Episode 296: Spectre-2 Incoming

The Orbital Mechanics Podcast

Spaceflight news

— Starship SN9 update (spacenews.com)

— Lots of leftover LOX visible on IR footage (youtube.com)

— SN8’s FAA violation (spacenews.com)

— Firefly wins CLPS contract (spacenews.com) (nasa.gov)

— They will be flying the Blue Ghost lander and a number of science payloads (firefly.com)

— Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) (Image at parabolicarc.com)

— Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) (hou.usra.edu)

— Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) (today.ttu.edu)

— Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) (parabolicarc.com)

— Blue Ghost Payload User’s Guide (firefly.com)

— Space Utility Vehicle will be the service module/kick stage to get BG to the moon (firefly.com)

Short & Sweet

— Dragon breaks a record (americaspace.com)

— Nanoracks’ Bishop airlock powers on (houstonchronicle.com)

— OSIRIS-REx to return home (americaspace.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— From the intro: Koenigsmann retiring (HT Colin: cnbc.com)

— Game night!

— Come play Sea of Thieves with Dennis and Ben

— Friday 4pm Eastern 1:00p Pacific

— Meet on Discord (twitter.com/orbitalpodcast)

This week in SF history

— 10 Feb, 2001. Ammonia leak during STS-98 spacewalk (nasa.gov) (esa.int) (spacefacts.de) (science.ksc.nasa.gov)

— The Early External Active Thermal Control was still being used during this mission (sae.org)

— Next week (2/16 - 2/22) in 1990. Potato in the tailpipe