealongs (en.wikipedia.org)

Short & Sweet

— L3Harris wins NASA contract for LISA observatory. (nasa.gov) (Our interview on the LISA Pathfinder: theorbitalmechanics.com)

— Long March 7A is unsuccessful. (spaceflightnow.com)

— SpaceX launches Darksat, with lackluster results. (spacenews.com) (arxiv.org) (PDF: arxiv.org)

Questions, comments, corrections

— ICPS, not IUS (twitter.com/Jeff_Snively)

— From the intro: OneWeb considers bankruptcy (bloomberg.com)

This week in SF history

— March 24, 2006: HiRISE takes first test images of Mars (mars.nasa.gov) (mars.nasa.gov)

— Detector Chip Assemblies (DCAs) (PDF: asprs.org)

— Uses push-broom method (hirise.seti.org)

— Next week in 1926: Listen in for an audio clue

Spaceflight news

— Gateway Logistics Services Program awarded to SpaceX (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Dragon XL (youtube.com) (twitter.com/Caspar_Stanley)

— OIG is investigating NASA’s acquisition strategy (twitter.com/NASAOIG)

— Crew Dragon Mk 3 Parachute Test (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— NASA files a request for new engines. (spacenews.com)

— Astra suffers damage in pre-launch test. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Artemis-1 flight profile details

This week in SF history

— April 3, 1926: The birth of Gus Grissom (en.wikipedia.org)

— Tough and Competent speech (garrett.co.uk)

— Next week in 1962: sail and wheel

Spaceflight News

— Starship SN3 Collapse (space.com) (arstechnica.com) (twitter.com/elonmusk)

— RIP Starship Mk1 (twitter.com/NASASpaceflight)

— RIP Starship SN1 (twitter.com/WyattJGeorge/)

— Starship SN2’s thrust puck (https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/41761/what-is-a-thrust-puck-on-starship)

— Jamestown Base considered for real (spacenews.com) (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Laura Forczyk poll: “What’s a reasonable new goal [for Artemis 3]?” (twitter.com/LauraForczyk)

Short & Sweet

— Virgin Orbit selects site in Japan for horizontal launches. (spacenews.com)

— NASA selects SunRISE. (nasaspaceflight.com)

Interview: Jordan Noone, Cofounder/CTO, Relativity Space

— USC rocket propulsion lab (uscrpl.com)

— twitter.com/theJordanNoone

— twitter.com/Relativityspace

— relativityspace.com

This week in SF history

— March 7 1962: launch of OSO-1 (nasa.gov) (wikipedia.org) (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)

— Next week in 1965: Five alive

Spaceflight news

— Rocket Lab completes successful demonstration of mid-air capture. (rocketlabusa.com) (youtube.com) (spacenews.com)

— Tim Dodd published a great interview with Peter Beck (youtu.be)

Short & Sweet

— Mars helicopter has been attached to NASA rover. (nasa.gov)

— Starliner gets a second flight test. (spacenews.com)

— Long March Fails to loft Nusantara Dua (spacenews.com) (spaceflightnow.com)

— Masten Space Systems wins lunar lander award from NASA. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Chris Hofmann: It’s not LOX vents that have flares, it’s Methane.

— Ben Hallert and Chris Hofmann: Grasshopper didn’t explode, that was F9R dev (twitter.com/chairboy/)

— Ben Hallert: “Starpopper” was the same thing as SN1. (twitter.com/chairboy)

— Eric Blood via email: worm logo (PDF: nasa.gov)

— Apollo 13: Home Safe viewing party

— April 14, Tuesday at 7 p.m. Eastern

— Join us on Discord and Watch2Gether! (discordapp.com) (watch2gether.com)

This week in SF history

— 16 April 1965: first five-engine test stand firing of S-IC at MSFC (nasa.gov) (heroicrelics.org) (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1971: Like Jar-Jar and an off-cast 620C

Spaceflight news

— Intuitive Machines selects lunar landing site (spacenews.com)

— Nova-C’s publicity page (intuitivemachines.com)

— Maps of Vallus Schröterie in Oceanus Procellarum (cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net)

— SpaceX and Gateway Logistics Services (spacenews.com) (PDF: beta.sam.gov/)

— Fan cross-section speculations (nasaspaceflight.com)

Short & Sweet

— MEV-1 completes Intelsat-901 relocation. (spacenews.com)

— SpaceX has a Demo-2 launch date. (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/SciGuySpace)

— LauncherOne captive carry. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Amy Parent: Rocket Lab will use a ballute (twitter.com/amyinorbit)

This week in SF history

— April 23, 1971, Soyuz-10 fails to dock with Salyut-1 (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1954: Puma Puma Priest

Spaceflight news

— Firefly signs Launch Services Agreement with Spaceflight, Inc. (spacenews.com) (spaceflight.com)

— Originally autogenously pressurized tanks (space.stackexchange.com)

— Fire in Jan due to misconfigured software (youtube.com/watch)

— Spaceflight Industries In process of being bought by Mitsui and Yamasa (techcrunch.com)

Short & Sweet

— Starliner requires more than a reflight to be fit for crew (HT Sam in the chat twitter.com/thesheetztweetz)

— Dream Chaser gets its wings. (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Design narrowed for future Mars Ascent Vehicle. (spaceflightnow.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Stygarfield via Discord: Possible Starlink configuration (reddit.com/r/Starlink)

This week in SF history

— 1954 April 29: Launch of Nike Nike Deacon (space.skyrocket.de) (astronautix.com)

— More info on Deacon (astronautix.com)

— Next week in 1962: Don’t take your jacket off too early!

Spaceflight news

— NASA selects companies to develop Human Landing System (HLS) for Artemis (nasaspaceflight.com) (twitter.com/SciGuySpace)

— Source Selection Statement (PDF: beta.sam.gov)

— Scott Manley’s summary (youtube.com)

— Excellent scaled image of all HLS’s, and Apollo’s LEM (reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge)

— Superheavy update (twitter.com/Kristennetten)

— Prepping for Crew Dragon (spacenews.com)

— Flag to be captured: (reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge)

Short & Sweet

— UAE Mars mission arrives at launch site (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Starlink sun visor testing to begin. (spacenews.com)

— OmegA is ready to go into production. (spacenews.com)

— Rocket Lab tests at Wallops (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— May 8 1962: The First launch of Atlas-Centaur ends in an explosion (twitter.com/RocketRundown) (youtube.com) (wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1987: Pew-pew boom

Spaceflight news

— China’s big Long March 5B (Chang Zheng 5B) flight

— — The flight (spaceflightnow.com)

— — The capsule landing (spaceflightnow.com)

— — Flexible Inflatable Cargo Re-entry Vehicle (spaceflightnow.com)

— — The unguided first-stage reentry (spaceflightnow.com)

Short & Sweet

— Next big step completed for Martian rover. (spaceflightnow.com)

— SN4 takes a step towards flight (twitter.com/elonmusk) (twitter.com/elonmusk) (twitter.com/elonmusk)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Email conversations about Artemis HLS with Andrew and Espen

Interview--Dan Hegel, Director of Advanced Development, Blue Canyon Technologies

— List of BCT’s Small Business Innovation Research contracts (sbir.gov)

— bluecanyontech.com

— instagram.com/bluecanyontech

— twitter.com/bluecanyontech

This week in SF history

— 15 May 1987. The failed launch of Polyus-Skif. (airspacemag.com) (astronautix.com) (youtube.com)

— Next week in 2000: No stones thrown

Spaceflight news

— Three-part NASA Lunar News

— Plans for Gateway and Artemis undergo refinement (spacenews.com)

— NASA advisory committee skeptical of 2024 landing goal (spacenews.com)

— Artemis Accords (spacenews.com) (PDF: nasa.gov)

Short & Sweet

— 3D printing had a good week. (cnbc.com) (upi.com)

— First real task for Space Force is… on the ground. (spacenews.com)

— SkySat to hitch a ride with Starlink. (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 19 May 2000: The launch of STS-101, the first Shuttle mission with a glass cockpit (wikipedia.org) (PDF: spaceflight.nasa.gov) (nasa.gov) (nbcnews.com)

— Next week in 1971: 9 ate 6 and 7

Spaceflight news

— Loverro quit! (spacenews.com) (spaceflightnow.com) (arstechnica.com) (washingtonpost.com)

— Crew Dragon launch prep (HT Andrew Z: nasaspaceflight.com) (planetary.org) (americaspace.com)

— Commercial crew is an amazing deal. (planetary.org)

— NASA & SpaceX: Journey to the Future to air May 25 at 9 p.m. PT/ET on Science and at 10 p.m. PT/ET May 26 on Discovery (deadline.com)

Short & Sweet

— WFIRST renamed after pioneering astronomer, Nancy Grace Roman (spacenews.com)

— Skyrora completes first full static firing in the UK in half a century (skyrora.com)

— Northrop Grumman gets a Space Force contract (spacenews.com)

— Relativity hires SpaceX executive to lead launch vehicle production (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Ben Hallert on Artemis orbit limitations (twitter.com/chairboy)

— Also quoted in an article on the cult of Elon Musk (theatlantic.com)

This week in SF history

— 1971 May 30: launch of Mariner 9 (sci-hub.tw) (en.wikipedia.org) (space.skyrocket.de)

— Next week in 1966: “Not just any port in a storm.”

Spaceflight news

— Demo-2 mission: Endeavor docks with ISS (spacenews)(twitter.com/lorengrush)

— A bell in Unity is rung twice to announce the arrival and departure of vehicles (twitter.com/planet4589)

— A fantastic CollectSpace thread with lots of suit zipper images (collectspace.com)

— Note that the A7L Apollo suit had the pressure zipper on the outside. The inside zipper was just to close the garment

— Crew Dragon/Falcon 9 believed to have lower risk factor than Shuttle (spacenews.com)

— Mark 3 parachutes (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Virgin Orbit’s first launch attempt fails. (spacenews.com)

— Launch vehicle for China’s Mars mission arrives at space center. (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 8 June, 1966: Saturn 500F moved from the pad to the VAB as Hurricane Alma approached (drewexmachina.com) (wikipedia.org)

— The famous tennis shoe test (youtube.com)

— Next week in 1977: Bombs away!

Some black voices and hashtags to amplify and listen to

— twitter.com/astrotoya

— twitter.com/astronaia

— twitter.com/astro_eustice

— twitter.com/_xPrecious

— twitter.com/itsafronomics

— #BlackAndStem

— #BlackBirdersWeek

Find local black-owned businesses

— officialblackwallstreet.com/directory

Learn about the problem

— mappingpoliceviolence.org

Spaceflight news

— Loverro misconduct update (wsj.com via marketscreener.com)

— Kathy Lueders selected to lead HEO Mission Directorate (twitter.com/JimBridenstine) (arstechnica.com)

Short & Sweet

— InSight’s mole is fully underground (livescience.com) (reddit.com/r/InSightLander) (twitter.com/InSightImageBot)

— Northrup Grumman received contract to develop Gateway module (spaceflightnow.com)

— Raytheon gets a DARPA contract. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Ben Hallert: Demo-2 things (twitter.com/chairboy) (twitter.com/chairboy)

This week in SF history

— 1977 June 15: First shuttle SRB drop test from NB-52 Balls 8 (PDF: commons.erau.edu) (youtube.com)

— Next week in 1997: Full of menace, like a shark

Spaceflight news

— Astrobotic to deliver VIPER rover to Moon (spaceflightinsider.com) (nasaspaceflight.com)

— Some instruments will fly on earlier CLPS payloads (geekwire.com) (nasa.gov)

— Crew Dragon Endeavour is still nominal. (teslarati.com)

Short & Sweet

— Another trickle of Boeing Artemis HLS information (HT deltaV: washingtonpost.com)

— Small launch company Astra to make new orbital attempt. (spacenews.com)

— NRO awards Rocket Lab with back-to-back launches. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: Crew Dragon reuse: (spacenews.com) (HT Ben Hallert: spaceflightnow.com)

This week in SF history

— June 25, 1997: Progress M-34 collides with Mir (history.nasa.gov) (books.google.com) (astronautix.com) (PDF: spaceflight.nasa.gov) (youtube.com)

— Ben Hallert’s excellent photoshop (twitter.com/chairboy)

— Next week in 2005: Smarter than a deformed copper disc

Spaceflight news

— Demo-2 and spacewalks (spacenews.com) (americaspace.com)

— Suborbital Crew (spacenews.com)

— SpaceShip Two news (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— ISRO opens up spaceflight to the private sector. (deccanchronicle.com)

— ULA completes wet dress rehearsal ahead of Perseverance launch (americaspace.com) (HT Andrew Z: twitter.com/TJ_Cooney)

— SpaceX plans a booster recovery for a military satellite. (spacenews.com)

— Canadarm3 contract signed (spacenews.com)

This week in SF history

— 4 July, 2005. Deep Impact strikes comet Tempel-1 (en.wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1998: Low slung rocket

Spaceflight news

— Perseverance launch slips again (spacenews.com)

— Centaur has been repaired (twitter.com/thesheetztweetz)

Short & Sweet

— Rocket Lab suffers second-stage failure and loss of vehicle. (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/RocketLab)

— ULA receives its first BE-4. (spacenews.com)

— First indigenous-owned ground station to be built in Australia (satnews.com)

Interview: John Z. Kiss, Professor of Biology and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina Greensboro

— twitter.com/jzk60

— linkedin.com

— UNC bio and publication list (biology.uncg.edu)

— Read more

— Exploratory study ahead of sending Arabidopsis on CLPS (content.sciendo.com)

— Feature article on Dr. Kiss’ work (researchmagazine.uncg.edu)

— TedX talk “Someday We Will Live on Mars) (youtu.be)

— Seedling Growth-2 (youtube.com)

— Seedling Growth-3 (nasa.gov)

This week in SF history

— 7 July 1998: first orbital launch from a sub (en.wikipedia.org)

— Based on R-29RM (en.wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1975: How long does it take an astronaut to flip a patch upside-down? 7.5 hours.

Spaceflight news

— Starliner has more work to do (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com)

— Starship construction update (HT Andrew Z: wccftech.com)

Short & Sweet

— X-ray space telescope’s launch date delayed. (spaceflightnow.com)

— Cost overruns result in changes to Europa Clipper instruments. (spacenews.com)

— NASA has new planetary protection directives. (spacenews.com)

— NASA doesn’t own a Falcon 9. (americaspace.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Mentioned in the intro: 360° video front he first F9 landing (HT Andrew Z: twitter.com/PPathole)

This week in SF history

— July 15, 1975. The start of Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (wikipedia.org) (astronautix.com)

— Next week in 1999: Pumpkin in a paper bag

Spaceflight news

— Dream Chaser trunk, Shooting Star, finds its own life (americaspace.com) (sncorp.com) (space.com)

Short & Sweet

— Hayabusa2 now has a sample return date! (spaceflightnow.com)

— Florida’s Mk 2 Starship is being scrapped. (teslarati.com)

— Crew Dragon planned to return in early August. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: the closest images ever taken to the Sun (americaspace.com)

Interview-- Kathryn Crowe, NASA Human Landing System Deputy Lead for Integrated Performance

— twitter.com/kat_cr

— Linkedin.com

— Artemis (nasa.gov)

— Contractors on HLS (twitter.com/dynetics) (twitter.com/spacex) (twitter.com/blueorigin)

This week in SF history

— 23 July 1999: Launch of STS-93 (waynehale.wordpress.com) (astronautix.com) (spacefacts.de) (nasaspaceflight.com) (nasa.gov)

— Next week in 1980: “get to work” on Soyuz

Spaceflight news

— Progress MS-15 encounters KURS docking issue (rocketrundown.com) (russianspaceweb.com) (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

— Astra will make another attempt at orbit (spacenews.com) (twitter.com/Astra)

— LauncherOne failure update (spacenews.com)

— NASA still has concerns with Starliner (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— twitter.com/amyinorbit: STS-93 wasn’t aborted (youtube.com)

This week in SF history

— July 30 1980: Svetlana Savitskaya selected in the second group of female cosmonauts (en.wikipedia.org) (americaspace.com) (spacefacts.de) (spacefacts.de)

— Next week in 1989: listen in for an audio clue

Spaceflight news

— Mars Perseverance and Ingenuity on their way to Mars (spaceflightnow.com) (americaspace.com)

— SHERLOC calibration target includes spacesuit samples (collectspace.com)

— Crew Dragon is coming home (arstechnica.com)

Short & Sweet

— Airbus to build Mars sample return mission’s orbital element (spacenews.com)

— Cause of Rocket Lab’s recent launch failure has been identified (spaceflightnow.com)

— Hayabusa2 releases details on its extended mission (hayabusa2.jaxa.jp)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Andrew via email: Nuclear reactor on Moon (designdevelopmenttoday.com)

— Also from Andrew: Winged Gemini (woodtv.com)

— Alex via email: Michigan Spaceport (woodtv.com)

This week in SF history

— August 8, 1989: Launch of STS-28 (americaspace.com)

Spaceflight news

— Lucy on track for 2021 launch (americaspace.com)

— Rocket Lab increases performance (spacenews.com) (PDF: rocketlabusa.com)

— NASA to coordinate smallsat rideshares (spacenews.com)

— Heat management becomes a new bottleneck in the smallsat era (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Dragon’s first commercial crew mission (spacenews.com)

— A new industry seeks standardization (spacenews.com)

— Ingenuity recharges its batteries on its trip to Mars (phys.org)

Questions, comments, corrections

— “Fun paper Friday” (HT Andrew Z: frontiersin.org)

— ROSCOSMOS’ Chibis suit (blogs.nasa.gov)

— Csaba via email: reactors vs. RTGs, the highest flying bird, and 1976 splashdown vs 1975.

Interview -- Caty Pilachowski, Professor of Astronomy at Indiana University

— WIYN Telescope (wikipedia.org)

— IU Faculty profile (astro.indiana.edu)

— twitter.com/iuastro

This week in SF history

— 11 August 1962: Launch of Vostok 3 (russianspaceweb.com)

— Next week in 2003: A flame-retardant spacecraft.

Spaceflight news

— Europa Clipper might not fly on SLS (spacenews.com)

Short & Sweet

— Ball Aerospace successfully completes green-fueled smallsat mission. (smallsatnews.com)

— Blue Origin delivers its lunar lander mockup. (spacenews.com)

— SpaceX sets a reuse record. (spacenews.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Brian Kostka via email: there was an "iron lung" on Skylab!

This week in SF history

— 25 Aug, 2003. Launch of Spitzer Space Telescope (wikipedia.org) (irsa.ipac.caltech.edu)

— Next week in 1977: Top-heavy but retired.

Spaceflight news

— Funding secured for NanoFEEP manufacturer Morpheus Space (spacenews.com) (HT Andrew Zdanowicz: defenseone.com)

— Liquid eyeliner demonstrates an effect similar to the Taylor Cones utilized in electrospray engines (HT Colin: hackaday.com)

Short & Sweet

— SLS takes a brief break. (americaspace.com) (spacenews.com)

— Starliner's schedule falls further behind Crew Dragon’s. (investors.com) (spacenews.com)

— Russian space station module arrives at Baikonur. (spaceflightnow.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: InSight drills below the surface (twitter.com/NASAInSight)

Interview--Peter Beck, Founder and CEO of Rocket Lab

— twitter.com/rocketlab

— twitter.com/peter_j_beck

— rocketlabusa.com

This week in SF history

— 5 Sept, 1977. Launch of Voyager 1, and the final Titan IIIE launch (voyager.jpl.nasa.gov) (en.wikipedia.org)

— Next week in 1995: Centenarian