
Advertise on podcast: The Orbital Mechanics Podcast
Rating
4.8from
This podcast has
300 episodes
Language
EnglishExplicit
No
Date created
2014/12/11
Latest episode
2025/07/09
Average duration
47 min.
Release period
9 days
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.
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Episode 511: LOS
2025/07/09
— We won’t be restocking T-shirts, but feel free to find a print company you like and use our logos to make your own! Please do not use our logos for any other purpose without permission. (drive.google.com)
— Posters have been added to the store (theorbitalmechanics.com/store)
— There’s still a great space community on our Discord (theorbitalmechanics.com/discord)
Episode 510.2: Abort Abort Abort
2025/06/30
Well, after last week's short episode, I suspect that a lot of you anticipated this short episode would be coming out.
I'm going to use some language that David, Dennis, and I have agreed represents our intentions. Please don't, like, take this too far, but we have decided to sunset the main show.
Here's what we're going to do. Next week, on Sunday, July 6th, we're going to get together and we're going to record an episode. We would like to invite anybody who's interested in listening into one of our live recordings to come join us.
We're not sure what we're going to do. We thought about calling this our last episode, but that doesn't feel quite right. I think the three of us have some ideas about what we want the future of this show to look like, even if it's not recording an episode every week. We'll also be able to tell you a bit more about what happened last week.
We would love if you have thought about joining a recording session and haven't, or if you used to and you still kind of want to but you haven't had a good motivation, here's your motivation. Come party with us. (Hopefully it'll be a party.)
But yeah, so that's the news for this week. Next week we expect to put out, you know, a full like hour-long episode like usual, and then we'll... it's not going to look like our normal episodes. It'll be pretty talky. I mean, our episodes are always talky. Even this short episode is pretty talky. But we're, you know, we'll probably talk about the news a little bit, but it's mainly going to be, I don't know, almost like a brainstorming session, maybe. We'll find out.
You're invited and I would love to see, like me personally, I would love to see you. There are a bunch of names scrolling through my head right now. I would love to see everybody on that list. And I'm sure there are plenty of names that I don't know yet. And you know, that's one of the things that I'm most afraid of losing if we're not doing weekly episodes is all the new people I'm not going to get to meet.
Come on by next week, July, Sunday, the 6th. We record at 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern. If you aren't already in our discord, you can go to theorbitalmechanics.com/discord, and that'll just redirect you to an invite. Yeah, you got to have a discord account. I'm sorry. But come come join us and say hi.
All right, talk to you guys next week. Bye.
Episode 510.1: Hold hold hold
2025/06/10
Weird, short episode here, but it still feels weird to not start the show by saying “and I’m Ben.”
So, we’ve had a personal emergency here on the crew. All three of us are fine, and we will let you know more about what’s happened, but for right now, this week’s episode is delayed. Hopefully it’ll be coming out later this week, but I don’t know. It may take a little while for things to get back to normal, but hopefully not too long. We just need a little bit of time to cope, and then we can figure out what our plans are.
Thank you guys for listening, and you know, I miss y’all.
Episode 510: Leakspin
2025/06/04
Spaceflight News
— Starship Block 2: 0 for 3 (spacenews.com) (youtube.com)
— Block 3 Update (nasaspaceflight.com)
Short & Sweet
— Xodiac flies final time (arstechnica.com)
— China successfully tests vertical-takeoff vertical-landing rocket (cgtn.com)
This Week in Spaceflight History
ii May 24, 1962: Fourth flight of Project Mercury (en.wikipedia.org) (nasa.gov)
— Next week (6/10 - 6/16) in 1973: Dos equis
Episode 509: Hungry Hopping Hippos
2025/05/14
Spaceflight News
— Neutron update (spacenews.com)
Short & Sweet
— China announces mission to Venus (ieee.org)
Tianhe to be expanded (spacenews.com)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— 14 May, 1973. Launch of Skylab (historicspacecraft.com) (PDF: nasa.gov)
— Next week (5/20 - 5/26) in 1962: Kickin’ up fireflies.
Episode 508: North of Antarctica
2025/05/07
Spaceflight News
— Firefly Nozzle Anomaly (spacenews.com) (youtube.com)
Short & Sweet
— Efforts continue to rescue Lunar Trailblazer (spacenews.com)
— ISS avoids space debris (space.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— From the intro: Kosmos 482’s parachutes dangling out? (space.com)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— May 10, 1994: Last contact with the Clementine Spacecraft (en.wikipedia.org) (researchgate.net) (nap.nationalacademies.org) (klabs.org)
— Next week (5/13 - 5/19) in 1973: It’s the final countdown
Episode 507: Prolate Marshmallow
2025/04/30
Spaceflight News
— Sierra Space impact test (asdnews.com)
— Atmos reentry test of PHOENIX-1 (spacenews.com) (europeanspaceflight.com)
Short & Sweet
— Kosmos 482’s deorbit update (sattrackcam.blogspot.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— Blue Origin tank failure? (HT ArcadeEngineer: fixupx.com/kerballistic07)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— 1 May, 1979: Enterprise rolled out to 39A (nasa.gov)
— Next week (5/6 - 5/12) in 1994: Lost and gone forever, in orbit
Episode 506: ISS at Risk
2025/04/23
Spaceflight News
— The Riskiest Period of ISS’ Existence (spacenews.com)
— Enginefest
— Latitude (europeanspaceflight.com)
— Pangea Aerospace (europeanspaceflight.com)
— Venus Aerospace (prnewswire.com)
Short & Sweet
— Building destroyed in explosion at Northrop Grumman test site (space.com)
— Seat barter agreement extended through 2027 (spacenews.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— Unc’ Willy: “First flight” is a better term (discord.com)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— April 24, 1970: Launch of Dong Fang Hong (astronautix.com) (en.wikipedia.org)
— Next week (4/29 - 5/5) in 1979: Heading out for a three-month stay
Episode 505: Confirming Isaacman
2025/04/16
Spaceflight News
— Confirming Isaacman (spacenews.com) (law.cornell.edu) (aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org)
— One of the Lunar Terrain Vehicles unveiled (lunaroutpost.com)
Short & Sweet
— New addition to DSN (space.com)
— DOD hires Astroscale (satellitetoday.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— From the intro: Jonathan McDowell retiring (archive.ph)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— 18 Apr, 2001. Maiden flight of GSLV Mk. I (a.k.a GSLV-D1) (isro.gov.in) (astronautix.com) (PDF: sci-hub.se) (planet4589.org)
— Next week (4/22 - 4/28) in 1970: Is the national anthem really 20 days long?
Episode 504: Mark Soyuzworth
2025/04/09
Spaceflight News
— Two more PAMs (spacenews.com) (sam.gov)
Short & Sweet
— Fram2 launches and lands (arstechnica.com) (space.com)
— SpinLaunch turns to broadband (spacenews.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— From the intro: Starliner shakeup (spaceflightnow.com)
— From Espen Urkedal: FTS vs VTS
This Week in Spaceflight History
— April 10, 1979: Launch (and early return) of Soyuz 33 (en.wikipedia.org) (blazingbulgaria.wordpress)
— Next week (4/15 - 4/21) in 2001: Stumbling 58 minutes short of the finish orbit
Episode 503: DOWNLINK -- Joseph Marlin
2025/04/02
Spaceflight News
— Security Space (arstechnica.com) (spacenews.com)
Interview -- Joseph Marlin, Deputy Chief Engineer, Blue Ghost Lunar Program
— linkedin.com/in/josephmarlin
— fireflyspace.com
This Week in Spaceflight History
— Apr 4, 1983. Launch of STS-6 (americaspace.com)
— Next week (4/8 - 4/14) in 1979: Stumbling a mile before the finish line
Episode 502: Still Sticking
2025/03/26
Spaceflight News
— Still sticking with Starliner (spacenews.com) (aviationweek.com) (spacenews.com)
Short & Sweet
— Starlab starts new phase (space.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— Blaise via email: SRTM gravity gradients
This Week in Spaceflight History
— March 31, 1972: Launch of Kosmos 482 (en.wikipedia.org) (spacereview.com) (leonarddavid.com)
— Next week (4/1 - 4/7) in 1983: Orbital structural test article
Episode 501: MSR China
2025/03/19
Spaceflight News
— China’s Mars Sample Return open to International Cooperation (cgtn.com) (spacenews.com)
Short & Sweet
— Several Russian sats on the move (sattrackcam.blogspot.com) (defence-blog.com)
— X-37B lands after record-breaking mission (arstechnica.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— From the intro: leaked starship photos: (HT The Orbital Index: reddit.com) (HT The Orbital Index: reddit.com)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— 18 Mar, 1980. Plesetsk launch pad disaster (plesetzk.ru) (russianspaceweb.com) (bbc.co.uk) (en.wikipedia.org)
— Tangent on GRAU indices (en.wikipedia.org)
— Next week (3/25 - 3/31) in 1972: Much closer, much easier, but 53 years late
Episode 500: Quincentennial
2025/03/12
Spaceflight News
— IM-2 lunar landing (intuitivemachines.com) (spacenews.com) (spacenews.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (intuitivemachines.com) (youtube.com)
Short & Sweet
— Voyager turns off further instruments (space.com)
— A Falcon 9 loses a leg (spacenews.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— From the intro: ISS too clean (newsbreak.com) (cell.com)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— 15 Mar, 1976. Launch of Lincoln Experimental Satellite 8 and 9 (LES-8 and -9) (skyrocket.de) (wikipedia.org) (ll.mit.edu)
— Next week (3/18 - 3/24) in 1980: Wait nine years until “openness”
Episode 499: Wicked Shimmy
2025/03/05
Spaceflight News
— Starship TF7 bounced to pieces (Paywall: aviationweek.com) (spacenews.com)
Short & Sweet
— Two payloads on IM-2 launch suffering problems on-orbit (spacenews.com)
— Space capsule lands in Australia while first rocket readies to launch (spacenews.com) (abc.net.au)
— Xona received contract to develop GPS alternative (insidegnss.com)
Questions, Comments, Corrections
— From the intro: Blue Ghost lunar landing? (Spoiler: it did!) (space.com) (spacenews.com)
This Week in Spaceflight History
— Feb 26, 1960: Failed launch of MiDAS 1 (en.wikipedia.org) (PDF: nro.gov) (PDF: nro.gov)
— Next week (3/11 - 3/17) in 1976: Two score and nine years ago
Podcast reviews
Read The Orbital Mechanics Podcast podcast reviews
Goroth Obarskyr 2026/02/18
I miss this podcast.
I enjoyed it immensely. Well done, guys, and I hope you’re doing well in your next endeavors. Thank you!
PaphsRgroovy 2024/01/25
It’s not just because they reference kerbal space program
They’re smart, funny, and sometimes silly. Oh, and they cover topics that I think are cool.
belegana nm 2024/09/25
Brag about fascist Israel
Never will listen to this show again!
Baby killers!
msadesign 2023/04/18
Love these guys.
I love these guys.
And as hard as they work on interviews, I skip them. Audio is so poor because interviewees are on speakerphone. Too bad. Good inf...
not a happy rider 2022/12/07
Learning something new everyday
Quite informative and always current on trending topics space topics which is important 🥹❤️
DuckNewton97 2019/10/22
Rad podcast right here
The this week in space history bit at the beginning of every show is the best part of my week and now that I'm caught up I'll be doing it every week. ...
The S.K.P. Machine 2022/11/30
Star Woke
Actual space flight events are less important to the hosts than leftist social justice agitprop. There’s nothing wrong with a leftist political podcas...
Taylor S Marks 2019/10/18
Best Space Podcast
Covers the (space) news, teaches you (space) stuff, and is entertaining at the same time. What isn’t there to like about it?
Mofroman007 2019/10/17
Everything you could ever want in a space podcast
I realized that despite listening for years, I never actually wrote an actual review.
The Orbital Mechanics is a fantastic project, by some really gr...
ATPTourFan 2019/05/30
Not Always Well Researched
Frustrating to listen to this podcast when they aren’t up to date and accurate on the subject matter. It is easy to monitor twitter/reddit/NSF these d...
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