Episode 322: DOWNLINK--John E Ward

The Orbital Mechanics Podcast

Spaceflight news

— Blue Origin lawsuit, and exodus

— Lawsuit filed against NASA on Aug 19 (theverge.com) (spacenews.com)

— > 11 key employees left Blue (twitter.com/thesheetztweetz) (twitter.com/thesheetztweetz) (twitter.com/thesheetztweetz)

— Lauren Lyons went to Firefly (https://spacenews.com)

— 10k bonus handed out at end of July (twitter.com/thesheetztweetz)

Short & Sweet

— Japan tests new engine type (futurism.com) (PDF: nagoya-u.ac.jp)

— JAXA announces Phobos sample-return mission (apnews.com)

— Starlink satellites responsible for most close encounters in LEO (space.com)

Questions, comments, corrections

— Watch party! The High Frontier: The Untold Story of Gerard K. O’Neill. Friday Aug 27 3pm PT / 6pm ET (thehighfrontiermovie.com) (calendar.google.com)

— VAXHeadroom via Discord: Cygnus spacecraft is a Northrop Grumman vehicle.

Interview -- John E Ward, Senior Systems Engineer, Réaltra Space Systems Engineering

— VIKI (Independent VIdeo KIt) datasheet (PDF: realtra.space)

— twitter.com/astro_ward

— twitter.com/RealtraSpace

— realtra.space

— linkedin.com/in/johnennisward

This week in SF history

— August 27, 1962: Launch of Mariner 2 to Venus (en.wikipedia.org) (space.com) (space.skyrocket.de)

— Next week (8/31 - 9/6) in 1968: It’s like being in space, but wetter und mit Braunschweiger